Taipei is the 27th-most liveable city in the world, according to this year’s Global Liveable Cities Index released on Tuesday in Singapore, which ranks 64 cities around the globe.
Geneva, Switzerland, topped the rankings, in which seven of the top 10 most liveable cities are in Europe and only two are in Asia — Singapore in third place once again and Hong Kong in eighth.
Auckland, New Zealand rounds out the top 10.
Thirty-sx Asian cities were surveyed and seperately ranked.
Taipei ranked sixth in Asia after Singapore, Hong Kong and the Japanese cities of Kobe, Tokyo and Yokohama.
The index, conducted by the Asia Competitiveness Institute at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, covers 64 European, Asian, Middle Eastern, North and South American cities.
It is based on five categories: economic vibrancy and competitiveness; environmental sustainability and friendliness; domestic security and stability; social cultural conditions; and political governance.
The study was first commissioned by Sinagpore’s Centre for Liveable Cities in 2008, but the first report was not published until last year.
The institute has said its index is more representative of ordinary residents’ concerns when compared with other rankings that typically measure either a city’s world “clout” or its comfort level, because it does both.
A major difference is that the index uses indicators that apply to ordinary residents earning the median income, instead of expatriates or the social elite.
Taipei placed 24th in economic vibrancy and competitiveness, 30th in environmental sustainability and friendliness, eighth in domestic security and stability, 33rd in social cultural conditions and 25th in political governance.
However, the results for Taipei show a huge gap compared with this year’s Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) Global Liveability Survey released in August, which put Taipei in 61st place in the world.
The EIU’s survey assesses living conditions in the 140 cities it ranked, scoring each one on more than 30 qualitative and quantitative factors across five broad categories: stability; healthcare; culture and environment; education; and infrastructure.
Melbourne, Australia, topped the EIU’s survey for the third consecutive year, followed by Vienna, Vancouver and Toronto.
Two US House of Representatives committees yesterday condemned China’s attempt to orchestrate a crash involving Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim’s (蕭美琴) car when she visited the Czech Republic last year as vice president-elect. Czech local media in March last year reported that a Chinese diplomat had run a red light while following Hsiao’s car from the airport, and Czech intelligence last week told local media that Chinese diplomats and agents had also planned to stage a demonstrative car collision. Hsiao on Saturday shared a Reuters news report on the incident through her account on social media platform X and wrote: “I
SHIFT PRIORITIES: The US should first help Taiwan respond to actions China is already taking, instead of focusing too heavily on deterring a large-scale invasion, an expert said US Air Force leaders on Thursday voiced concerns about the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) missile capabilities and its development of a “kill web,” and said that the US Department of Defense’s budget request for next year prioritizes bolstering defenses in the Indo-Pacific region due to the increasing threat posed by China. US experts said that a full-scale Chinese invasion of Taiwan is risky and unlikely, with Beijing more likely to pursue coercive tactics such as political warfare or blockades to achieve its goals. Senior air force and US Space Force leaders, including US Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink and
‘BUILDING PARTNERSHIPS’: The US military’s aim is to continue to make any potential Chinese invasion more difficult than it already is, US General Ronald Clark said The likelihood of China invading Taiwan without contest is “very, very small” because the Taiwan Strait is under constant surveillance by multiple countries, a US general has said. General Ronald Clark, commanding officer of US Army Pacific (USARPAC), the US Army’s largest service component command, made the remarks during a dialogue hosted on Friday by Washington-based think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Asked by the event host what the Chinese military has learned from its US counterpart over the years, Clark said that the first lesson is that the skill and will of US service members are “unmatched.” The second
Czech officials have confirmed that Chinese agents surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March 2024 and planned a collision with her car as part of an “unprecedented” provocation by Beijing in Europe. Czech Military Intelligence learned that their Chinese counterparts attempted to create conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, which “did not go beyond the preparation stage,” agency director Petr Bartovsky told Czech Radio in a report yesterday. In addition, a Chinese diplomat ran a red light to maintain surveillance of the Taiwanese
RSS