Bacolod City Chosen as the Best Place to Live by Moneysense

It’s an affirmation of my choice. From among 65 cities that were ranked, Bacolod City topped the list of “Best Places to Live” by MoneySense magazine. Heinz Bulos, Editor-In-Chief, said that in coming up with the ranking, they relied on two existing surveys, the Philippine Human Development Report and the Philippine Cities Competitiveness Ranking Project (PCCRP) of the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) for 2005. Whereas PCCRP uses seven criteria in ranking the cities, MoneySense chose only three - dynamism of local economy, infrastructure, and quality of life.

Bulos noted that Bacolod City can be considered as an over-achiever. Here’s why:

Most Competitive Mid-Sized City in the Philippines for two consecutive years.

• Based on the results of the PCCRP for the years 2003 and 2005, Bacolod City ranked high in all criteria from among the cities under the mid-sized category. These are non-metro cities with a population of more than 200,000.It ranked highest on Infrastructure and Quality of Life.

Clean and Green Hall of Fame Awardee

• Bacolod City was named the “Cleanest and Greenest Highly Urbanized City in the Philippines” for five years (1997, 1998, 2000, 2001 and 2002) earning it the distinction to be in the Clean and Green Hall of Fame.

Most Business Friendly Local Government Unit in the Philippines

• Bacolod bested 130 other cities when the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry declared it the “Most Business-Friendly Local Government Unit in the Philippines” in 2007. It was the second year in a row for Bacolod to be named the “Most Business-Friendly City in the Visayas”. As the regional winner, it became a finalist and competed with the other regional winners and was chosen as the national winner.

Iloilo City, which was also on the Top 5 of PCCRP for Mid-Sized Cities category, ranked 5th. It should be noted that when Moneysense ranked the “Best Places to Live”, it did not categorize the cities as to population size but based the ranking on the three criteria only.

Is your city on the list?
Want to know if your city is on the Top 20? Here’s the complete list:

1. Bacolod
2. Makati
3. Davao
4. Marikina
5. Iloilo
6. Las Piñas
7. Pasig
8. San Fernando
9. Mandaluyong
10. Quezon City
11. Manila
12. Batangas
13. Cagayan de Oro
14. Muntinlupa
15. Angeles
16. Baguio
17. Lipa
18. Calamba
19. General Santos
20. Cebu

MoneySense has a lengthy article featuring the cities in the Top 10 of the “Best Places to Live” in the Philippines. Want to know why they’re on the Top 10? Go grab yourself a copy of the March-April 2008 issue.