WA destination fights back after being ranked WORST in Oz

Geraldton has been ranked last in a study of the most liveable cities in Australia, but the Greater City is pushing back on the research.

Thirty cities in Australia were studied by Avenue Perth to determine which is the most desirable to live in, creating rankings based on 14 different factors that would make a city favourable.

Geraldton ranked last in the metrics of safety index, average cost of living, number of banks and number of restaurants.

The Greater City was placed with the third-fewest residents on the list with 33,000 residents, only followed by Busselton and Albany.

“All of the data is from credible, up-to-date sources, and the metrics were based on the factors people usually consider when moving to a city” Avenue Perth Spokesperson said.

This was disputed by the City of Geraldton, claiming that the data is out of date and according to the recent census, the population is closer to 40,000 people.

“Greater Geraldton is a wonderful place to live, work, study and play, and we look forward to the data relating to our regional city in the blog being updated in the near future to reflect the current lifestyle it offers” said city of Geraldton CEO Ross McKim.

Ms Brown said that the 14 factors that they measured were all equally considered.

“We ranked each indicator above, setting a value of 1 for the highest-ranking city and 30 for the lowest. We then got the value for all factors per city and added them up,” she said.

“The cities with the lowest summation top our list, while the highest is the least. All of the factors were considered.”

According to the research, at $1778.6, Geraldton’s cost of living is the most expensive on the list, coming in higher then major cities like Sydney and Melbourne.

A saving grace for the city is median monthly rent coming in at $1048, placing it in the top 10 of cheapest rents in Australia.