Aucklanders and Wellingtonians may respectively complain about the traffic and wind a bit too much, but a new ranking says they actually, in fact, don't have it too bad.
Tamaki Makarau is the tenth 'most liveable' city in the world according to the Economist Intelligence Unit's 'Global Liveability Index 2023'.
Our capital city had the biggest glow-up of all the cities in the world, moving up the rankings more than any other urban hub, moving up 35 spots from #58 in 2022 to #23 this year. Auckland had the second slayest glow-up, moving up 25 spots from #35 last year.
Vienna, Copenhagen, Melbourne, Sydney and Vancouver are the top five most liveable cities, respectively, according to the publication. Zurich, Calgary, Geneva, Toronto and Osaka make up the rest of the top ten (Osaka and Auckland are tied at #10).
But what does 'most liveable' actually mean? Well, I'll let the publication handle that one.
"Every city is assigned a rating of relative comfort for over 30 qualitative and quantitative factors across five broad categories: stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education and infrastructure," the report reads. "Each factor in a city is rated as acceptable, tolerable, uncomfortable, undesirable or intolerable."
"The scores are then compiled and weighted to provide a score of 1-100, where 1 is considered intolerable and 100 is considered ideal. The liveability rating is provided both as an overall score and as a score for each category."
For example, Auckland had the highest 'Culture & Environment' score out of the top ten cities (97.9) but the second lowest infrastructure score (92.9).
Overall, things are looking the best they have in a while as the average index score has risen to a 15-year high. The Economist contributes this to a sense of normalcy returning to life after the whirlwind Covid years.
What they've failed to take into account, however, is whether Taylor Swift is performing in the city. If that were the case, every NZ city would be ROCK BOTTOM!
