MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Vancouver, best place in the world to live; in Latam, Montevideo

Vancouver is the world's best place to live, a survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) has found. In Latinamerica Montevideo, Santiago and Buenos Aires are the most “liveable” although none of them offers ideal conditions.

The EIU ranked 127 cities in terms of personal risk, infrastructure and the availability of goods and services. All the cities that fell into the top "liveability" bracket were based in Canada, Australia and Western Europe. The worst places were Algiers in Algeria and Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea because "many aspects of daily life present challenges", the EIU said. Canadian cities scored well, as did Austria's Vienna and Switzerland's Geneva, because they are not seen as targets for terror attacks. The top ten are Vancouver, Melbourne, Vienna, Geneva, Perth, Adelaide, Sydney, Zurich, Toronto, Calgary The main uncertainty for people living in those cities was climate-related, the EIU said. "In the current global political climate, it is no surprise that the most desirable destinations are those with the lower perceived threat of terrorism," said Jon Copestake, editor of the EIU report. The survey has produced a mixed picture of the world's cities. London was ranked in the 10th group, on a par with Dublin and Los Angeles, but one place below Manchester, four behind Berlin, five lower than Tokyo, and six off Helsinki, Frankfurt and Stockholm. In Latin America, "no city manages to present ideal living conditions, neither do any fall into the category where extreme difficulties are faced", the EIU said. Montevideo in Uruguay, Santiago in Chile and Buenos Aires in Argentina offer the region's best conditions. Bogota in Colombia and Caracas in Venezuela score the least favourably. In Asia, cities in Japan, South Korea, Singapore, China and Taiwan all score well, as do Australia's main hubs. Africa and the Middle East fare less well, with the EIU citing concerns about terror attacks, and economic and political instability. Some of the worst performing cities include Harare in Zimbabwe and Lagos in Nigeria. The ten bottom cities are: Tehran, Douala, Harare, Abidjan, Phnom Penh, Lagos, Karachi, Dhaka, Algiers and Port Moresby.