Most livable cities – The Economist Intelligence Unit 2009 “Quality of Life Ranking”

Written by Adelina Chelniciuc on March 22, 2010. Posted in Articles, KPI

Evaluating city livability is an important aspect of local government performance management. One of the most popular approaches is the one used by the Economist Intelligence Unit in preparing the “Quality of Life Ranking”.

The Economist Intelligence Unit “Quality of Life Ranking” report evaluates living conditions in 140 cities from around the world. The Quality of Life Index calculated for each evaluated city is based on both quantitative and qualitative data gathered for over 30 indicators which are grouped in 5 individually weighted categories:

1. Stability (25%): i.e. threat of terrorism, threat of military conflict

2. Healthcare (20%): i.e. availability of public and private healthcare, availability of medicines

3. Culture and environment (25%): i.e. level of corruption and censorship, availability of consumer goods and services

4. Education (10%): i.e. availability of private education

5. Infrastructure (20%) i.e. quality of road network, quality of energy and water provision, quality of telecommunication infrastructure

Each indicator is rated between one and five, where one means that there is no reduction in quality of life and five means the quality of life is extremely challenging.

General ratings for the whole Index are between 0% and 100%, where 0% means that the quality of life is intolerable and 100% is exceptional.

Additional resources

smartkpis.com provides its users with a comprehensive library of KPIs from different industries, some of them with direct correspondence to the categories used by the Economist Intelligence Unit Quality of Life report: