Copenhagen has climbed up the rankings to claim the top spot in the Safe Cities Index 2021, which has been compiled by The Economist Intelligence Unit (TEIU) based on an assessment of 60 cities.
Around 76 city security parameters are taken into account, spanning five security pillars – personal, health, infrastructure, digital and, for the first time this year, the environment – with the Danish capital placed among the top five out of three of them.
Leading to Copenhagen in the top five were Toronto, Singapore, Sydney and Tokyo, while Amsterdam, Wellington, Hong Kong, Melbourne and Stockholm completed the top ten.
Top performer for personal safety
Although it came in third for both infrastructure and digital (topped by Hong Kong and Sydney, respectively), it dominated for personal – reflecting the results of other such studies that have named Copenhagen the second safest European city to go the night after. Islands Reykjavik.
Wellington ranked first for environment and Tokyo for health, and in particular there was only one European city in both top five – Milan in fifth for environment. In the same way, Copenhagen was the only European item in the top five for digital and infrastructure.
Personally, however, was a European case where Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Stockholm and Brussels completed the top five.
COVID-19 is a factor
For Copenhagen, which scored 82.4 out of 100, the top of the rankings is something of a coup, as the three previous indices have seen the same top three emerge: Tokyo, Singapore and Osaka. That gave Toronto, another big increase, 0.2 points.
COVID-19 is believed to have played a major role in Copenhagen’s rise in the rankings. TEIU referred to it as the “first global pandemic to hit humanity since we became a predominantly urban species [which] has changed the whole concept of urban security โ.
Other notable in the index were New York (11), London (15), LA (18), Paris (23), Beijing (36), Moscow (38) and New Delhi (48).
Source: The Nordic Page