Singapore ranked 70th best place to live in the world after Romania
January 17th, 2010 | 
Author: Written by Our Correspondent
Singapore is ranked the 70th best place in the world to live in based on the Quality of Life index computed yearly by Ireland-based magazine “International Living”. (read report here)
The index is produced based on the following nine categories: cost of living, culture and leisure, economy, environment, freedom, health, infrastructure, safety and risk and climate.
Each country in each category is graded on a curve and it is scored relative to every other country. The scores run 0 to 100 for each category. This means the country that gets 0 is the worst in that category, and the country that gets 100 is the best.
The data is collated from official government sources, the World Health Organization, The Economist, and many other journals, tables, and records.
Below is Singapore’s scores for each category:
While Singapore scores high on risk and safety, health and infrastructure, it scores poorly in environment and freedom, bringing down its final score to a mediocre 61.
Environment and Freedom each contributed 10 per cent to the countries’ overall score:
Environment (10%). To figure a country’s score in this category, we look at population density per square kilometer, population growth rate, greenhouse emissions per capita, and the percentage of total land that is protected.
Freedom (10%). Freedom House’s survey is the main source for these scores, with an emphasis on a citizen’s political rights and civil liberties.
In contrast, Romania which was in the spotlight recently in Singapore over the double hit-and-run road traffic accident involving a Romanian diplomat Dr Silviu Ionescu was ranked 53th, 17 positions ahead of Singapore:
The 5 most desirable places to live in the world are France, Australia, Switzerland, Germany and New Zealand. Singapore is ranked below Japan, South Korea and Taiwan among Asian countries.
Singapore’s leaders have always boasted of their accomplishment of transforming Singapore from third to first world country within a few decades, but if Singapore is really a first world country, why is it ranked among third world countries in terms of quality of life?
It is highly unlikely that this damning report will be published by the Singapore media. Neither will anybody from the ruling party respond to it.
They will probably dismiss it as quite “dissociated from reality” to borrow the words of Law Minister K Shanmugam. But International Living is read widely by Europeans and Americans and they may have a poor perception of Singapore based on the report.
If Singapore really wishes to attract first class talents around the world and not just uneducated peasants from China or India, it needs to improve on the two categories of environment and freedom where it performed particularly badly.
A world class healthcare, infrastructure and economy is not everything that people look for in life. They also yearn for civil and political liberties for them to play a meaningful role in society.
Singapore has a first world economy ruled by a petty third world dictatorship. We cannot claim our rightful place as a developed country in the world so long our archaic, oppressive and obsolete political system remains in place to perpetuate the rule of a particular group of self-serving, power-hungry elites with little participation in nation-building from the rest of the people.
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28 Responses to “Singapore ranked 70th best place to live in the world after Romania”
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Alex Tan Allan Ooi AWARE Chee Soon Juan Chiam See Tong Claire Lee David Widjaja DBS Dr Allan Ooi Dr Silviu Ionescu Dr Vivian Balakrishnan Foyce Le Xuan highnote5 Hong Lim Park Jack Lin Xinli Jack Neo Jack Neo affair Jack Neo scandal Josie Lau Josie Lau Meng Lee Lee Kuan Yew Lehman brothers Lighthouse Evangelism MAS minibonds Miss Singapore World NTU stabbing PAP Pastor Rony Tan Ris Low Romanian diplomat in hit-and-run Rony Tan S-League silviu ionescu Singapore Singapore 2010 Youth Olympic Games Tan Kin Lian Thio Su Mien Tiger Woods affair Tong Kok Wai Top 8 Vivian Balakrishnan Wendy Chong Y O G Youth Olympic Games
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Straits Times only highlight praises of S’pore or PAP, but blackout negative stuff about S’pore or PAP.
70th? I think that is just about right.
As a matter of fact . The life cycle for working adults is from graduate to 40 years old . Average graduate age is about 25 years and you have only 15 years to earn income before you will joint the rest ( 40 and above ) driving taxis , cleaners , sweepers or jobless . Your HDB repayment will have a BIG issue .This is real fact .
THE MORE foreigners, mostly the country are worst than third world standard. Many of them, change singapore into a labour cheap city only. THERE are no updating of foreigners as they are mainly from china, and with their standard. THE toilet that they use already turn into a world of their own standard.
