Brussels 27th in list of “best cities in which to live”

Brussels has retained 27th place in the annual survey of the world’s best cities to live in. The survey is carried out by the consultancy company Mercer. While the general quality of life is our capital city is rank among the best in the world. There are a number of points that those surveyed believe could be improved. Air qualities is below par, there are too many traffic jams and according to the survey political instability is an issue too.

The Austrian capital Vienna tops the list for the 9th year running.
Each year Mercer’s "Quality of living ranking" looks at 231 cities to which companies might want to send employees to live and work as expats.

The information from the survey is use to for example decide the level of any extra payments that might be given to employees to compensate them for having to live abroad.

Last year Brussels lost ground due to the terror attacks on 22 March 2016. This year our capital city is rank 27th, the same as last year. Vienna tops the list for the 9th year running.

Zürich is in second place, ahead of Auckland in New Zealand and Munich in Germany. At the bottom of the list are the Yemeni capital Sana’a, Bangui (Central African Republic and Baghdad in Iraq.

The top 10

1. Vienna - Austria
2. Zürich - Switzerland
3. Auckland - New-Zealand
4. Munich - German
5. Vancouver - Canada
6. Düsseldorf - German
7. Frankfurt - German
8. Genève – Switzerland
9. Copenhagen - Denmark
10. Basel (Switzerland) and Sydney (Australia) –
 

City Sanitation List

This year is the first time that that Mercer has compiled a “City Sanitation List” that ranks countries according to the state of their hygiene.

Factors taken into consideration include how the cities deal with waste water and have they treat (or don’t treat) sewage, the presence of infectious diseases and the availability and quality of magazines water. Here Brussels comes in 39th in a list that is topped by Honolulu. Helsinki (Finland) and Ottawa are joint second.

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