Vienna named city with world's best quality of living

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SYDNEY (Reuters Life!) – Vienna has beaten Zurich to be crowned the place with the best quality of living in an annual survey in which European cities dominated the top 10.

Management consultancy Mercer said Vienna scored the highest for overall quality of living in the 215-city survey after improvements in Austria's political and social environment, knocking the Swiss city of Zurich into second position.

Third in the list came another Swiss city, Geneva, followed by Vancouver, Canada, and Auckland, New Zealand, in shared fourth place.
Baghdad, Iraq, came last despite slight improvements in its infrastructure and moves to encourage investment.
Three German cities made the top 10 -- Dusseldorf, Munich and Frankfurt -- with the list rounded out by Bern in Switzerland and Sydney, Australia.
The highest U.S. ranking in the 2009 Worldwide Quality of Living Survey was Honolulu which came 29th while Washington and New York remained in positions 44 and 49 respectively.
London came 38th in the list which is designed to help governments and companies formulate international packages for their employees.
"As a result of the current financial crisis, multinationals are looking to review their international assignment policies with a view to cutting costs," said Slagin Parakatil, senior researcher at Mercer, in a statement.
"Many companies plan to reduce the number of medium to long-term international assignments and localize their expatriate compensation packages where possible though the hardship allowance, based on quality of living criteria, will remain an essential component of the package."
Singapore was the top-scoring Asian city, coming in 26th which was up six places from a year ago due to its growing importance as a financial center and its wide range of international and private schools.
Beijing moved up three places to 113, boosted by improvements in public transport facilities from the Olympics last August.

Singapore also came first in a separate ranking based on city infrastructure, which examined standards of electricity, water, telephone, mail, public transport, traffic congestion and the range of international flights from local airports.

Singapore was followed in the infrastructure rankings by Munich, Copenhagen, and Tsukuba in Japan. Again, Baghdad came last.
The rankings, based on a point-scoring index in which New York is the base city with 100, are based on 39 quality-of-life determinants such as political stability, schooling, recreation, housing and natural environment.

In Central and South America, San Juan in Puerto Rico retained the highest ranking at 72 followed by Montevideo at 79.

"Political and security issues, and the incidence of natural disasters, continue to hinder the improvement of quality of living in the region. Shortages of consumer goods have also contributed to a decline in quality of living in some cities," said Parakatil.

(Writing by Belinda Goldsmith, Editing by Miral Fahmy)

【明報專訊】全球最優質生活城市評選出爐。奧地利的維也納躍過瑞士蘇黎世，成為全球最佳生活質素的城市。在排行榜前10位中，歐洲城市佔絕大多數，成為最佳居住地區。香港排名僅70，與去年排名一樣，但以基建而論則名列全球第8位。
這 項名為《2009年全球生活質素調查》的報告，對全球215個城市的生活質素作出多方面調查，當中涵蓋了政治穩定、學校、娛樂、房屋及自然環境等39項生 活因素。負責進行調查的顧問公司美世諮詢（Mercer）表示，由於奧地利政治和社會環境都有改善，維也納總體生活質素提升至全球首位，而去年奪冠的瑞士 城市蘇黎世只能屈居第2。至於港人最愛的移民城市溫哥華則排名第4，僅次於瑞士日內瓦。
香港排名兩岸最高
雖然香港仍為中國最高排名城市，但排名僅為第70，台北名列86，上海則名列98。由於奧運帶來公共交通設施的改善，北京的排名上升3位，名列113位。排名最高的亞洲城市為香港區內的競爭對手新加坡，名列第26，較去年躍升6位，理據是「其金融中心地位日益重要，且擁有眾多國際和私立學校」。

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是次調查涵蓋二百一十五個城市，目的是幫助政府和公司合理地安排員工派駐海外。美世信息諮詢業務亞太地區全球員工派遣諮詢業務負責人Cathy Loose指，因金融危機，很多公司計劃削減派駐海外的人手，減省成本，基礎設施對於派駐海外人員的生活質素具重要影響。 

調查排名顯示，奧地利維也納成為世界生活質素最佳的榜首城市，其次是瑞士的蘇黎世及日內瓦。調查以紐約作為基準城市，分數為一百分，香港的得分指數為九十四點四，得分較去年微升，但排名不變。

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補充:

The total index is based on the following categories:
Consumer goods Economic environment Housing Medical and health considerations Natural environment	Political and social environment Public services and transport Recreation Schools and education Socio-cultural environment