Singapore are getting more like a jungle and without control of foreigners. THERE a one million foreigners living in singapore, and they are not here to stay, but to change singapore into a worst city of the world. PAP only interest are money and money only. As PAP members they have a second home somewhere better than singapore. SINGAPOREAN are paying the price for voting the PAP again and again.
Our govt is really out of touch with the citizens.
The ‘disconnect’ cannot be made more obvious than the statements they put out each time to defend themselves whether it is Ministers’ pay, HDB, foreign workers’ policies, etc.
Anyone want to bet, Straits Times going to publish another set of ranking from another publisher to spin Singapore as the top place to live in?
As an expat who has lived as an expat in 5 international cities now (New York, London, Hong Kong, Seoul, Singapore) I can say without a doubt that Singapore has been the worst experience and the only place that my family and I can not see ourselves staying in for the long run. The costs here are way too high for what you get. The entire city feels like just shopping malls, it is incredibly boring compared to everywhere I have lived and the lack of freedom here completely ruins the entire culture (or lack thereof).
Is that why some romanian decide to leave singapore?
Luxembourg with only half a million people is ranked 6th in the world, even above the US.
Imagine if they had ministers like MM, SM and PM, the population would boom to 6 million, comprising an additional 5.5.m foreigners and the country will be ranked 70 or below.
Now, who says we need 6 million people to survive. We should also ask MM/SM/PM whether their ministers are paid exorbitant salaries in order to get their country to number 6th in the world.
No wonder Goh C.K. is calling us sheep because he is constantly pulling wool over our eyes.
PAP is incompetent. Period.
“The ‘disconnect’ cannot be made more obvious than the statements they put out each time to defend themselves whether it is Ministers’ pay, HDB, foreign workers’ policies, etc.”
他们是牙尖嘴利，强词夺理！
People don’t live in countries… they live in cities or towns. Comparing the environment of Singapore to, say, New Zealand, doesn’t make sense. Nor does comparing the population density.
The methodology seems a bit biased against city states. Likewise a reduced carbon footprint would tend to indicate a lower standard of living rather than a higher one – sad but true. Everyone could turn off their aircons and we would go up a notch in the ratings but our quality of life may not be better.
Most of the other scores seem about right except for infrastructure. Check out the report. The US got 100 for infrastructure? Seriously? I’ve lived in 4 of the countries ranked above Singapore in infrastructure and their is no way they rank better. Spend one Canadian winter using public transportation and you will know this rank is suspect.
I think it will take more than this silly report to make the government question their success.
“If Singapore really wishes to attract first class talents around the world and not just uneducated peasants from China or India…”
This is stereotyping. Most Indian & Chinese nationals can actually read & write.
And this statement reeks of class divide (”peasants”?). Clearly the writer is no different from the PAP elites.
literacy is not the same as education
TR,
notice that SinCity can only attract those worst off its ranking eg China and India, and not those before it. No wonder SinCity is getting worst !
climate = 39
the survey is dumb
hahaha maybe that is why the Romanian diplomat fled to Romania cos Singapore sucks
SG=61, Malaysia=58, the difference not too big….
So the prostitutes in Toa Payoh brothel did not print this?
I am a Canadian who has never been to S’pore, but I am fascinated by the country and plan on visiting when I get a chance.
I am honestly quite shocked by this survey – it’s a very interesting mix of impressively high scores along with obviously low ones as well.
Ultimately though, I commend Singapore for its incredibly impressive safety and low crime record, along with excellent health care and economy for a city-state.
Some of the low scores are a bit hard to consider fair. Environment, for example, cannot compare a city-state to that of entire nations. Singapore is barely the size of the city of Toronto. How many hundreds of singapores would fit within Canada based on size? Maybe thousands? You cannot compare the two based on many of these determining factors in the survey.
HOWEVER: The one thing that always has, and always will, leave a dim and unfortunate light on Singapore in my eyes is the freedom category. As a Canadian I value my personal liberty more than anything else. Please don’t confuse this with the American perception of “liberty” which is hollow at best. Canada is by no means perfect and has a long way to go, but some of Singapores laws are simply draconian.
