Safe city index: Tokyo is safest, Delhi holds 53rd spot

The Economist Intelligence Unit released a report stating the world’s safest cities index. The report is based on the third iteration of the index, which ranks 60 cities across 57 indicators covering digital security, health security, infrastructure security and personal security.

Washington, DC is a new member in the list. For the first time it has entered the top 10 in the safe city index, while Hong Kong has noticeably plummeted down from earlier ranking.

For the third time, Tokyo took the No. 1 spot in the safest cities club, while Singapore and Osaka hold their previous spots in second and third place respectively. Hong Kong dropped to the 20th position from 9th in 2017.

New Delhi came in at 53rd spot, whereas Karachi and Pakistan came in at 57 and 56 respectively. The Indian sub-continent performed less based on the digital security than the other factors. This is surprising as Asia-Pacific is home to many safest places in the world.

Asia-Pacific cities dominated the top 10 spots as cities like Sydney, Seoul and Melbourne brought the region’s total to six spots. London and New York holds the 14th and the 15th spot on the list.

Overall, while wealth is among the most important determinants of safety, the levels of transparency — and governance — correlate as closely as income with index scores,” said Naka Kondo, the editor of the latest Safe Cities report.

“APAC cities perform well across the categories of health security, infrastructure security and personal security, but their North American counterparts generally fare better in digital security, accounting for seven of the top ten cities in this category,” Kondo said.