Osaka ranked third “best city”
Written by Kate Maruyama, CET Japan and Vietnam Programs Manager.
(Osaka Castle’s garden, Osaka Castle behind the garden.)
I lived in Osaka for over three years and always said it was the best place in Japan—it has access to modern and traditional Japan; it is a large city so it has access almost everything; English is spoken a little, but you really get to you use your Japanese; pollution isn’t bad and there is some green space; the people are particularly friendly; it’s a manageable scale; etc. Now, my long-held personal opinion that Osaka is a great city has been confirmed. The Economist Intelligence Unit ranked Osaka the third “best city” in the world after Hong Kong and Amsterdam. Tokyo was ranked tenth.
The Economist Intelligence Unit and BuzzData held a competition to combine Worldwide Cost of Living and Liveability surveys and other sources into a unique ranking methodology of “best cities.” The winning survey entry by Filippo Lovato focuses on a city’s spatial characteristics and judged cities based on green spaces, sprawl, natural assets, cultural assets, connectivity, isolation, and pollution. The heavy emphasis on connectedness in particular meant that Hong Kong was ranked number one, above many cities often ranked high in the standard liveability index such as Amsterdam (number two), Sydney (number five), and Berlin (number six).
My current home and the main office of CET Academic Programs, Washington, DC, was ranked 15. Other CET study abroad locations ranked as follows: Beijing (30), Shanghai (33), and Ho Chi Minh City (60). The remainder of CET locations were not ranked, but I wonder where they would’ve fallen…For access to the full report, see http://www.eiu.com/site_info.asp?info_name=about_eiu.
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