Despite its recent financial difficulties, Dublin has come twenty-fifth in a world wide survey of best cities to live, managing to hold onto exactly the same position it had in 2008 – and even improving its score a little on last year. 

The 2009 Worldwide Quality of Living Survey, from the global consultancy firm, Mercer, looks at 215 cities and measures 39 different aspects of city life, which include banking services, internal stability and crime. It also takes cultural factors like restaurants, theatres, cinemas and sports facilities into account. 

Dublin beat San Francisco, Paris, London and New York as a city where life is comfortable and safe for its citizens. 

Dublin’s infrastructure let it down, Patrick Robinson of Mercer in Ireland told the Irish Times. Its traffic congestion and poor transport system gave it a low ranking in that category.

But the high quality of education in Dublin and the absence of infectious diseases helped boost the city’s overall score. 

Anyone with European Union citizenship should be rushing to Vienna, which has the highest quality of living in the world. In general, European cities dominate the list while American ones lag behind – Austrian, German and Swiss cities make up seven of the top ten. 

The Mercer survey distinguishes between quality of life, which is personal and subjective, and quality of living, which refers to more practical issues. All the cities are measured against New York, which has a score of 100.

Dublin’s score this year was 103.6 – just slightly better than in 2008, when it got 103.5.