Melbourne No. 1 for the seventh consecutive year, on Economist’s 10th annual “Global Livability Ranking” of 140 cities around the world. Adelaide 6th, Perth 7th. By Quentin Fottrell.

Each city was assigned a score based on more than 30 quality of life factors across five categories of stability, health care, culture and environment, education and infrastructure. …

Each factor in each city is rated as acceptable, tolerable, uncomfortable, undesirable or intolerable. …

[Melbourne] was followed by Vienna, Vancouver, Toronto, Calgary, Adelaide, Perth, Auckland, Helsinki and Hamburg. The first American city to make the ranking was Honolulu at No. 17, followed by Washington, D.C. (No. 20), Boston (No. 34), Chicago and Miami (joint No. 38) and Pittsburgh (No. 41). …

Damascus in Syria, Lagos in Nigeria, Tripoli in Lybia, Dhaka in Bangladesh, Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea, Algiers in Algeria, Karachi in Paskistan, Harare in Zimbabwe, Douala in Cameroon and Kiev in the Ukraine were the least livable. …

Interestingly, the trend has been for cities to get less livable:

Of the 10 most expensive cities, five were in Asia. Singapore was No. 1, followed by Hong Kong, Zurich in Switzerland, Tokyo and Osaka in Japan, and Seoul in South Korea. Geneva in Switzerland and Paris tied for seventh, and New York and Copenhagen tied at No. 9. Almaty in the former Soviet state of Kazakhstan was the cheapest.