Is Vienna Really All That Livable? Depends on Where You Look.

Last year, Vienna took first place in The Economist’s Global Liveability Index. This was familiar turf for the Austrian capital, which has been trading first and second place on the annual ranking with Melbourne, Australia, since 2015.

But according to a report from the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), Vienna’s dominant position on the index may be flawed, because the metrics used by the Economist Intelligence Unit to rank urban livability fail to sufficiently account for many environmental factors. It’s not that Vienna’s conditions are poor by international standards. What the report suggests is that city rankings in general might be falling short because they take a too-narrow view of what “livability” means.