Vancouver Just Ranked 5th in (Ridiculously Harsh) Global Quality of Living Survey

Vancouver has ranked fifth on a list for best quality of life, beating out every other North American city in the poll.

The survey, conducted by Mercer, who assess the quality of living conditions to help multinational companies compensate employees when placing them on international assignments, ranked 230 cities in total – based on how liveable they are.

The rankings were assessed on factors like political economic, cultural and social environments, as well as schools and education, medical health considerations, and recreation available to residents.

Mercer also ranked Top 5s by region, and for North America Canada dominated, with cities across the country taking the top four spots. Vancouver (5) was the highest, followed by Toronto (15), Ottawa (17), Montreal (23) and USA’s sole contributor in the top 5 by region was San Francisco, which came in 28th overall in the world (someone try telling Talia Jane that).

Despite security issues and economic uncertainty, Europe had the best performing region. Vienna (1), Zurich (2), Munich (4), Dusseldorf (6) and Frankfurt (7) all made it inside the top five for their continent, while global centres like London and Paris failed to make it inside the top 30, due to recent terrorist threats and unease.

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Canadian cities also ranked highly for personal safety with Calgary, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver sharing 16th place, while no other US cities made it inside the top 50.

Here are the top five cities on the list:

1. Vienna
Austria’s capital topped the poll overall for the seventh year in a row. With a long history of investing in high-quality social housing, 24-hour transport on weekends, plus museums and culture to explore, that won’t come as a great surprise. It also came in an impressive 5th in personal safety rankings for the world.

Fabien Lackner

2. Zurich
The city famed for its cleanliness can attribute its great transport network and low crime rate towards its ranking as the second most pleasant place to live in the world. And though it may have a high cost of living, the city has more than enough to make up for it, with lots of activities and culture to enjoy.

Singapore Airlines

3. Auckland
The city of sails in New Zealand came third in the rankings once again – as it has done in 2015, 2014 and 2012. Contributing factors include Auckland’s stable infrastructure, lifestyle choices for young people and its available housing on the fringe of the city.

4. Munich
German cities dominated the Mercer list, with seven making it into the top 30 (five of which were in the top ten), but it was Munich that topped them all. With over twenty big parks in the city, the transportation system is excellent, biking is easy and of course, there’s culture-a-plenty.

5. Vancouver
A vibrant, ethnically diverse city with a backdrop of mountains, Van City has plenty to offer a person. It’s clean, safe streets and fantastic choice of places to eat overcame recent concerns about the increasing expensive real-estate market in the city. And it was the only North American city to crack the top 10.

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