The 2024 global liveability index was released on Wednesday, and thanks to the city's growing housing crisis, Toronto officially fell off the top 10 list for the most liveable cities in the world for the first time in three years. 

The survey  — which was originally designed to assist companies with evaluating hardship allowances for workers moving to new cities  — is now conducted annually by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), the research and analysis division of The Economist Group.

The assessment scores 173 cities across the world on 30 indicators divided into five categories, namely stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure, with the aim of showing how "comfortable" these cities are to live in. 

Toronto plummeted to 20th place in 2021, but quickly rose up the ranks in 2022, when it placed #8 overall. In 2023, Toronto's ranking slightly dropped to #9, and this year, it has officially fallen off the global top 10 list, coming in at #12. 

As a whole, EIU's Liveability Index has risen fractionally over the past year, thanks to declines in stability and infrastructure across several cities, the report notes. 

An "acute housing crisis" also pulled down the infrastructure scores of some top-ranked cities, including Vancouver and Toronto. 

Vienna, Austria, managed to hold onto its position at the top of the livability index for the third year in a row, scoring perfect in four of the five categories. Western Europe remained the best-performing region for liveability, while North America came in at second place, thanks to its education. 

"Overall, the average score across the 173 cities in our survey has increased to 76.1 out of 100, but the improvement is only marginal, held back by geopolitical conflicts, civil unrest and a housing crisis across many of the cities in our survey," the report reads. 

Despite Toronto's ranking, Canada was well-represented in the top 10 list this year, with Calgary and Vancouver earning 5th and 7th place, respectively. Calgary received the same score as Geneva, and Vancouver was deemed more "liveable" than other prestigious international cities like Osaka and Auckland. 

Here are the top 10 most liveable cities in the world, according to the index:

• Vienna, Austria 
• Copenhagen, Denmark 
• Zurich, Switzerland 
• Melbourne, Australia
• Calgary, Canada, and Geneva Switzerland (tied for 5th place)
• Sydney, Australia, and Vancouver, Canada (tied for 7th place)
• Osaka, Japan and Auckland, New Zealand (tied for 9th place)