The world’s most liveable cities 2011: Australia and Canada dominate, is this biased?

The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) recently released their 2011 ranking of the world's most (and least) liveable cities. The big news was that Vancouver has, finally, been dethroned by both Melbourne and Vienna, and the hand-wringing reaction in British Columbia was immediate. It should be pointed out that the difference between the top three scores was only one-tenth of one percent: 97.5 for Melbourne, 97.4 for Vienna and 97.3 for Vancouver.  Vancouver cried foul about being penalized on infrastructure because a highway on Vancouver ISLAND experienced periodic closures (it's, facetiously, like London losing points for road problems on the Isle of Wight), but the EIU pointed out that the recent hockey riots in Vancouver hadn't been factored in. I wonder how that will affect the 2012 ranking...

Interesting (personally), Toronto was ranked #4, followed by Calgary.  In fact, seven of the top 10 cities are Australian and Canadian, with Auckland in New Zealand rounding out the list.  This reinforces a 2010 complaint levelled by the New York Times that "the Economist clearly equates livability with speaking English", although that advantage doesn't seem to help American or British cities…

So, is liveability is in the eye of the inhabitant? Or the statistician?

Source:

• EIU Global liveability report 2011