BERLIN – Frankfurt has emerged as the top German city in a survey on quality of urban life published this week.

But while the German banking capital beat the nation’s other leading cities, it came in only fifth in the annual survey produced by Mercer Human Resource Consulting on the quality of urban life worldwide with the Swiss cities of Zurich and Geneva jointly topping the list.

The report assesses places to live based on a range of criteria such as health, education, transport and safety as well as economic and environmental issues. The Iraqi capital Baghdad came in at bottom of the list of 215 cities.

The next German city on the list was Munich, which held on to its number 10 spot. This was followed by Duesseldorf at 12. Then came the German capital, Berlin, at 15.

Nuremberg rose from number 26 last year to number 20 this year. Hamburg also rose in its ranking from 26 to 24.

While there were very few changes to the top ten list of cities, anti-terrorism measures, including stepped up security, introduced by Us authorities has resulted in several American cities slipping down a notch in this year’s survey.

“Increased security checks on arrivals and departures from the country can be very time-consuming for expatriates,” the survey said.

In releasing the survey, Mercer said Geneva’s move up from the two slot to joint number one with Zurich in parted reflected the city’s schools and educational standards which the group said are among the best in the world.

                                             Copyright Expatica 2004

Subject: German News