Aminat Gusanu
Lagos State has been ranked the fourth worst City to live in the world, according to the Economic Intelligence’s (EIU) Global Liveability Index 2023 report.
The EIU’s index quantifies the challenges presented to an individual’s lifestyle in 173 cities worldwide.
In the report, Lagos ranked 170 of 173, making it the fourth worst city to live, in the world. Lagos only ranked better than Algiers (171), Tripoli (172) and Damascus (173).
The report, however, said even at the bottom of the rankings, cities such as Lagos (Nigeria) and Algiers (Algeria) have gained ground, with some improvements in their healthcare and education systems.
“Both are in countries that are energy exporters and have to some extent benefited from higher global oil and gas prices.
“Although, corruption continues to be an issue, some additional public funding has been made available for
infrastructure and public services, which have also benefited from the decline in covid cases,” it said.
However, the report stated that war-ravaged Damascus (Syria), the lowest-ranked city in the survey, has seen no improvement in its liveability scores despite the regional political comeback of its president, Bashar al-Assad.
“Contrary to these improvements, the war in Ukraine and the resulting economic and political disruption are affecting liveability in many European cities.
“Unsurprisingly, this is most noticeable in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, which re-joins the survey this year (we were forced to exclude it following Russia’s invasion in 2022).
“However, the city’s score has fallen by 5.9 percentage points since 2021 owing to the damage the war has done to its stability, infrastructure and general liveability. It has now become one of the bottom ten cities in our liveability index,” the report said.
In the report, frequent winner Vienna retains its position as the world’s most liveable city in the 2023 survey. The Austrian capital slipped down the rankings in 2021, when its famous museums and restaurants faced restrictions to contain the pandemic, but this was a rare slip-up for a city that has now ranked top in eight of the past ten six-monthly surveys.
“The city continues to offer an unsurpassed combination of stability, good infrastructure, strong education and healthcare services, and plenty of culture and entertainment, with one of its few downsides being a relative lack of major sporting events.
“The same is true of Copenhagen, another frequent high performer that has kept its position in second place from last year. Melbourne and Sydney have moved up to fill spots claimed last year by western European cities such as Frankfurt and Amsterdam.
“The Australian cities, which bounced up and down the rankings during the pandemic, are now in third and fourth place. They have seen their scores in the healthcare category improve since last year, when they were still affected by covid waves that stressed their healthcare systems.
“Further down the top ten, in the Swiss cities of Zurich (6th place) and Geneva (joint 7th), education category scores have risen since last year. In the Canadian cities of Vancouver (5th),Calgary (joint 7th) and Toronto (9th), scores for stability are up compared with last year, when these cities were impacted by anti-vaccine protests. The end of covid-related restrictions has given a small boost to the culture and environment ratings of the Japanese city of Osaka (10th),” the report said.
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