[RANKED] These are the World’s Safest Cities

Singapore has retained its position as the world's second safest city, after Tokyo, in the latest edition of the Economist Intelligence Unit's (EIU) Safe Cities Index (SCI).

The index, which ranks 60 countries across five continents, looks at more than 50 qualitative and quantitative indicators spread across four categories of security: digital, infrastructure, health and personal as reported by The Straits Times.

Singapore ranked first in the world for both infrastructure and personal security, coming in second for digital security. In the index's previous editions in 2017 and 2015, Singapore also ranked second both times.

"Overall, while wealth is among the most important determinants of safety, the levels of transparency - and governance - correlate as closely as income with index scores," said EIU senior editor Naka Kondo, editor of this year's report on the Safe Cities Index, as quoted by Channel News Asia. 

Cities that did well overall tend to have high-quality healthcare, dedicated cybersecurity teams, community-based police and disaster continuity planning, according to the report.

According to the World Economic Forum This year’s edition also looked at “urban resilience” - the ability of a city to absorb and bounce back from shocks. 

The concept has become an important part of urban safety planning, particularly as policy-makers prepare for the likely impacts of climate change on cities, such as increased flooding and more frequent and intense heatwaves.

The 2019 index measures for the first time things like the speed of a city's emergency services, the existence of a disaster plan, the ability to defend infrastructure against cyber attacks, and the monitoring of potential hazards.