Abu Dhabi is the 25th safest city in the world and the safest city in the Middle East. According to the latest Safe Cities Index of The Economist Intelligence Unit, the UAE capital is also among top 10 cities for digital security. Abu Dhabi is ranked 9th on this list right after San Francisco, the core of the U.S. high-tech economic sector. In addition, the emirate ranks 10th in the world in terms of infrastructure safety.
Aside from Abu Dhabi, only a few other cities from the Middle East managed to make it to list. Those include Doha (29), Kuwait City (35) and Riyadh (46). The report observed that even though all of them are viewed as high-income locations, only Abu Dhabi is among the top 25 cities this year. In addition, all Middle Eastern cities that were included in the study have registered a fall on the index over the last one year. The study then concludes that wealth is not always connected to safety.
Tokyo, the most populous city in the world is also the world’s safest this year. The Asian city’s recorded its top score in the category digital security, as well as across all other categories examined in the research. On the other end of the index is Jakarta. The capital of Indonesia is listed at the last spot in the 2015 index.
The world’s safest cities in 2015 are: Tokyo, Singapore, Osaka, Stockholm, Amsterdam, Sydney, Zurich, Toronto, Melbourne and New York.
In general, cities in the Asia-Pacific are this year’s top-performers. Half the top 10 entries on the index, like Singapore (2), Osaka (3), Sydney (6) and Melbourne (9) are located namely in that region. U.S. cities, on the other hand, have among the highest digital security scores in the world. The same, however, cannot be said for cities in Europe, yet they do excels in health security and practically dominate the leading spots on that sub-ranking.
Lastly, the report advises cities, and particularly those that have a vastly increasing population, to come up with more affordable urban security solutions. In addition, it states that technology can be an effective tool for that, since the line between physical and digital safety has become very blurred.
