Hey, every other city in Australia, feel the burn: the good people at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (that’s the OECD to you and me) have officially named Canberra the best city in the world.
Canberra may not have Melbourne‘s quirky laneway culture, Sydney‘s bustling world city vibe or Brisbane‘s … um … humidity and hills, but according to the OECD, it does lead the country in seven key areas.
The Sydney Morning Herald report that, according to their figures, Canberra came up trumps in the fields of: Health, Safety, Access to Services, Civil Engagement, Jobs, Environment and Income.
Don’t feel too bad, though, Toowong, Currajong, Tuggeranong, Mooloolaba and any other places we’ve failed to mention thus far – Australia came up trumps overall, meaning that of the 34 countries measured in the OECD’s Regional Well-Being report, we’re number one.
If you have the time and the inclination, you can head over to the official site for the Regional Well-Being report, which has a snazzy interactive map, allowing you to check out how people are living in different regions of the world
We’ve been playing with the map for a while now – for instance, we’ve learned that Queensland residents enjoy a similar level of well-being to those in France’s Limousin, and Sweden’s Småland with Islands. Go, Queensland!
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Across the board, Australia is among the world’s leaders in environment, income and civil engagement – that one’s a freebie, thanks to our nation’s compulsory voting system.
The Herald point out that, while there are some worrying signs – most notably a large regional disparity in health – “even the low performing regions in Australia [fare] better than the OECD average in all of the well-being measures.”
So there you go. Of course, being Aussies, we already knew that we were the duck’s nuts, but we now have permission to go about acting smugly and saying we told everyone so for the remainder of the week.
Photo: Stefan Postles via Getty Images
