Haifa Ranks 187th in Global "Happiest Cities" Index

Haifa has been included in a British research institute's "Happiest Cities in the World" list, securing the 187th position out of 251 cities worldwide. The ranking, compiled by the Institute for Quality of Life, evaluates cities based on measurable criteria such as income, health, urban living, and governance. Haifa is the sole Israeli representative in this year's index, which was presented at a public launch event in the British Parliament.

The methodology involved researchers assessing approximately 64 different parameters across thousands of cities globally. The final list comprises cities for which comparable data was available. While 25 Israeli cities were initially considered, and 16 underwent deeper analysis, only Haifa and Jerusalem met the criteria for comprehensive, reliable, and transparent data. Following further evaluation of data quality, only Haifa remained for the final ranking.

Haifa performed notably well in areas including urban innovation, the percentage of residents with academic degrees, foreign language proficiency, elderly care at home, employment in creative fields, GDP growth per capita, low youth unemployment, and library density. However, the city also showed weaknesses in factors such as the cost of higher education relative to wages, large class sizes, a low number of cultural facilities per capita, air quality, low recycling rates, fewer businesses per capita, limited parental leave, and its murder rate.

Copenhagen topped the "gold" category of the top 50 cities, followed by Helsinki and Geneva. Other cities ranked include Tokyo, Bern, and Munich. Major global cities like London (193rd) and New York (207th) also featured lower down the list. Kyiv was symbolically placed last (251st) without a score to highlight the impact of ongoing Russian attacks.

The researchers noted that the exclusion of other Israeli cities might be due to a lack of comparable data. The study involved 466 researchers from around the world.