September 06-13
Tehran has been rated one of the least livable cities in the entire world. The Economist Intelligence Unit rated 140 cities and listed Tehran 131st.
It was not the worst city to live in, however. That honor went, not surprisingly, to Damascus, where the public is being shelled by its own government.
The rating system gave each city a score on more than 30 qualitative and quantitative factors covering five general areas—stability, health care, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure.
The result placed four Australian cities and three Canadian cities in the top 10. Auckland, New Zealand, was also in the top 10, giving the English-speaking world eight of the top 10 places. But no American city made the top 10, largely because of US crime rates.
The bottom 10 included six cities from the Islamic world and three in Black Africa.
The top 10 most livable cities in the ranking are:
1—Melbourne, Australia
2—Vienna, Austria
3—Vancouver, Canada
4—Toronto, Canada
5—Calgary, Canada
6—Adelaide, Australia
7—Sydney, Australia
8—Helsinki, Finland
9—Perth, Australia
10—Auckland, New Zealand
The bottom 10 are:
131—Tehran
132—Douala, Cameroon
133—Tripoli, Libya
134—Karachi, Pakistan
135—Algiers, Algeria
136—Harare, Zimbabwe
137—Lagos, Nigeria
138—Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea
139—Dhaka, Bangladesh
140—Damascus, Syria
The list is cpmpiled annually by The Economist.