SINGAPORE is the third most liveable city in the world, going by preliminary findings from a broad-based study commissioned by a think-tank here.
The Centre for Liveable Cities (CLC) released initial results from its Global Liveable Cities Index (GLCI) at the World Cities Summit (WCS) yesterday. Of the 64 cities assessed, Geneva emerged tops and Zurich second. Copenhagen and Helsinki tied at fourth.
Asia-Pacific cities which made it to the top 20 include Hong Kong (eighth), Melbourne (10th), Osaka (16th) and Tokyo (18th).
CLC got the study going in 2008 to assess cities' liveability in five areas: economic vibrancy and competitiveness; environmental friendliness and sustainability; domestic security and stability; quality of life and diversity; and governance and leadership.
GLCI is still a piece of work in progress, but CLC and some of the study's co-authors will present it at a WCS session today to gather feedback on its criteria and methodology.
'In terms of looking at liveability from a more holistic and balanced framework, I think there are probably very few, if any, such set of indicators that are around,' CLC director and National Environment Agency CEO Andrew Tan told the press yesterday.
Across the five areas which the GLCI looked at, Singapore fared best in domestic security, coming in first. It scored fairly well in terms of governance, quality of life and economic vibrancy. But its showing in eco-friendliness was weakest, at 14th place.
According to Tan Khee Giap, a co-author of the GLCI and associate professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, Singapore's green efforts could be underrated. He cited an example: the country did well in water management, but this was not reflected because comparable data was lacking in other cities.
Source: Business Times, 30 Jun 2010
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