Service Numbeo has published the list of final top of 226 cities in the world in terms of comfort for life. Ekonomichna Pravda was the first to pay attention to the list. These ratings are published every six months, but the data is updated in real time.
The overall assessment consists of 8 indicators:
- purchasing ability index (the higher, the better);
- pollution index (the lower, the better);
- the ratio of the cost of housing and earnings (the lower, the better);
- cost of living in the city (the lower, the better);
- safety index (the higher, the better);
- health care quality index (the higher, the better);
- an index of time spent for trips (the lower, the better);
- climate comfort index (the higher, the better).
New York indicators were taken as the benchmark for estimating the cost of living. The index includes the cost of rent, the general price level for consumer goods, the cost of food, the high cost of restaurants and local purchasing ability.
For example, if the index of a city on rental housing is 120, then renting an apartment there is 20% more expensive than in New York. More details on the Numbeo methodology can be found on a separate page.
As of the beginning of 2019, Lviv was recognized as the most comfortable city in Ukraine. The city is on 174th place out of 226. In total, 5 Ukrainian cities were included in the rating and almost all of them have deteriorated since the last final assessment, conducted in mid-2018:
- Lviv, 174th place (previously – 165th place);
- Kyiv, 192nd place (previously – 174th place);
- Odesa, 193rd place (not previously evaluated);
- Kharkiv, 195th place (previously – 167th place)
- Dnipro, 201st place (not previously evaluated).
Canberra, the capital of Australia, was recognized as the best city to live in. The worst is the capital of Venezuela, the city of Caracas. A complete list and ratings can be found on the Numbeo website.
The most common reason for Ukraine’s weak position is low purchasing ability. Kharkiv, Odesa, Lviv and Dnipro were in the list of 20 worst cities by this indicator. However, the total costs (cost of living) are small: Lviv, Kharkiv, Dnipro and Odesa were included in the top 20 cheapest cities. At the same time, Dnipro closed the list of top 20 most polluted cities.