Haifa Ranks 187th in Global 'Happiest Cities' Index

The British-based Institute for Quality of Life has released its "Happiest Cities in the World" ranking, which includes Haifa as the sole Israeli representative at 187th place out of 251 cities. The index evaluates cities based on measurable criteria such as income, health, urban infrastructure, and governance, utilizing approximately 64 different parameters.

The research involved 466 academics worldwide and analyzed over 3,400 cities. Initially, 25 Israeli cities were considered, with 16 undergoing deeper analysis. Haifa and Jerusalem were the only ones to qualify for the overall ranking due to having comprehensive, reliable, and transparent data. Following further evaluation of data quality, only Haifa remained.

Haifa performed well globally in areas like urban innovation, the percentage of residents with academic degrees, foreign language proficiency, elderly home care, employment in creative fields, GDP growth per capita, low youth unemployment, and library density. However, the city lagged in others, including the cost of higher education relative to wages, student-to-building ratios in schools, limited cultural facilities per capita, air quality, low recycling rates, fewer businesses per capita, fewer parental leave days, and murder rates.

Copenhagen topped the "gold" category of the ranking, followed by Helsinki and Geneva. Other cities in the top ten included Uppsala, Tokyo, Trondheim, Bern, Malmö, Munich, and Aarhus. Notably, Kyiv was symbolically placed last without a score to highlight the impact of ongoing Russian attacks.

The researchers stated that the ranking only includes cities with comparable data, which may explain the absence of other Israeli cities. London ranked 193rd, New York 207th, and Bucharest 247th, with Guadalajara, Mexico, at 250th.