Insights

What’s wrong with the world’s most liveable cities?

In August, the Economic Intelligence Unit released its annual liveability rankings, sparking the familiar wave of headlines about the “world’s most liveable cities.” These top-down assessments get a lot of attention – and they do offer a useful point of comparison. But they also have big limitations. We believe the most meaningful understanding of liveability comes from the bottom up – through listening to communities themselves and measuring how people actually experience where they live.