UN experts recognize Moscow best metropolis in terms of quality of life

Moscow has been name the best in the world in terms of infrastructure development and quality of life according to UN-Habitat's City Prosperity Index (CPI), as Sergei Sobyanin stated in his blog.

“The fact that our city is recognized as the world leader in quality of life and infrastructure development reflects a fair assessment of the huge positive changes taking place in Moscow. The CPI does not give Moscow any formal advantages, but it helps challenge the existing stereotypes and proves that we are on the right track. It will also come in handy in the competition between the world’s largest megacities. For example, the host city for World Expo 2030 is going to be chosen soon. Moscow is among the candidates. And the fact that our achievements have been recognized by the UN will undoubtedly help us win the bid to host the largest forum displaying achievements in science, technology and culture on our planet,” said the Mayor of Moscow.

The short version of the relevant document was published by UN-Habitat, the United Nations Human Settlements Program for sustainable urban development. The full text with a detailed description of the methodology and datasheet will be available on March 31.

Moscow performed strongly in healthcare, education, science and technology, culture and leisure, safety and public spaces. The experts also noted the well-developed housing, social, transport and ICT infrastructure in Moscow.

Moreover, according to a comprehensive assessment, Moscow is ranked third most prosperous megacity in the world, coming behind Singapore and Toronto. The top ten cities also include Sydney, London, Paris, Madrid, Shanghai, Hong Kong and New York.

For several years, experts from UN-Habitat and Centro EURE had been analyzing the performance of 54 largest cities in the world, with 29 megacities representing all continents being included in the final index. The experts compared them in the following dimensions: economic productivity, infrastructure development, quality of life, equality and social inclusion, environmental sustainability, administration and legislation. Balance among these indicators was also taken into account.

The index is intended to assess the progress of cities around the world with regard to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. These are 17 interconnected goals adopted by the UN General Assembly as the blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all. They include ensuring good health and well-being, developing infrastructure, introducing innovation, providing quality education for all and many more.

“UN-Habitat experts aim to develop a universal index of achievements of cities around the world to be based on prosperity – high quality of life and equal opportunities for all citizens in harmony with the environment. We appreciate and understand the approach adopted by UN-Habitat to measure the quality of urban life. Because the Moscow development program is centered around interests and needs of all citizens,” Sergei Sobyanin stressed.

The City Prosperity Index was first published in 2015 and then was halted until 2022. However, studies on the development of some cities based on its methodology were published for several years.