Singapore has the world’s best infrastructure, according to a survey of
221 cities by consulting firm Mercer released Tuesday, using measures such as
traffic congestion, availability of flights from local airports, quality of
public transportation and availability of water.
The Southeast Asian city-state
beat its close competitor, Hong Kong, which came in sixth in the world for
infrastructure. Ranking second and third were Frankfurt and Munich,
respectively, which function as aviation hubs in Europe similar to Singapore’s
role in Asia, followed by Copenhagen in Denmark and another German city,
Düsseldorf.
On the other end, Dhaka in
Bangladesh was deemed to have the poorest infrastructure in Asia, according to
Mercer’s survey, coming in at 205, behind Yangon, Myanmar, and Phnom Penh,
Cambodia, which also ranked poorly at 180 and 194, respectively. Port-au-Prince
in Haiti was placed as the worst in the world for infrastructure.
For the second year in a row,
Mercer ranked Singapore as the Asian city with the highest quality of life,
followed by four Japanese cities: Tokyo, Kobe, Yokohama and Osaka. World-wide,
though, Singapore was ranked 25th, with Vienna taking the top spot. The results
take into account everything from the political and social environment of a
city to the standard of schools and the availability of a range of consumer
goods. Health considerations, including air pollution, come into play as well —
a reason why Hong Kong is ranked 70th on Mercer’s list, between Prague in the Czech
Republic and Detroit, Michigan.
The consultancy rates the quality
of life in 220 cities against New York, which ranks 47th and is home the
headquarters of Mercer’s parent company, Marsh & McLennan Cos. Quality of
life – broken down into categories like law enforcement, crime, political
stability, the availability of consumer goods and the like – is compared
city-to-city between New York and other cities across the world.
Cities in Australia and New
Zealand ranked as some of the most desirable places to live and work, with
Auckland ranked third in the world for quality of life behind Vienna and
Zurich. Australian cities Sydney, Melbourne and Perth, as well as Toronto and
Berlin, all ranked higher than Singapore for overall quality of life, taking
into account climate and the socio-cultural environment, including censorship
and social freedom.
In Southeast Asia, cities like
Yangon and Jakarta find themselves inching up ever so slightly. Yangon was
ranked 195th for quality of life out of 221 cities, and Jakarta ranked 138,
compared with 196 and 140 in 2011. Mercer remains optimistic that many of these
Asian cities will continue making improvements on infrastructure—aided, of
course, by unprecedented foreign investment coming in to the country—and will
grow more desirable to expatriates looking for opportunities outside their home
countries.
Mercer’s surveys are designed to
help multinational firms decide how to compensate their employees when they go
on overseas postings. In the case of cities ranked poorly, “companies need to
provide adequate allowances to compensate their international workers for these
and other hardships,” according to Slagin Parakatil, a senior researcher at
Mercer. However, the cost of living in some of the top-ranked cities are among
the highest in the world.
Shibani Mahtani
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