World's most liveable cities

The Economist Intelligence Unit has released its rankings of the World's Most Liveable Cities. The rankings use criteria in five areas: stability, health care, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure.

The Unit assessed 140 cities with the top eight cities being 1. Melbourne, 2 Vienna, 3. Vancouver, 4 Toronto, 5. Calgary,

5a Adelaide, 7 Sydney, 8. Helsinki.

An interesting feature is the existence of three Canadian cities and three Australian cities in the top eight. The Liveable City concept has been promoted by the Centre for Liveable Cities in Singapore. While it seems that Learning Cities and Liveable Cities share certain interests in common with three of the five criteria adopted for this assessment also relevant to Learning Cities (education, health care, culture and environment), there will be value in fostering a dialogue with areas interested in the Liveable City concept such as the Singapore Centre. Viewing Learning Cities from a Liveable City perspective means that aspects such as place making assume importance. There would be value in these relationships being explored further in blogs.