the world most livable city is.....

If you want high quality of living, your best bet is going “Down Under” or the “Great White North.”

That’s according to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s ranking of 140 cities worldwide that “quantifies the challenges that might be presented to an individual’s lifestyle,” according to the report.

For the first time in a decade, Vancouver has been topped by the southern Australian city of Melbourne, based on metrics that weigh stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education and a city’s infrastructure.

The top 10 cities are:

1) Melbourne, Australia
2) Vienna, Austria
3) Vancouver, Canada
4) Toronto, Canada
5) Calgary, Canada
6) Sydney, Australia
7) Helsinki, Finland
8) Perth, Australia
9) Adelaide, Australia
10) Auckland, New Zealand

The report says that the top 63 cities – from Melbourne to the 63rd ranked city, Santiago, Chile – are in the “very top tier of livability, where few problems are encountered … presenting few, if any, challenges to residents’ lifestyles.”

At the bottom of the list:

1) Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire
2) Tehran, Iran
3) Douala, Cameroon
4) Karachi, Pakistan
5) Tripoli, Libya
6) Algiers, Algeria
7) Lagos, Nigeria
8) Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea
9) Dhaka, Bangladesh
10) Harare, Zimbabwe

The “Arab Spring” has hurt livability ratings of cities in the Middle East and North Africa, with Tripoli – which has unraveled into street fighting in recent weeks – ranking among the worst cities for the first time (the survey was done in July, before the rebel assault).

So what makes Australia and Canada so livable?