Marijuana laws for instance – mandatory death penalties for certain amounts!? That’s a shame. Please don’t start telling me about how this is saving your country from poverty, crime and death, because you may as well be executing people over cigars and alcohol as well.
Caning is another example. Even with your so called “perfect” low crime rate, at what cost is it at? You need to balance the rights of the people with the freedom and libery of the people as well.
Overall though I think S’pore deserved higher on this list.
-a canadians observation
Congrats, Singaporeans!
We can:
1) Leave
2) Do nothing
3) Change our ranking
It is up to us now, NOT one of us but ALL of us.
I am not here to support or damn this TR report here. Just want to point out that some of these studies can be quite biased. The indices are mostly based on one group of judging panel, comprising of most probably a group of like-minded individuals who look at things in their own perspective. One of the classical example is those university rankings. If u look at those universities that fall behind our NUS or NTU, they are actually very good ones in certain areas like science, medicine, arts & social science, etc. Some even produce prominant political figures or Nobel Prize winners. Till now i still don’t really understand how they come to such a grading standard & conclusion. There must be some emphasis on certain variables & others are being played down (here again, biaseness comes into picture). Usually i dun just take all these rankings seriously, just for my own info only.
Bai Hu
You are absolutely right.
For example to rank Harvard as No. 1 ! Probably the head of the panel doing the ranking must be an American, and probably from Harvard himself !
I know of Harvard prodigies who have also gone down the drain when they entered the commercial world. Like I said before many times, its the students who make and carry the name of the schools, not the other way round which most people presume. Put it this way, if all the students with the best brains in the world chose to enter NUS then NUS will become a celebrated institutions the world over in no time. And if such students chose to go to say Nantah, then it’s the turn of Nantah to be elevated to cloud nine.
People who sit on panel of judges to rank whatever the scope of their subject is ALWAYS have an agenda, bear that in mind.
“I am a Canadian who has never been to S’pore, but I am fascinated by the country and plan on visiting when I get a chance.”
If you love Zombie movie but without the horrendous rotting body and decomposing smell, you will love Singapore. The moment you step into SinCity, you will see modern Zombies whose live in fear and meaningless life. These zombies are been engineered because the gov themselves comprised of high-paid zombie who prefer to rule Zombie rather than human. Zombie can’t protest, zombie can only harbour fear, Zombie can’t think and question, Zombie can only blog behind anonymity (not that they have a choice), Zombies can only watch their CPF and state assets go down in drain and yet feel helpless to do anything, Zombie can’t have human right and democracy because they are zombie.
Welcome to ZombieLand !
damn the not working torpedoes…just ram the goddamn target!!
70 position…remember folks they intend to squeeze another million or so to hit their 6.5 million target…
never mind if the infastructure is not enough, never mind where more portable drinking water is coming from, never mind the strain on the hospitals, public transport etc etc…
never mind never mind…
What kind of farking policy makers and decision makers is the PAP govern’t leveraging on….it is all just numbers….
Dun just look at the goddamn reports or statistics or wool over eye presentations…go out there damn it, walk the ground, talk the ground, see the ground, touch the ground etc etc…
Are you still a human being….or masquarading as one!
Haiz.
@Exposer
All jokes aside, you rose an interesting question I would like someone to answer for me: Do Singaporeans have the right to protest? Are strikes/unions/protests common/legal in Singapore?
thanks
Hi eh,
I am a Singaporean living in Coquitlam BC.
I am not sure my answer would sound like a joke to you but why would Singaporean want to protest/strikes?
In fact many Singaporeans believe they are living in Shangri-la, so why create trouble/problem for the country?
Protest if any, are viewed very negatively by Singaporeans and they are illegal everywhere on the island, except for one little “Speaker Corner” called Hong Lim Green.
GCT didnt you publically promised Singaporeans Swiss standards of living when you were PM?
Where are we now har?
Failed to deliver?
then how come you still have the cheek to hang around in government and collect those millions of dollars pay when you failed on such a major promise and not even a word of apology?
Last week in the asia forum I blame the root of evil of this increase of STD brought by govt from their influx of prostitution into Singapore.Early in the morning they omiited the thread and I asked why this important issue was taken out and the readmit it in the evening.This is very pathetic to open a forum but scard of crititism