Lagos Ranked World’s Third Worst City to Live in

Obinna Chima

Lagos State has been ranked the third worst city for humans to live in the world. according to the latest 2018 Global Liveability Index released by The Economist Intelligence Unit and World Bank.

Lagos ranked 138 out of the 140 cities considered for the ranking.

This, however, was a slight improvement from the 2017 ranking, where the country was ranked 139th out of 140 cities on the index.

According to the latest ranking, Lagos only outperformed Dhaka in Bangladesh and Damascus in war-torn Syria.

Out of an overall score of 100, Lagos was rated 38.5 points.

The ranking was based – Social Stability, Healthcare, Education, Culture and Environment and Infrastructure.

Other African cities that featured on the index were Dakar (Senegal), which was ranked 131 out of 140; Algiers (Algeria) – 132; Doula (Cameroun) – 133; Tripoli (Libya) – 134 and Harare (Zimbabwe) – 135;

Vienna, the Austrian capital, was ranked the most liveable city in the world, as Melbourne finally lost the title after a seven-year reign. The Japanese city of Osaka was adjudged the third most liveable city.

Canada performed well as well, with Toronto tying with Tokyo for seventh position, while Calgary and Vancouver in same country emerged fourth and sixth place respectively.

Hamburg and Helsinki, that held tenth and ninth place last year, dropped out of the top 10. But this year’s ninth place spot went to Copenhagen.

The report attributed Austria’s capital’s rise to the top to increased security scores due to a return to relative stability across much of Europe after high-profile terrorist attacks in recent years.

“Every city is assigned a rating of relative comfort for over 30 qualitative and quantitative factors across five broad categories: stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure.

“Each factor in a city is rated as acceptable, tolerable, uncomfortable, undesirable or intolerable. For qualitative indicators, a rating is awarded based on the judgment of in-house analysts and in-city contributors.”

“In the Stability category, the following were considered: prevalence of petty crime, the prevalence of violent crime, the threat of terror, threat of military conflict and the threat of civil unrest.

“For Health rating, the following were considered: availability of private healthcare, quality of private healthcare, availability of public healthcare, quality of public healthcare and availability of over-the-counter drugs.

“Humidity/temperature rating, discomfort of climate to travellers, level of corruption, social or religious restrictions, level of censorship, sporting availability, cultural availability, food and drink and consumer goods and services were considered for the culture and rating.

“Availability of private education, quality of private education, public education indicators were used for the education rating.