托福阅读材料(170)：最宜居城市——墨尔本

　　托福阅读背景材料/知识之墨尔本获评最宜居城市，更多托福阅读背景材料/知识尽在新东方在线托福考试频道！

　　如果可以选择，你愿意去哪个城市生活呢？据统计，墨尔本获评最宜居城市，这也难怪有些中国学生仅因为环境的问题，选择了去澳大利亚留学。

　　Australia may have been trounced by Britain at the Olympics but its dejected sports stars can take some comfort from the fact that their cities have been judged far better places to live.

　　Melbourne is the best city in the world to live in while Sydney, Adelaide and Perth also make the top 10 and Brisbane comes in at number 20, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit global “liveability” study.

　　By contrast there is not a single British city in the top 50. London, basking in the afterglow of the hugely successful Games that saw Team GB reach third place in the medal table, is judged to be just the 55th most desirable place to live in the world and has fallen in the rankings after last summer’s riots.

　　Manchester remains Britain’s best city according to the study, which looks at crime levels, education, health care, culture and infrastructure, but it also dropped points to reach number 51 following the widespread looting and disorder that reached its shopping centres last August.

　　The EIU first began ranking cities to test whether or not companies should pay staff a hardship allowance if they make employees relocate to a different country.

　　Its researchers look at how “tolerable” it is to live in a particular place given its crime levels, threat of conflict, quality of medical care, levels of censorship, temperature, schools and transport links.

　　In the latest rankings for 2012, Melbourne came top having overtaken Vancouver in Canada.

　　Australia’s second city is famed for its sporting events, although is perhaps still best known in Britain as the setting for the soap opera Neighbours.

　　According to the EIU Melbourne came close to recording a “perfect score” with a liveability rating of 97.5 percent, losing points only for climate, culture and petty crime.

　　Like most of the cities at the top of the league, it is much less crowded than the long-established metropolis of London.

　　“Australian cities continue to thrive in terms of liveability: Not only do they benefit from the natural advantages of low population density, but they have continued to improve with some high profile infrastructure investments," said the study.

　　Auckland, New Zealand, also makes the premier league along with three Canadian cities - Vancouver, Toronto and Calgary.

　　Best ten cities to live in:

　　Melbourne, Australia

　　Vienna, Austria

　　Vancouver, Canada

　　Toronto, Canada

　　Calgary, Canada

　　Adelaide, Australia

　　Sydney, Australia

　　Helsinki, Finland

　　Perth, Australia

　　Auckland, New Zealand

　　And the worst ten:

　　Abidjan, Cte d’Ivoire

　　Tehran, Iran

　　Douala, Cameroon

　　Tripoli, Libya

　　Karachi, Pakistan

　　Algiers, Algeria

　　Harare, Zimbabwe

　　Lagos, Nigeria

　　Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea

　　Dhaka, Bangladesh

　　(Read by Nelly Min. Nelly Min is a journalist at the China Daily Website.)

　　澳大利亚也许在奥运会比赛中被英国打得落花流水，但其城市却被评为远比英国更适宜居住的地方，这也许会让澳大利亚垂头丧气的运动员从中得到些许安慰。

　　经济学人智库开展的全球宜居城市研究结果显示，墨尔本是世界上最适宜居住的城市，悉尼、阿德莱德和珀斯的排名也在前十位，布里斯本排名第20位。

　　相比之下，入围前50的城市中一座英国城市也没有。尽管此次奥运会获得了巨大成功，伦敦正沐浴在奖牌榜排名第三的光辉中，在世界最令人向往的城市排行榜中却只排在第55位，比去年夏天发生暴乱以后的排名还要靠后。

　　该研究指出，从犯罪水平、教育、医保、文化以及基础设施等方面来看，曼彻斯特仍是英国最适宜居住的城市，但去年八月当地购物中心发生的洗劫事件及混乱秩序令其评分亦有所下滑，只排到了第51位。

　　经济学人智库起初对城市进行排名是为了测试企业是否应给派往外国的员工支付相应的辛劳津贴。

　　研究人员会根据当地的犯罪水平、冲突威胁、医疗水平、审查水平、气温、学校以及交通便利程度来决定住在这里需要有多“容忍”。

　　在2012年的最新排名中，墨尔本的排名居首位，超过了加拿大温哥华。

　　墨尔本是澳大利亚第二大城市，以体育赛事而著称，不过在英国，墨尔本或许还是作为肥皂剧《家有芳邻》的拍摄地而最为人所熟知。

　　据经济学人智库统计，墨尔本的宜居评价率达到了97.5%，几近完美，只因为气候、文化和轻度犯罪而略有失分。

　　墨尔本和多数位居榜单前列的城市一样，远不像历史悠久的大都市伦敦那般拥挤。

　　研究称：“从宜居的角度来看，澳大利亚的城市持续地走向繁荣。他们不仅得益于人口密度低的天然优势，还投资了一些备受瞩目的基础建设项目，持续改善城市环境。”

　　此外，新西兰的奥克兰与三个加拿大城市——温哥华、多伦多和卡尔加里一同位居榜单前列。

　　最适合居住的10大城市：

　　墨尔本，澳大利亚

　　维也纳，奥地利

　　温哥华，加拿大

　　多伦多，加拿大

　　卡尔加里，加拿大

　　阿德莱德，澳大利亚

　　悉尼，澳大利亚

　　赫尔辛基，芬兰

　　珀斯，澳大利亚

　　奥克兰，新西兰

　　最不适宜居住的10个城市：

　　阿比让，科特迪瓦

　　德黑兰，伊朗

　　杜阿拉，喀麦隆

　　的黎波里，利比亚

　　卡拉奇，巴基斯坦

　　阿尔及尔，阿尔及利亚

　　哈拉雷，津巴布韦

　　拉各斯，尼日利亚

　　莫尔兹比港，巴布亚新几内亚

　　达卡，孟加拉国