İstanbul, the only city in Turkey included in the The Economist Intelligence Unit’s (EIU) Global Liveability Index 2022, has been ranked last among 38 cities in Europe, local media reported on Thursday.
According to the survey, which reviews stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education and infrastructure factors to determine liveability rankings for cities worldwide, İstanbul was the least liveable city in Europe with 57.7 points.
Vienna was the most liveable with 99.1 points, followed by Copenhagen (98 points), Zurich (96,3 points), Geneva (95.9 points) and Frankfurt (95.7 points), the survey also showed.
The least liveable cities in Europe also included Baku (58.3 points), Bucharest (65 points), St. Petersburg (68.2 points) and Sofia (68.6 points).
The economist report covering the survey said the “increasingly authoritarian” leadership under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the president of Turkey, as well as “eye-watering inflation” have dampened the quality of life in the country’s largest city and commercial hub.
According to data from the İstanbul Chamber of Commerce (İTO), retail prices in the city increased 4.09 percent month-on-month in July, for an annual rate of 99.11 percent, the city’s highest inflation since February 1998.
The gap between inflation in İstanbul and Turkey’s official inflation rate, which climbed to a 24-year high of 80.21 percent in August — the highest in 24 years — is increasing every month, according to Turkish media reports.