The Worst City in the World to Live In

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Jun 27, 7:10AM EDT

The Worst City in the World to Live In — © Umayyad Mosque, Damascus (CC BY-SA 3.0) by Bernard Gagnon

24/7 Insights

Impoverished and war-torn cities remain the world’s worst cities to live in, while the most livable cities are in very stable countries.

The Economist Intelligence Unit publishes a study called “The world’s most liveable cities” every year. This year, 173 cities were measured, with ratings based on stability, health care, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure.

The best cities to live in are in extremely stable countries, most of which are Europe, along with Australia and Canada. At the top of the city is Vienna, the capital of Austria, which received a score of 98.4 out of 100. Copenhagen (98.0) followed, then Zurich (97.1), Melbourne (97.0), Calgary (96.8), Geneva (96.8), Sydney (96.6), Vancouver (96.6), Osaka (96.0), and Auckland (96.0).

The Economist Intelligence Unit did not say that all but one of these cities has almost entirely white, affluent populations.

At the bottom of the list are primarily impoverished and often war-torn cities. This included Kyiv at 45.5. However, the city with the worst score was Damascus, at 30.7. It has been at the bottom of the list since 2013.

Damascus is Syria’s capital and the world’s oldest current capital. The city has about 2.5 million residents. Civil war broke out in Syria in 2012 and still continues, decimating the city. Damascus is unlikely to give up its place at the bottom of the Economist Intelligence Unit’s list.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.