Melbourne and Sydney have battled for 150 years to claim the mantle as the nation’s best and brightest city. From the quality of their restaurants to their cultural pursuits to the best views, the two veteran population heavyweights have unquestionably assumed they stood head and shoulders above upstarts like Brisbane or Perth. A beautiful cityscape, but Sydney has been outrated by Melbourne in an international comparison of major cities.
However, the quality of life in both cities paled against another. Credit: AAP But a new international ranking suggests another city, one with its own water views, young and educated population, and high-paid jobs with good infrastructure and services, offers the best quality of life in the country. Canberra, perhaps the most maligned city in Australia, has, according to economic advisory firm Oxford Economics, the second-highest quality of life in the world.
Oxford on Tuesday released its ranking of the world’s 1000 largest cities as part of research into the importance of urban centres as economic drivers. The cities last year accounted for 60 per cent of global GDP and 30 per cent of the world’s population. Canberra finished second on the quality of life table behind only the French mountain city of Grenoble.
Each city examined by Oxford was scored across five categories: economics, human capital, quality of life, the environment and governance. Within each of those categories are four to six indicators. For instance, human capital .
