According to the latest global survey realized from consultant group Mercer, Athens offers its residents the worst quality of life of any city throughout Western Europe.
Earlier this year, the company’s researchers found that Athens was the world’s 78th most expensive city for non-locals, among 214 cities.
Vienna, the Austrian capital with 1.7 million residents, came top of the survey for the fourth year in a row, for providing the best quality life, in contrast to Baghdad which provided the worst.
Mercer conducts its annual survey to help companies and organizations set compensation for staff on international assignments. It uses 39 factors such as political stability, health care, education, crime, recreation and transportation. Despite its sovereign debt crisis, Europe has 15 of the world’s top 25 cities in the 2012 survey. Germany and Switzerland each have three in the top 10.
“Overall, European cities continue to have high quality of living as a result of a combination of increased stability, rising living standards and advanced city infrastructure. But economic turmoil, political tension and high unemployment in some European countries, and high levels of unemployment have continued to be problematic in the region,” said Slagin Parakatil, senior researcher at Mercer.
Canadian cities dominated rankings in the Americas region, with Vancouver at number five.
Parakatil stressed that “The ongoing turmoil in many countries across North Africa and the Middle East has led to serious security issues for locals and expatriates. Many countries continue to experience violence through political demonstrations that have sometimes developed into massive uprisings and led to serious instability within the region.”
(Source: Reuters, kathimerini)
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