toronto liveability ranking

Toronto ranked one of the most liveable cities on Earth

Oahu's got perfect weather, London has tons of jobs and Los Angeles boasts both of those things, in addition to Kawhi Leonard. Hmph.

Toronto still remains a better place to live than all three of those cities, on the whole, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit.

The research and analysis firm just released its annual Global Liveability Index for 2019, revealing what it believes to be the top 10 most liveable cities in the world right now.

Vienna, Austria once again came in first place out of all 140 major cities surveyed, followed by Melbourne, Australia, which had been holding the top spot for seven years before getting dethroned by Vienna in 2018.

The rest of the list is comprised of other Australian, European, Japanese and Canadian cities — Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary, to be specific, but not in that order.

Toronto held steady at spot number seven this year, tied with Tokyo, while Vancouver remained in sixth place. Calgary dropped one spot, from four to five, thanks to Sydney, Australia's two-spot upward leap from five to three.

"Overall, our index remains dominated by medium-sized cities in wealthy countries," reads a whitepaper accompanying the 2019 EIU ranking.

"These cities have well-funded public healthcare systems, compulsory and high-quality education, and functional road and rail infrastructure. The provision of these services is assisted by the presence of fully democratic electoral systems and generally low levels of corruption."

Toronto fared particularly well in its scores for healthcare, education and stability — all a perfect 100.

Vancouver got a perfect score in the category of culture and environment, contrasted against Toronto's 97.2. Calgary earned 100 full points in the category of infrastructure, while Toronto got a mere 89.3 — the lowest of any in the top 10 this year.

While undeniably (if not impossibly) expensive to live here, the EIU's  most-recent ranking gives further credence to the theory that Torontonians are actually pretty lucky.

We may never be able to afford property in the city, but we do get to enjoy solid schools and hospitals.

Here are the top 10 most liveable cities for 2019, according to the EIU:

  1. Vienna, Austria
  2. Melbourne, Australia
  3. Sydney, Australia
  4. Osaka, Japan
  5. Calgary, Alberta
  6. Vancouver, B.C.
  7. Toronto, Ontario / Tokyo, Japan
  8. Copenhagen, Denmark
  9. Adelaide, Australia
Lead photo by

Marcanadian


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