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Paris moves up to 19th most 'liveable' city in the world

The Local France
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Paris moves up to 19th most 'liveable' city in the world
Photo: AFP

The French capital moves up 13 places on The Economist’s Liveability Index two years after it dropped down the list due to the damaging effect of recent terror attacks.

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Paris is the 19th city in the world with the best healthcare, culture, environment, education, infrastructure, stability and urban safety. 

That’s at least according to British news magazine The Economist and its yearly Global Liveability Index, which this year put Vienna in first place on the podium (knocking Melbourne down to 2nd place after seven consecutive years on top).

Nineteenth position actually represents an improvement for The City of Light, as two years ago it saw the biggest decline of all 140 ranked cities, due to the "mounting number of terrorist attacks taking place in the city, and in other parts of the country, over the past three years".

These include the July massacre in Nice where 85 were killed by a truck driver, the November attacks in Paris where 130 were killed, and the attacks in Paris from last January when 17 were killed.

According to The Economist, Paris has bounced back and now recorded one of the largest increases thanks to its impressive improvement in the safety category.

But going from 32nd to 19th place still means that la ville de l’amour, the highest ranked French city, lags behind other developed world cities such as Osaka (Japan), Calgary (Canada), and Sydney (Australia).

The second highest ranked French city on the list and the only other one among the top 50 is Lyon in 30th place.

If it’s any consolation for Parisians, other western megacities such as London and New York are even further down the liveability index in 48th and 57th place respectively.

"All three city are prestigious hubs with a wealth of recreational activities" - The Economist's study reads - "but all suffer from higher levels of crime, congestion and public transport problems than are deemed comfortable."

"The question is how much wages, the cost of living and personal taste for a location can offset liveability factors."

At the bottom of the table are Port Moresby (Papua New Guinea), Karachi, (Pakistan), Lagos (Nigeria), Dhaka (Bangladesh) and in last spot Damascus (Syria), ravaged by civil war for the past seven years.

SEE ALSO: The six best places to live in France (that you'd never consider)

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