Adelaide has been named the country’s most liveable city for the third year running, dominating other state’s capital cities in a poll conducted by the Property Council of Australia.

The results of the PCA’s My City: The People’s Verdict crowned the South Australia capital as the country’s top place to inhabit out of 11 different city centres, followed closely by the Canberra.

Darwin took out the country’s least liveable city in the survey of the country’s major metropolitan areas, with Sydney just scraping in front of the Territory capital.

Newcastle and Hobart both posted signicant increases to their liveability scores, while Perth fell dramatically from fourth place to third last.

“This is the people’s verdict on their own city – a report card for governments on how liveable our cities are,” Property Council Chief Executive, Peter Verwer, said.

“Australians have given their verdict – they want more liveable cities and they know that the performance of our cities is critical for our future economic prosperity.

“Australians know what makes a city great and they continue to rate our cities poorly in housing affordability, environmental sustainability, congestion and public transport.

“These results should be a wake up call for governments to lift the performance of our cities.”

 

Australians scored their cities highly on the following attributes:

  • recreational outdoor environments (80% average city approval);
  • natural environments (76% average city approval);
  • school and educational facilities (72% average city approval); and
  • vibrant cultural scene and good climate (68% each average city approval).

  • But Australians were unimpressed by their city’s performance in the following areas:
  • providing quality affordable housing (37% average city approval).
  • environmental sustainability and climate change (39% average city approval);
  • public transport services (42% average city approval);
  • roads and traffic congestion (42% average city approval).

 

The report also shows an overwhelming majority of Australians support Federal Government action to improve our cities, particularly in investing in major infrastructure and putting in place incentives and penalties to encourage State and Local Government to plan our cities better.

“In this federal election year, the onus is on the political parties to respond to the survey with policies to address the growing problems in our cities” Mr Verwer said.

“We need a nation-wide effort to boost the performance of our cities to meet the challenges of the future: population, housing, infrastructure and a strong economy.

The full report can be found here