Toronto ranked fourth most livable, again

Vancouver comes third as Melbourne, Australia tops Economist’s annual list

Toronto is the fourth most livable city in the world in the latest rankings by the prestigious Economist magazine but stability in many other cities has crumbled, according to the annual report.

Riots in the wake of blacks shot by police in the United States, terrorist attacks in France and Tunisia, war in Ukraine and the unchecked brutality of the Islamic State all fed instability around the world, The Economist’s Intelligence Unit reported Tuesday.

On the bright side, Canada can claim three of the Top 5 most livable cities in the world in rankings unchanged for years.

They are Melbourne first, Vienna second, Vancouver third, Toronto fourth and Adelaide and Calgary tied for fifth out of 200 with ratings that are not even a full point apart.

Toronto has been No. 4 for at least five years. Vancouver was the perennial top until a few years ago, when it was overtaken by Melbourne and Vienna. In fact, seven of the top 10 scoring cities are in Australia and Canada.

But life at the top wasn’t as good as it was in 2014, The Economist says.

Of the 65 cities with a score of 80 or more out of100,18 saw their livability drop — in the U.S. in particular. The Economist says riots that followed the high-profile deaths of black people in police custody damaged the livability of U.S. cities.

At the other end of the scale, life in three places in particular has deteri- orated dramatically in the last year owing to war and terrorism: Kyiv, Ukraine; Tripoli, Libya; and Damascus, Syria.

Detroit, Moscow and St. Petersburg in Russia, Cairo, Manama, the Bahraini capital, Athens and Tunis have also tumbled in livability because of unrest, crime, economic troubles or terrorism.

The year 2015 has seen a jump in livability for other cities, though. Harare, Zimbabwe; Kathmandu, Nepal; and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates climbed notably in the rankings.

Honolulu and Warsaw, in fact, jumped into the top tier of high-rankings cities in 2015 because their crime levels are falling.

The bottom five least livable cities are Tripoli, Damascus, Lagos in Nigeria, Dhaka in Bangladesh and Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea.

DARREN CALABRESE/THE CANADIAN PRESS Toronto is ranked fourth out of 200 cities in The Economist’s livable cities index. The city has had the prestigious ranking for at least five years.