Lagos retains its position as the fourth worst city to live in
Despite the global acclaim for current Lagos state governor for his ongoing overhauling of the city's infrastructure, Nigeria's economic and commercial capital has been ranked as the world's fourth worst city to live in.
This was revealed by the annual ‘Liveability Ranking and Overview' for the year 2011. The survey was conducted by the Economic Intelligence Unit (EIU) of the Economist magazine; Lagos retained its fourth position as it was ranked in 2010, after a further depreciation from 2009, when it was the fifth worst city to live in on earth.
The ranking is conducted after an assessment of living conditions in 140 cities around the world using 30 indicators cutting across the following broad categories: stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure.
There are other sub-indicators for each of the categories such as the ‘availability and quality of both private and public health care' coupled with ‘general health indicators' while ‘prevalence of petty/violent crimes with threat of civil unrest/militancy' are evaluated for the stability indicator.
The incessant rush-hour traffic congestion on major roads of the metropolis; insufficient low-cost housing, and its attendant impact on the housing needs of the rapidly growing population are glaring examples of the strained infrastructure needs of the city under the infrastructure indicators.
Lagos was ranked 137 in the list of 140 countries surveyed with an overall rating of 39.0, which indicates that "most aspects of living are severely restricted."
The state, with a population of 18 million people, earned the score of 25 in stability, 33.3 in both education and health care and an above average score of 52.3 for culture and environment.
The recent huge investments by the state government in infrastructure earned the state a score of 48.2.
According to the EIU survey, the worst city to live in the world is the Zimbabwean capital, Harare, closely followed by Dhaka, Bangladesh's capital; Papua New Guinea's capital, Port Moresby, is third.
Other cities at the bottom of the ranking are Algiers, war-torn Tripoli, Karachi, Tehran, Douala, Tehran and Abidjan. The bottom list is populated mainly by African and Asian cities.
Melbourne is the new champ
For the first time in a decade, Canadian city of Vancouver lost the top rank of most ‘liveable city' to Melbourne, Australia's second largest city with the Austrian capital, Vienna, coming second, forcing Vancouver to the third position.
The EIU latest survey for July 2011 explained that a small adjustment in Vancouver's score for transport, caused by the "recent intermittent closures of the key highway, resulted in a 0.7 percentage point decline in the Canadian city's overall liveability rating."
The survey also predicted that Vancouver's ranking could further drop in future surveys due to the riots witnessed in the city in June 2011. The report warned that "further unrest may affect scores for the city in the future."
The survey also claims that "the general conditions required for a location to be awarded a high liveability ranking continue to be well reflected in Australian and Canadian cities" as two other Canadian cities, Toronto and Calgary, completed the top five cities most suitable to live in, with Sydney, Adelaide and Perth making up the top ten.
EIU also revealed that a slight depreciation in liveability in most European cities as a result of the current financial crisis in the Euro zone. It also noted that the ongoing "Arab Spring" has had a bearing on the general liveability rating of the states affected in the Middle East and North Africa. "The domestic civil unrest in many of these countries since December 2010 has led to declining scores in the stability category across the board."
Lagos is loved by all
Respondents who reacted to the ranking of Lagos were unanimous that the city has enjoyed a fairly stable atmosphere despite its peculiar characteristic as a meeting point for diverse ethnic groups.
"Lagos is like a house of everything; a mix of everything," said Justyna Kita, a Polish citizen from Krakow, an intern at the Murtala Muhammed Foundation.
"There is the traffic, the generators, and so much noise. But the people are very friendly and open. They shake my hands in the streets, and are always singing and dancing. I have made so many friends here, and I don't miss my home for now."
A sociologist, Uwadiegwu Otisi, benchmarks the city's stability as a factor responsible for its massive population growth.
"Despite the aggression displayed by most Lagos residents, the city has won accolades as a peaceful city," he said. "And I think it has been a major form of attraction to so many people who decided to relocate to Lagos. A lot of southerners have relocated to Lagos due to the incessant religious skirmishes in the north."
The EIU survey originated as a means of testing whether Human Resource Departments needed to assign a hardship allowance as part of expatriate relocation packages.
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