While it's not surprising that Middle Eastern cities wracked by conflict, such as Damascus and Baghdad, would rank poorly for liveability, the results of Mercer's 2015 Quality of Living Survey suggest the MENA region as a whole is not so liveable.
Regionally, the list is pretty much what you would expect, with Gulf cities at the top and Damascus, Sanaa and Baghdad at the bottom. It doesn't take an in-depth survey to realize that liveability is going to be higher in cities experiencing an economic boom like Dubai and Abu Dhabi while it suffers in cities experiencing civil war.
However, when you look at where the region stands compared to the wider world, the results are discouraging.
Dubai is ranked 77th in the world, out of 230 cities included in the survey. Dubai has recovered and is once again growing economically and has high wages. The government has made significant investments in education, health care and infrastructure. The Global Social Progress Index ranked the UAE as "as number one for the lowest level of violent crime, the lowest homicide rate, the lowest undernourishment rate and the highest rate of enrollment in secondary education," in 2014. The political scene in the emirate is stable - it has made it through years of regional turmoil almost entirely unscathed. The Dubai airport has surpassed Heathrow as the busiest in the world .
Considering all of that, the only conclusion is that the 76 more liveable cities must be very impressive, right?
Detroit is No. 70 on Mercer's list.
Motor City is one of the least safe cities in the United States. Violent crime is higher in Detroit than 98 percent of American cities . The city recently went through the largest municipal bankruptcy in American history. Property values have plummeted. Unemployment stands at 8 percent ( PDF ). The upside is that for those who have jobs, housing is incredibly affordable .
Mercer, which says that the survey is designed to help multinational companies set compensation when sending employees on international assignments, ranks the cities based on a wide spectrum of criteria.
Factors such as climate, disease and sanitation standards, ease of communications, and physical remoteness can often affect the success of a foreign assignment. Moreover, the local political and social environment, political violence, and crime may give rise to potentially uncomfortable, inconvenient, or even dangerous situations.
It will be interesting to see if the implementation of Dubai's 2020 Urban Master Plan will drive it higher on Mercer's ranking.
But considering that there isn't a single non-Western city in the top 25, it seems that cultural differences might prevent Dubai from ever reaching the top echelon. The highest ranked non-Western city (Singapore) is No. 26, and you have to go down to No. 44 (Tokyo) to find a second one.
Check out Mercer's interactive graphic to see more global results.