Even as the city continues to donate crores to the state exchequer, Mumbai still loses out to the national capital on being the top spot to live in India
In yet another report, the 'Liveability Index 2010' prepared jointly by CII and Institute for Competitiveness, Delhi ranked number one as the best city to live in, followed by Mumbai, Chennai and Bengaluru. Pune ranked eighth.
Lucknow, Patna, Visakhapatnam and Jamshedpur are ranked lowest.
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Live and let live: Charles Correa once said that Bombay is a great city but a dreadful place to live in. FILE PIC |
This isn't the first time that Mumbai has lost out on rankings. In the Mercer Quality of Living Survey of 2009, Mumbai ranked at position 148 among 215 countries, trumped by both Delhi and Bangalore at position 142 and 145 respectively. The Ernst & Young report of 2007 also ranked Delhi as the best city to live in trumping Mumbai.
Retired top cop Julio Ribeiro feels that Mumbai's demographics are mostly to blame. "Delhi has much more open space for people. Here in Mumbai, it's only a small island and yet everyone's fighting for even the smallest inch of space. We have too many people in such a limited area," he said. Ribeiro however disagreed with the CII's findings that Delhi ranked on top in terms of safety environment. He said, "From my experience of having lived in North India as well as here, the sense of personal safety and security is far higher in Mumbai. This is especially in the case of women who feel far safer living and travelling in Mumbai than they would in Delhi."
Mumbai runner up
RTI activist Gerson da Cunha also says that it's hardly surprising that Mumbai's always the runner up. "Charles Correa once said that Bombay is a great city but a dreadful place to live in. He really summed up everything in that one statement. Mumbai is cruel to the young and the old. The trains are worse than those that took people to concentration camps. Young people leave and don't come back. Real estate space in the city ranks among the most costly spaces in the world. We've driven away our country's greatest painter. Artists, theatre people and other creative individuals adopt self censorship to ensure that their exhibitions are not vandalised or they are not harmed. We haven't been able to choose a Vice Chancellor for the University for over a year and the committee set up to elect this person was dismissed by the governor. Is it really any wonder then that we're never on the top of any list?"
| Survey says |
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Some of the parameters in the survey
>>Living standards
>>Socio-cultural environment
>>Education
>>Medical standards
>>Safety environment
>>Recreation
Space crisis
According to the norm, each city should have an average of four acres of open space per thousand people. Mumbai averages at 0.03 acres per thousand.
Vancouver best
Vancouver has again topped a list of the top 10 most liveable cities in the world, giving the Canadian west coast city an extra boost as it opens the 2010 Winter Olympics. In the annual survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit, Vancouver was followed by Vienna and Melbourne. Harare in Zimbabwe was ranked the worst. | | 
