Sawt Falasteen - Vienna 'most liveable' city, Tel Aviv's rating falls

In the Economist's annual ranking, the Austrian capital again came first, followed by the Danish capital Copenhagen and Zurich in Switzerland.

Melbourne in Australia and Calgary in Canada completed the top five in the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) Global Liveability Index.

"Western Europe remains the most liveable region, but has seen a decline in stability scores amid increasing instances of protests.... on a variety of issues," said a statement from the EIU.

Those issues included the rise of far-right extremism, EU agricultural policy and anti-immigration, EIU said in a press release.

Vienna got full scores in terms of its stability, health care, education and infrastructure.

Overall global liveability was up slightly over the past year, it added.

But the "improvement is only marginal, held back by geopolitical conflicts, civil unrest and a housing crisis across many of the cities" amid inflation.

Continuing stress on liveability was "unlikely to ease in the near future," it said.

Tel Aviv's ranking fell more than any other city, down by 20 places to 112th.

Hamas militants on October 7 launched an unprecedented attack on southern Israel, which led Israel to retaliate with an offensive on the Hamas-run Palestinian territory of Gaza.

The capital of war-torn Syria, Damascus, was again ranked the least liveable city.

Kyiv also stayed in the bottom 10 in the rankings as the Ukraine war rages on following Russia's invasion of its neighbour in 2022.

The index ranks the liveability of 173 cities across five categories: stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education and infrastructure.

Vienna was already the world's most liveable city between 2018-20 and again since 2022.

K.Hassan--SF-PST