Colombo among biggest improvers during five years: Global Liveability Report

Aug 16, 2017 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s main commercial city Colombo is among the five biggest improvers during the last five years in terms of liveability, recently released Global Liveability Report 2017 showed. According to the report by The Economist Intelligence Unit, Colombo has showed relative improvement during this period, especially after the end of a separatist war. Nevertheless, out of 140 cities, Colombo is ranked at 124th with an overall rating of 51 out of 100 points. The report says that cities moving up the ranking are located largely in countries that have enjoyed periods of relative stability after previously reported falls in liveability. These include Kiev in Ukraine, Tripoli in Libya and Colombo in Sri Lanka.

“Unfortunately, the improvements have been marginal and have not seen liveability recover from previous levels or resulted in large shifts up the ranking.” the report said. For the seventh consecutive year, Melbourne in Australia is the most liveable urban centre of the 140 cities surveyed, closely followed by the Austrian capital, Vienna.

In fact, only 0.1 percentage points separate the top two cities, and just 0.2 and 0.3 percentage points separate Canada’s Vancouver and Toronto (ranked 3rd and 4th, respectively), from Melbourne. Another Canadian city, Calgary, shares joint fifth place with Adelaide in Australia. Although the top five cities remain unchanged, the report highlights that the past few years have seen increasing instability across the world, causing volatility in the scores of many cities.