Zurich Has Best Quality of Life, Baghdad Has Worsthttp://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601085&sid=aiYS3LO_gPIE&refer=europeBy Emma O'Brien
April 3 (Bloomberg) -- Zurich has the highest quality of life among global cities while Baghdad has the lowest, according to a survey of 215 centers compiled by Mercer Human Resource Consulting.
The survey scores cities on markers such as the availability of health care, the level of air pollution and the presence of harmful animals before ranking them against New York as the base city.
Geneva came second in the so-called Quality of Living index, followed by Vienna, Vancouver and Auckland, New Zealand's biggest city which also ranked top Asian city, Mercer said in a statement on its Web site. Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and the New Zealand capital Wellington made up the rest of the top five Asian locations.
After Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Calgary filled out the North American top five. Dusseldorf and Frankfurt were fourth and fifth-placed in Europe.
The survey is used to help governments and corporations to place employees on international postings, Mercer said.
At the bottom of the index, Brazzaville in the African country of Congo, Bangui in the Central African Republic, and Khartoum, the capital of Sudan scored the lowest after Baghdad.
Mercer also produces an index ranking cities according to levels of health and sanitation. The top five cities in that index were in North America, except for Helsinki, which ranked third.
Baku in Azerbaijan, Dhaka in Bangladesh, Antananarivo in Madagascar and Haiti's capital, Port Au Prince, all scored lowest for health and sanitation because of a lack of medical infrastructure and underdeveloped waste and sewage removal systems, Mercer said.
The survey is conducted each year with rankings changed in the interim if the country's assessment is revised. Data for the 2007 index was collected between September and November last year, the company said.
Current Ratings: 0 negative/0 positive
