Apparently: "The ranking scores 140 cities from 0-100 on 30 factors spread across five areas: stability, health care, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure."
So crime, housing prices, cost of living, wages, weather, etc... isn't even taken into account. Yet I'm sure those would be high on any lay person's list of what makes a place "liveable".
But I guess it doesn't matter that:
1. The median house price here in January was $601,500
2. I bought 3 bananas today at $19/kg
3. I pay over $100/mth for Internet that's barely quicker than dial-up at times
4. My last electricity bill was around $2500 - I'm guessing the next one will be close to $4k as we just finished winter. There have been constant reports on the news this winter of the elderly and people on social assistance having to choose between eating and heating.
5. house break-ins and random bashings are rampant here - to the point that I refuse to even walk from my car alone to a restaurant half a block away at night downtown
6. I've already been informed that if I were to still be living here in 2yrs when my son starts kindergarten, he'll have to go to a private school as there'll be no room for him in any of the public ones in our area. Cheapest I could find so far that at least entertained the idea of putting my son on the waiting list (about 6 suburbs away) was $16k a year. For kindergarten. So while it's great to hear the education system is thought of as decent here, it's too bad that I'd have to shell out a crapload of money so my child can learn to colour within the lines.
7. There's a very large homelessness problem. Shelters are completely full and it's next to impossible to even get a spot in a rooming house. Oh and the last time I saw a report on the news, the public housing waiting list was 6 years long.
I could keep going but there's no point. The Economist said that this list was initially created to assist HR people in determining whether they should pay their employees a hardship allowance if they were made to move somewhere for their job. That's it. So yeah - if you have some money and can adequately protect yourself from crime, then this is a great place I guess. But anyone who thinks this list is indicative of anything meaningful based on the factors it uses obviously has a very different idea of what I believe makes somewhere liveable. Nice to hear our infrastructure is rated highly though