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By JUAN DE JESÚS BREENE 

After some normal shifts in preferences as the world returns from its pandemic realities, the best cities list is out from The Economist, with its yearly Global Livability Index 2023.

Like all of these types of indices, the Global Livability Index averages several weighted factors: 25 percent for stability, 20 percent for healthcare, 25 percent for culture and environment, 10 percent for education and 20 percent for infrastructure.

No great surprises about the world’s top cities to live: Vienna, Denmark, Melbourne, Sidney and Vancouver are the world’s top five.

What about Latin America? How did Mexico fare?

That pesky category of stability impacts most Latin American cities with issues around public order, economic headwinds like interest rates, protest marches, rule of law and crime.

Stability looks at who is really in control of ordinary citizens’ life. Luck? Gangs? Capricious decisions? Inflation? The correct answer, by the way, would be a government’s planned and legal actions, including citizen participation.

Of the 173 cities on the list, it’s not until Buenos Aires comes in at 62 as the best city in Latin America (with Santiago as a close second at 64) that the region even rates.

San José in Costa Rica, Lima, Peru, and Rio finish off the top five for Latin America.

And what about Mexico?

Sadly, Mexico City does not weigh in until position 106, but it did beat out Bogota, Guatemala and Caracas.