Economist Intelligence Study: Harare World's Worst City To Live In

By Angus Shaw -- The Associated Press

HARARE, Zimbabwe — A top research group on Thursday rated Zimbabwe's capital as the worst of 140 world cities in which to live.

The British-based Economist Intelligence Unit said its researchers excluded cities in Libya, Iraq and other war zones.

Harare, where power and water outages occur daily, scored a 38 percent "livability rating," the group said.

The group said the threat of civil unrest and the availability of public health care and public transport in Harare were intolerable. Energy and water supplies were undesirable, it said, calling phones and Internet services uncomfortable.

Zimbabwe formed a shaky coalition government in 2009 after years of political violence and economic meltdown. Melbourne and Vienna were rated the two easiest cities to live in.

The research group is a respected economic and risk consultancy linked to the Economist magazine.

The annual global cities survey advises companies on the level of hardship employees face and recommends pay adjustments for those who move to cities where living conditions are particularly difficult, with "excessive physical hardship or a notably unhealthy environment."

A livability rating – compiled onsite in the cities by experts and statisticians – given as 80 to 100 percent means there are few challenges to daily living standards such as housing, health, education and transportation. Fifty percent or less means most aspects of living are "severely restricted," the group said.

Harare's rating highlighted continuing "bleak prospects" for the capital's population of nearly two million, the survey said. It said quality housing was available for only the wealthy, and that quality private education was available in the city, but it is costly and takes good teachers away from Harare's impoverished government schools.

Cities across sub-Saharan Africa had an average livability rating of 50 percent, compared to 92 percent in Western Europe and 91 percent in North America.

PHOTOS: The World's Worst Cities To Live In ...

RATE IT!   |  

VOTE

Still OK

Worst For Sure

CURRENT TOP 5 PICK YOUR OWN TOP 5

USERS WHO VOTED

NEW! CREATE YOUR OWN SLIDESHOW

Comments

[joshu]

01:09 PM on 09/18/2011

This is a political and racist list. simple. Harare is worse than Kabul? and Port Moresby, in New Guinea? Personally, I would rather live without internet in Africa, than live in Gaza, or Baghdad, or Kandahar. Karachi should not be on that list either.

[mortonrchrd]

03:01 PM on 09/18/2011

Did you bother to read the story ? Or just look at the pictures ? It says in the text of the article that cities in war zones, ie Kandahar, Kabul, Baghdad were intentionally omitted...... That means left out. So you needn't go to wiktionary !

[cibersatan]

07:55 AM on 09/16/2011

I'll have to add Raleigh,NC to that list solely because of the Republican state assembly....love my Hurricanes tho!

[koelschwolf]

12:19 PM on 09/08/2011

At the time when Zimbabwe was still called Rhodesia it was also referred to as the bread basket of Africa, with a thriving economy and white farmers who ran their farms and ranches professionally and providing employment to locals. Look what it has become: a run down slum with people going hungry and without basic education, all the white famers driven out and their farms given to buddies of the ruling party, who had no idea of how to run a farm. They thought they could just sit back on the porch, with a beet in their hands and watch the produce grow.

[spazaustin]

02:39 PM on 09/07/2011

And what do all those cities have in common?

[AJOHMSS]

05:05 PM on 09/07/2011

What?

[russelltrust]

10:58 AM on 09/07/2011

To everyone who keeps saying, "What? No [American City Here] on the list?".

You're just a non-funny as the previous 10 people who already said the same unfunny joke.

[Chad Wheeler]

06:19 PM on 09/07/2011

It's insulting to people who actually have to live in those cities.

[JAMES GORMAN]

10:48 AM on 09/07/2011

well--three cheers: at least Kansas City,MO did not make the 150 world's worst cities list---
but we must have one of the worst ozone ratings in the U.S. plus teen-age shootings from
non-gang fights!! we need some kind of resposible study to determine what groups of teens'
are provoking violent outbursts to settle any kind of dispute from who insulted mother up to
where is my weed!!? we have more vigils by candle-light per capita, I am sure, than a
medieval Benedictine monastery with mid-night vigils of prayer as a rule. Good God!!
James McCormick, mere human in KC

[Lahonda]

11:29 PM on 09/06/2011

Yum!

[Tom in FTL]

10:47 PM on 09/06/2011

Miami isn't on the List???

[emphatico]

09:18 PM on 09/06/2011

For some reason, NONE of the cities in Eastern Europe makes the list. Anyone ever been to Eastern Europe? It is an area that the Western media (and economists) have, deliberately, chosen to ignore.

Don't you LOVE these "economists" and the media outlets that enable them?

Sure, all the cities shown are poor, but there are comparable levels of poverty in Eastern Europe as well, but no one would show them because it would veer off the narrative that "a certain group of people" have generated for decades....even centuries.

[Crystal McCree]

03:43 PM on 09/07/2011

F&F

[joshu]

01:16 PM on 09/18/2011

Excellent point. Again, this list is severely biased. There was a story, in the news of people stealing corpses from hospitals in Moldova to sell as beef on the street. Mogadishou is not even on the list.

[Y3rMawm]

09:04 PM on 09/06/2011

What?! No Fresno?

[cittidude2]

08:40 PM on 09/06/2011

What seems to be the common demographic?

Some things speak for themselves and yes, the truth can hurt.

[max daley]

05:53 AM on 09/07/2011

Poor?

[jimme]

02:54 PM on 09/06/2011

What ! no Detroit ?

[hlmonahan]

05:42 PM on 09/07/2011

I have lived all over the world and I would not traqde our worse city for the best city anywhere else. A lot of our cities are in bad repair and nothing to write home about it, I will put any one of them up before any other city in the world. Every time I have been to Germany I die at the smell of human garbage and the filth of Paris and then go on to worse places. Ours need cleaning and help, but unless people pay their taxes and the politics of this country help, it will only get worse for us.

[h23154]

01:31 PM on 09/06/2011

Port Morseby looks like a sewer. And Dhakar appears to have people using floating tires as public transportation. And Harare is worse?

[cibersatan]

07:35 AM on 09/16/2011

That was Port Morseby....looked like Cleveland, OH

[Ajax Johnson]

11:42 AM on 09/06/2011

Utica, NY has to be especially insulted that they were not even considered.

[pitciarn]

11:10 AM on 09/06/2011

Its a Shame, Zimbabwe used to be the self-sufficent orderly nation known as Rhodesia !!! I guess the ability to demand self rule is not matched by the talent required to ACTUALLY rule.

[qwr]

06:19 PM on 09/06/2011

The worst self-rule is preferable to being ruled by foreign overseers of another race, which can not be defended under any circumstances.

[Brian Eddie]

09:46 PM on 09/06/2011

Is it really though? What about foreign rulers of the same race? How about domestic rulers of a different race? After a century or so are they really foreign? I'm ruled by a half foreigner of a different race, and he isn't that bad.