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Manila ranks 3rd among cities with lowest qualities of life

Philstar.com

October 7, 2019 | 11:11am

Manila ranks 3rd among cities with lowest qualities of life

Commuters jostle with each other to ride on a passenger jeepney as transport strike starts in Manila on September 30, 2019, as the government move to phase out iconic vehicle. Jeepneys once hailed as the King of the Road they are a cultural symbol in the Philippines to rival New York’s yellow taxis — and for decades they provide cheap and regular transport for millions, but may soon disappear from Manila’s gridlocked streets as authorities move to phase out the Philippines’ iconic World War II-era minibuses, citing pollution and safety concerns.

AFP / Jam Sta. Rosa

MANILA, Philippines — Manila ranks 3rd among 56 cities in the world with the lowest quality of life, according to research from Deutsche Bank released in May.

Based on index ranks from online database Numbeo, the city with the lowest quality of life is Lagos (Nigeria), followed by Beijing (China) and Manila (Philippines).

Manila also recorded relatively low rankings in other indices — purchasing power (53rd), safety (46th), health care (45th), property price to income ratio (45th), traffic commute time (51st), pollution (54th) and climate (47th).

Cities with the lowest quality of life:

1.???????? Lagos
2.???????? Beijing
3.???????? Manila
4.???????? Dhaka
5.???????? Jakarta
6.???????? Mumbai
7.???????? Rio de Janeiro
8.???????? Cairo
9.???????? Shanghai
10.???????? Sao Paulo

(Deutsche Bank, 2019)
— World Index (@theworldindex) October 5, 2019

The country's capital, however, ranked 10th out of 56 countries in the cost-of-living index.

Cities with the highest quality of life are Zurich (Switzerland), Wellington (New Zealand), Copenhagen (Denmark), Edinburgh (United Kingdom) and Vienna (Austria).

Monthly salary

The Deutsche Bank report also found that Manila ranks 50th out of 55 cities on the worth of monthly salary (net of taxes).

The study showed that the net monthly salary in Manila in 2018 was at $498 while it slid to $480 in 2019, recording a 4% year-on-year change.

San Francisco (United States) came out as the city with the highest monthly salary in the world with $6,526 monthly pay. Zurich (Switzerland) ranks second with $5,896 followed by New York (US) with $4,612, Boston (US) with $4,288 and Chicago (US) with $3,740.

Cities with the lowest salaries are Cairo (Egypt) with a net monthly salary of $206, Lagos (Nigeria) with $236, Jakarta (Indonesia) with $362, Dhaka (Bangladesh) with $375 and Istanbul (Turkey) with $433.

Deutsche Bank collected its data from secondary sources and surveying prices posted online.

The firm clarified that most sources used crowdsourcing to collect and aggregate data. For the quality of life index, Numbeo uses data based on a survey conducted online.

"While this methodology provides them with regular data updates from a large sample, there may be issues with data quality and consistency over time. As a result some data points in our report may also be somewhat inconsistent over time although we tried to adjust for outliers where possible," Deutsche said. — Patricia Lourdes Viray