Canberra as seen from a hot air balloon. Photo: Colleen Petch
Canberra has been ranked Australia's most liveable city but housing affordability remains a concern.
It is the first time the nation's capital has achieved the ranking after being runner-up to Adelaide in the past two years.
The city earned first place in the My City: The People's Verdict survey conducted by Auspoll and commissioned by the Property Council of Australia.
ACT Property Council Exec. Director Catherine Carter.
The report, to be published on Monday, shows Canberra scored higher than all cities on six of 17 attributes including having a wide range of recreational outdoor environments, a clean, well-maintained and unpolluted city and safe places for people and their property.
Canberra rated just 1.3 points above Adelaide to take out the title.
The report said Canberra's rise to the top was based on further improvement in the areas it had always performed well in such as being safe and clean and having good schools and healthcare.
The only significant decline in 2013 was in having good employment and economic opportunities.
Canberrans still found housing to be an area of concern and rated the ACT government badly in its provision of making housing more affordable, setting a fair level of taxation when people bought or sold properties, and supplying infrastructure to keep up with demand.
Property Council ACT executive director Catherine Carter said while it was fantastic that Canberra had been rated the most liveable city there was still room for improvement. "Unsurprisingly housing affordability and property tax are identified by Canberrans as issues of concern," she said.
"In the ACT where land is so plentiful we shouldn't have this situation."
She said in future to boost Canberra's liveability ranking the ACT government should think more creatively about how to increase the supply of homes, including those available for affordable rent.
But Ms Carter said a critical move would be to partner with industry to find a solution on housing affordability. "The ACT government doesn't have to do all the heavy lifting on this," she said.
About 5390 people from all capital cities and regional centres Newcastle and Wollongong participated in the online survey, rating their city against a set of attributes.
Hobart finished third behind Adelaide and Canberra and Darwin took out the wooden spoon for the third year in a row.
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