Top spot in SA, second in Africa
DURBAN has retained the top spot as South Africa’s city with highest quality of life for a third year a in row, according to a survey compiled by consulting firm Mercer.
Mercer’s 19th Quality of Living survey ranked Durban 87, followed by Cape Town at 94 and Johannesburg at 96. Last year, Durban achieved this accolade and was placed the second-best city in Africa after Port Louis in Mauritius.
Mercer’s authoritative survey is one of the world’s most comprehensive and is conducted annually to enable multinational companies and other organisations to compensate employees fairly when placing them on international assignments.
In addition to the data, Mercer’s quality of living surveys provide hardship premium recommendations for more than 450 cities in the world, this year’s ranking included 231 of these cities.
The survey also includes an infrastructure ranking that assesses each city’s supply of electricity, drinking water, telephone and mail services, and public transportation as well as traffic congestion and the range of international flights available from local airports.
Mayor Zandile Gumede said this was proof that ethekwini Municipality has one of Africa’s best service delivery programmes and continues to make a positive impact on the lives of its residents.
“Our municipality continuously strives to ensure 3.7 million residents enjoy an improved quality of life through the services we render. The municipality’s new radical economic transformation framework aims to accelerate service delivery, provide economic opportunities to poor and unemployed residents and grow the small business sector,” Gumede said.
She attributed Durban’s success to improved access to public services such as electricity, water, sanitation, roads, solid waste, community and emergency services and free basic services.
Vienna occupied first place for overall quality of living for the eighth year running, with the rest of the top-10 list mostly filled by European cities.
The only non-european cities in the top 10 were Auckland and Vancouver. The highest ranking cities in Asia and Latin America were Singapore and Montevideo. Singapore topped the city infrastructure ranking, followed by Frankfurt and Munich in second place.