Uploaded on 2017-05-23 by ADEOYE ADEMITILEWA

1.Livability is a subjective phenomenon and hence is perceived differently by different people. That being said, livability in my opinion, refers to the suitability of an area for habitation. This means the availability of opportunity, housing and other factors necessary to live adequately. 2. My ranking of the terms is as follows: 1.Opportunity 2. Housing 3. Transportation 4. Health 5. Environment 6. Neighborhood 7. Engagement 3. The three cities I chose are : Springfield(Illinois), Columbus(Ohio) and Saint Paul(Minnesota). 4. Livability scores : Springfield - 59, Columbus - 56, Saint Paul – 67 5. Springfield 59-67(+8), Columbus 56-55(-1), Saint Paul 67-49 (-18) 6. Due to conditions in my state/country of residence(Lagos, Nigeria), opportunity is the most important to me. This is the major cause of migration to Lagos. People come from rural areas to find opportunity and sometimes have no plan for housing. They just have to make it. People live on the mainland and wake up as early as 4am to go to jobs on the island that resume at 8/9am. Without opportunity, we have no means to earn and buy homes and take care of our health etc. Opportunity is the most important factor in my ranking. The scores of livability of Columbus and Saint Paul went down while the score of Springfield went up after shifting the bars according to my ranking. The differences in the customized livability scores of Springfield increased by 8 points, that of Columbus dropped by only one point and that of Saint Paul dropped by 18 points. What can/does this mean? This change possibly means that opportunity is more available in Springfield than it is in the other two cities. I think that population affects the availability of opportunity, this is why I looked up the population(2014) of the three cities. Their respective populations are: Springfield -116,809, Columbus-835,957 and Saint Paul - 297,640. There seems to be less competition for the available opportunity in Springfield due to the low population. Columbus seems to have relatively adequate opportunity available for its booming population. I might be wrong but Saint Paul appears to be less urbanized, having more countryside characteristics. Hence, despite it having a significantly lower population than Columbus, it seems to have less opportunity. If I were to choose a place to live based on these alone, it would most likely be Springfield(IL).