Amsterdam is the second "best city" in the world, according to a spatially adjusted version of the magazine The Economist’s annual Liveability Ranking, as outlined in the new "Best cities ranking and report."

The new report comes after The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) and BuzzData held a competition inviting readers to combine data from the EIU’s liveability ranking with data from other sources to create a new ranking. Filippo Lovato, an architect concerned with urban planning, submitted the winning entry.

Lovato’s "Spatially Adjusted Liveability Index" added seven new "spatial adjustments" to the EIU’s existing criteria: green space, sprawl, natural assets, cultural assets, connectivity, isolation and pollution. He ranked these on a scale of 1 to 5, then gave the resultant combined score 25 percent of the weight of his new index. The remaining 75 percent came from the five categories comprising the original ranking: stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure.

Lovato only examined 70 cities, rather than the 140 in the EIU’s full ranking. Among others, he excluded Melbourne, Vancouver and Vienna, which occupy the top three slots in the original EIU list. Of the 70 cities shared between the two rankings, Hong Kong comes in 10th according to the original EIU criteria, but finishes 1st in Lovato’s ranking, due to particularly good scores for green space, (lack of) sprawl, natural assets and (lack of) isolation.

Amsterdam comes in 8th according to the original EIU criteria but finishes 2nd in Lovato’s ranking, thanks to good scores for connectivity (how easy is it to get to the rest of the world), natural assets, pollution, and green space. Amsterdam’s worst facet, according to Lovato’s criteria, was its isolation from other large cities (>750.000 inhabitants).

You can read more about Lovato’s exact methodology here.

Top 10 | Spatially Adjusted Liveability Index
› Hong Kong 87,8
› Amsterdam 87,4
› Osaka 87,4
› Paris 87,1
› Sydney 86
› Stockholm 86
› Berlin 85,9
› Toronto 85,4
› Munich 85,1
› Tokyo 84,3

Top 10 | Original Liveability Index
› Melbourne 97,5
› Vienna 97,4
› Vancouver 97,3
› Toronto 97,2
› Calgary 96,6
› Sydney 96,1
› Helsinki 96
› Perth 95,9
› Adelaide 95,9
› Auckland 95,7

Source: Best cities ranking and report: A special report from the Economist Intelligence Unit