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.
AMPHIBIOUS EXERCISES: The defense ministry said that it had detected 24 Chinese PLA Air Force planes entering Taiwan’s air defense zone over the previous 24 hours Chinese movements around Taiwan were “abnormal,” Minister of National Defense Chiu Kuo-cheng (邱國正) said yesterday, flagging recent amphibious exercises in addition to drills Taipei has observed in China’s Fujian Province. Taiwan has reported a rise in Chinese military activity over the past week as dozens of fighters, drones, bombers and other aircraft, as well as warships, have operated around the nation. “Our initial analysis is that they are doing joint drills in September, including land, sea, air and amphibious,” Chiu told reporters at the legislature in Taipei. The “recent enemy situation is quite abnormal,” he said. The comments followed a statement from the
IN MOURNING: Tsai visited the site and spoke with family members of those killed, while all the major presidential candidates said they would temporarily halt campaigning A fire and subsequent explosions at a golf ball factory at Pingtung Technology Industrial Park (屏東科技產業園區) killed at least seven people, including four firefighters, and injured 98, while three were still missing, authorities said yesterday. The blaze at Launch Technologies Co’s (明揚國際) plant on Jingjian Road raged for more than 12 hours after it started at about 5pm on Friday, officials said. The Pingtung County Fire Bureau early yesterday used large excavators to search for missing people, while family members waited at the scene. Pingtung County Fire Bureau Director Hsu Mei-hsueh (許美雪) said the bureau received a call about the fire at 5:31pm
DETERRENCE: The president on Thursday is to launch the first indigenous submarine, which is to enter sea trials next month before being delivered to the navy next year Taiwan hopes to deploy at least two new, domestically developed submarines by 2027, and possibly equip later models with missiles to bolster its deterrence against the Chinese navy and protect key supply lines, the head of the program said. Taiwan has made the Indigenous Submarine Program a key part of an ambitious project to modernize its armed forces as Beijing stages almost daily military exercises. President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), who initiated the program when she took office in 2016, is expected to launch the first of eight new submarines on Thursday under a plan that has drawn on expertise and technology from
FISHING FUROR: The latest spat was sparked by a floating barrier that was found across the entrance of Scarborough Shoal during a resupply mission to fishers Beijing yesterday warned Manila not to “stir up trouble” after the Philippine Coast Guard said it removed a floating barrier at a disputed reef that was allegedly deployed by China to block Filipino fishers from the area. Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island, 黃岩島) in the South China Sea has long been a source of tension between the nations. China seized the ring of reefs from the Philippines in 2012 and has since deployed patrol boats. The latest spat was sparked by a 300m floating barrier that was found across the entrance of the shoal last week during a routine Philippine government resupply mission