Bangladesh鈥檚 capital Dhaka ranked sixth least liveable city among 173 cities in the world, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit report 2024.
The city of 20 million people dropped two places to 168th in the report as it ranked 166th in the past year.
This index assesses the liveablity of the cities where Dhaka ranks just above Karachi, which is the only city of South Asia, ranked in the list of bottom 10 positions. Karachi is 169th on the list.
The influential ranking is based on five broad categories 鈥� political and social stability, access to healthcare, culture and environment, education and infrastructure in a city.
Dhaka鈥檚 score also dropped to 43.0 points which was 43.8 last year. It scored 50 in stability, 41.7 in healthcare, 40.5 in culture and environment, 66.7 in education and 26.8 in infrastructure.
Austria鈥檚 Vienna (98.4) named as the most liveable city of the world by EIU followed by Copenhagen (98.0) in Denmark and 3rd most liveable city of the world Switzerland鈥檚 Zurich (97.1).
Damascus in Syria, marked 13 years of the civil war this year, remained the world鈥檚 least liveable city. War ravaged another city Tripoli of Libya ranked the 2nd worst liveable cities of the world.
On a regional average, Western Europe remains the best-performing region for liveability, according to the EIU.
Former president of Bangladesh Institute of Planners and Jahangirnagar University Urban Planning professor Akter Mahmud said that he did not see any sign of improving the situation shortly.
He suggested the government making the city authorities accountable because the worst situation arose due to their negligence over the decades.
He expressed fear that the situation might worsen in future due to climate change if actions were not taken properly.
He identified poor housing, insufficient road, unavailability of footpath, crisis of public transportation, traffic congestion, air and water pollution, lack of open space, lack of spaces for cultural practices, absence of draining management, among other factors behind the worst liveability of the city.
Dhaka North City Corporation chief executive officer Mir Khairul Alam said that the corporation was planting trees for creating greenery and tackling air pollution, cleaning canals to check water pollution and imposing mandatory fecal sludge management for each household.
He hoped that the situation would improve soon.
