Durban named as SA’s top city to live in
“Our municipality continuously strives to ensure that our 3.7 million residents enjoy an improved quality of life through the services we render." - Mayor Zandile Gumede.
FOR a third consecutive year, Durban been ranked as the top South African city with the highest quality of life in the international Mercer’s 19th Quality of Living survey.
Mayor Zandile Gumede said this proves that eThekwini Municipality has one of Africa’s best service delivery programmes and continues to make a positive impact in the lives of its residents. She also stated that in the past 23 years of South Africa’s democracy, the eThekwini Municipality had improved access to public services such as electricity, water, sanitation, roads, solid waste, community and emergency services and free basic services.
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The annual survey ranked Durban the best City in South Africa, placing it 87th in the world. This is followed closely by Cape Town and Johannesburg in 94th place and 96th place, respectively.
Last year, Durban achieved this accolade coming ahead of Cape Town and Johannesburg and was placed the Second Best City in Africa following Port Louis in Mauritius.
Vienna occupies first place for overall quality of living for the eighth year running, and the rest of the top 10 list was mostly filled by European cities: Zurich in second place, Munich in fourth, Dusseldorf in sixth, Frankfurt in seventh, Geneva in eighth, Copenhagen ninth, and Basel, a newcomer to the list, in 10th place. The only non-European cities in the top 10 are Auckland in third and Vancouver in fifth. The highest ranking cities in Asia and Latin America are Singapore in 25th and Montevideo in 79th.
Mercer’s authoritative survey is one of the world’s most comprehensive and is conducted annually to enable multinational companies and other organisations to compensate employees fairly when placing them on international assignments.
Mercer’s survey also includes a city infrastructure ranking that assesses each city’s supply of electricity, drinking water, telephone and mail services, and public transportation as well as traffic congestion and the range of international flights available from local airports. Singapore tops the city infrastructure ranking, followed by Frankfurt and Munich both in second place.
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