(Photo: Qassim Rahmatullah / The Peninsula)
Doha ranks fifth among the Top Ten Cities to live in based on a new survey by Bayt.com titled ‘Top Cities in the Middle East and North Africa’. The ranking was based on several factors including economic, environmental, standard of living, socio-cultural, and entrepreneurship factors.
The majority (71 percent) of citizens in Doha were happy about their current city of residence, according to the study. The survey further revealed 47 percent claimed to be ‘somewhat happy’, while 24 percent said that they were ‘very happy’. According to the survey which included 19 cities, the top 10 cities in the MENA are: Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Muscat, Eastern Province, Doha, Riyadh, Marrakech, Rabat, Jeddah, and Kuwait City.
Of the key economic elements addressed in this study, 75 percent of respondents believe that availability of jobs is the most important factor. Affordable housing (72 percent), followed by reasonably-priced day to day necessities (70 percent) and career growth (70 percent) were also of high- importance to respondents. Over a third of Doha respondents believe that career growth (38 percent), competitive salaries (38 percent) and benefits for working parents (33 percent) are good or excellent. Close to half of Doha residents believe that their end of service benefits (41 percent), vacation allowances (41 percent) and social security systems (59 percent) were excellent or good.
Nearly two thirds of Doha residents believe that they have good or excellent availability of healthcare facilities (61 percent), and that the quality of the healthcare facilities (65 percent) is good or excellent. What’s more is that over three quarters of the city’s residents rate their water, electricity and sewage systems (76 percent) as either good or excellent.
On socio-cultural factors Doha performs really well with its respondents feeling that the stability of the political environment (65 percent) is either good or excellent. Over half of Doha residents feel a sense of security and stability (59 percent). Almost half of Doha respondents feel that the availability of sports and outdoors activities (47 percent) and of family-friendly activities (46 percent) is either good or excellent.
