Ranking the Liveability of the World's Major Cities

by Giap, Tan Khee; Thye, Woo Wing; Yam, Tan Kong; Low, Linda; Aw, Grace Ee Ling

• ISBN13: 9789814417303
• ISBN10: 9814417300
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-08-31
• Publisher: World Scientific Pub Co Inc

Summary

This unique volume aims to provide a first comprehensive assessment on attributes, conditions and characters which constitute a liveable city. the book posits that the degree of liveability depends on five themes: satisfaction with the freedom from want; satisfaction with the state of the natural environment and its management; satisfaction with freedom from fear; satisfaction with the socio-cultural conditions; and satisfaction with public governance.The authors attempt to be more constructive through performing policy simulations by first identifying relative weaknesses and strengths of 64 global cities across major continents including European, Asian, Middle Eastern, North and South American cities. the book also ranks and simulates 36 Asian cities separately, of which many are emerging third-world cities that are in need of policy guidance.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. ix
Preface	p. xi
List of Figures	p. xiii
List of Tables	p. xv
List of Abbreviations	p. xix
What Makes a City More Liveable?	p. 1
A More Liveable Life	p. 1
Thinking Broadly about the Concept of Liveability	p. 7
Thinking Sensibly about the Concept of Sustainability	p. 11
Preview	p. 15
The Empirical Framework: Methodology, Data and Computation Algorithm	p. 17
Comparison of Empirical Frameworks Used in Ranking	p. 17
Fleshing Out the Global Liveable Cities Index Framework	p. 26
Economic Vibrancy & Competitiveness	p. 26
Environmental Friendliness & Sustainability	p. 27
Domestic Security & Stability	p. 28
Socio-Cultural Conditions	p. 29
Political Governance	p. 30
Selecting Indicators for the Global Liveable Cities Index: Ideal versus Practical	p. 31
Data Sources, Constraints & Proxies	p. 44
The Selection of Cities	p. 45
Computation of Rankings: The Algorithm	p. 45
The Empirical Findings and Policy Simulation	p. 51
Global Liveable Cities Index Ranking	p. 51
Policy Simulation	p. 62
Simulation Results	p. 63
Asian Liveable Cities Ranking	p. 75
Discussion of the Global Liveable Cities Index Ranking	p. 82
The Liveable City-States of Hong Kong and Singapore	p. 85
How Singapore and Hong Kong Differ in Conditions	p. 85
Singapore's Push for Ecological Diversity and Economic Sustainability	p. 87
The Global Liveable Cities Index in Perspective	p. 89
The Hard Questions	p. 89
Details of the Six Other City Indices	p. 90
The Clout Club and the Comfort Club	p. 93
Which Club does the Global Liveable Cities Index Belong to?	p. 101
More Hard Questions	p. 102
The Punchline	p. 105
Bibliography	p. 107
Index	p. 111
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