Loving the living in Melbourne, the world's most livable city, again

Pelligrini's bar & cafe, Melbourne
If you were wondering where in the world to live, it's official - yet again: Melbourne has pulled off a hat-trick as the world's most livable city, three years running.

The Economist Intelligence Unit's annual survey saw us bump Vancouver down to third place, and Vienna is in second. A note to those who haven't yet visited: no matter how much we moan about winter, our winters don't come with thigh-high snow.

We have a ridiculously good cafe scene, vibrant street art, leafy streets and a marked absence of tanks or chemical warfare going on, which no doubt helped us pip the 139 other cities in the competition, which finds poor Damascus, Syria, now at the bottom of the list.

So I take this blog to tell the current Victorian premier, Dr Denis Napthine, to stop carving the city up with his ridiculous, overpriced and under-researched road schemes. Just because you don't like Collingwood, doesn't mean you have to wipe it off the map with a freeway. One of the key considerations for the EIU is infrastructure (as well as stability, culture & environment, healthcare and education), and that means public transport.
Street art, Melbourne

If you were in doubt as to Melbourne's livability, you could go for second-best and choose Adelaide, Sydney or Perth, who were also in the top 10. Aww, makes you proud to be an Australian, doesn't it?

The top 10
Melbourne, Australia
Vienna, Austria (hello Andrew!)
Vancouver, Canada (um, cold, anyone?)
Toronto, Canada (yep, cold, too)
Calgary, Canada (possibly colder)
Adelaide, Australia  (also very good coffee, thanks to all the Italians)
Sydney, Australia (yeah, yeah, whatevs)
Helsinki, Finland (see cold comment, above)
Perth, Australia
Auckland, New Zealand

The bottom 10 (most of which are on my hitlist except Lagos, which just sounds scarey)
Tehran, Iran (lovely, lovely city)
Douala, Cameroon
Tripoli, Libya
Karachi, Pakistan
Algiers, Algeria
Harare, Zimbabwe
Lagos, Nigeria
Port Moresby, PNG
Dhaka, Bangladesh
Damascus, Syria

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