Vienna ranked best city as Dublin surpasses London and Paris

VIENNA is the best city in the world in which to live according to a new global survey, while Dublin ranks 26th.

Mercer’s 2010 Quality of Living worldwide city rankings shows the nation’s capital to be the 17th best European city, ahead of London which ranked 63rd overall.

Dublin also manages to score higher than Paris, Milan, Barcelona and Madrid, although it is behind the German capital Berlin, as well as Hamburg, Oslo and Luxembourg.

Internationally, Iraqi capital Baghdad comes bottom of the pile in 221st place, behind Bangui in the Central African Republic, and N’Djamena in Chad. Georgian capital Tbilisi is ranked the lowest European city, at 218th place.

Last year Dublin was rated 25th best city globally, but while its status would appear to have slipped, the 2010 list has been revamped, with 24 cities in the list last year removed and 30 more added.

One other piece of good news for Dublin was its 14th place ranking in Europe as an eco-city. In the same category globally, Dublin ranks 33rd.

The survey, carried out by New York-based firm Mercer, takes the Big Apple as the base setting for other cities around the world and measures them in comparison.

The ranking is determined by the hardship allowance a company would have to pay its employees, and is gauged through questionnaires, analysis and statistics.

New York itself is ranked in 49th place, with Vienna in first place for the second year in a row.

The Austrian capital leads the way with a quality of life index of 108.6, just ahead of its near neighbour Zurich in Switzerland.

In all, 16 of the top 25 cities on the QOL Index are European, with Geneva in third place and the three German cities of Dusseldorf, Frankfurt and Munich occupying places sixth and joint-seventh respectively.

Vancouver in Canada is the highest ranked non-European city, in fourth place, a ranking it shares with Auckland in New Zealand.

Swiss city Bern, in ninth place, and Sydney, Australia, in 10th place.

The highest ranking US city is Honolulu in Hawaii, in 31st place, followed by San Francisco in 33rd.

Commenting on the rankings, Slagin Parakatil, senior researcher at Mercer said: “Quality of living standards remained relatively stable on a global level throughout 2009 and the first half of 2010, but in certain regions and countries the economic recession had a noticeable impact on the business climate.

“Quality of living and hardship premiums remain important means of compensating expatriates for differences in living conditions. However, companies are more inclined to review the measurement of such allowances to ensure they are cost-effective.”