SINGAPORE: Singapore is the second-safest city in the world, according to an index by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).
The third edition of the Safe Cities Index was released on Thursday (Aug 29), with Tokyo ranking first out of 60 cities across five continents for the third time in a row. Other Asia-Pacific cities in the top 10 are Osaka (3rd), Sydney (5th), Seoul (tied 8th) and Melbourne (10th).
Cities are ranked according to their performance in 57 indicators across four pillars – digital, infrastructure, health and personal security.
Singapore ranked first in the world for both infrastructure and personal security, coming in second for digital security.
Source: EIU
Tokyo recorded the strongest performance in the digital security category, and also rose eight places in the infrastructure security category from the previous edition of the index in 2017.
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“Overall, while wealth is among the most important determinants of safety, the levels of transparency – and governance – correlate as closely as income with index scores,” said EIU senior editor Naka Kondo, editor of this year’s report on the Safe Cities Index.
The research also shows how different types of safety are intertwined, said Ms Kondo, pointing out that it is rare to have a city with good results in one safety pillar and lagging in others.
Six of the top 10 safest cities are in the Asia-Pacific region – however, the EIU says that a city’s region does not have any statistically significant relationship with its performance in the index.
“Although APAC cities such as Tokyo, Singapore and Osaka continue to rank within the top three cities in the Index, the region also hosts some of the lowest-scoring cities in the world, with Yangon, Karachi and Dhaka close to the bottom of the list,” said Ms Kondo.
She added that although Asia-Pacific cities perform well in the health security, infrastructure security and personal security categories, North American cities generally fare better in digital security, accounting for seven of the top 10 cities in this category.
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The EIU index, sponsored by NEC this year, was revised to better capture “urban resilience” – defined as the ability of cities to absorb and bounce back from shocks – as the concept has had an increasing influence on thinking in urban safety over the last decade, especially as policymakers worry about the implications of climate change.
In the index’s previous editions in 2017 and 2015, Singapore also ranked second both times.
EIU Safe Cities Index 2019:
1. Tokyo
2. Singapore
3. Osaka
4. Amsterdam
5. Sydney
6. Toronto
7. Washington, DC
8. Copenhagen
9. Seoul
10. Melbourne
