Uploaded on 2017-01-26 by Patricia Cazorla

According to me, the five most liveable cities are: Wien, Leuven, Weimar, Amsterdam and Rotherdam. Firstly, stability. A good political social and economic environment allow people planning to long-term. Secondly, safety that refers to level of violence and criminal rates in the city. Healthcare, that considers the availability, quality and affordability of public and private health service and infrastructure. Education, refers to the availability, quality and affordability of public and private education. And finally infrastructure, local, national and regional connectivity, public transport, no motorized modes, telecommunication networks, etc. Cuenca, Ecuador. The political environment has many uncertainties since this is an electoral year. This affects the economy considering that tourism, and the exportation of flowers, textiles and panama hats are the principal income source. Corruption is an important concern too. The violence level and criminal rates have increased in the past three years, however the police force has acquired more advanced equipment and systems to search and capture criminals in an effective way. People feels safe walking during the daylight but during night it is considered dangerous. With respect to healthcare, around 60% of the population has not any medical care at all. Public hospitals are equipped very good for modern diagnosis and treatment, but due to administration problems, there are shortage of medicines and the service quality (Friendliness and courtesy of the staff) is deficient. Private medical-care is very expensive, then it is affordable only for the high economic class. Cuenca has one public and three private universities. Since 2008 the new education law has allowed to many professionals leave to study abroad and now they comeback to apply their knowledge in our city. Private education is very expensive too. Regarding to infrastructure, Cuenca is located in the Sierra, on the South of the country, and surrounded by mountains on all sides. It has good connectivity with the rest of the country. The coverage of electricity is around 98%, drinking water 80%, sanitation 61%, garbage disposal 77%, telephony 40.7% and internet 12%. The spatial cover of the public transport service with respect to the urban territory is 77,5%, while the population cover is 92%. This means that in the urban area there is at least one bus stop within a radius of 300 m and that 8% of the population is not served. Currently, the public transport supply entails buses, taxis, pickups and in 2017 the local government has announced the operation of the LRT 4 Ríos. According to some studies, the vehicular sector is responsible for the 85% of CO2 emissions. Our electricity is mainly produced by hydro sources, therefore replacing all combustion engines in cars with electrical drives should improve sustainability. An important source of noise is the airport and the industrial zone, that due to the expansion of the city they are located inside the density area, then relocating the airport and the industrial zone far away of the city center and establishing efficient paths should be another measure to improve sustainability. Source: http://www.ecuadorencifras.gob.ec//wp-content/descargas/Manu-lateral/Resultados-provinciales/azuay.pdf