Top 3 cities in which to live are San Pedro Garza García, Colima and Mérida

November 8, 2019

San Pedro Garza Garcia, most livable city.

The three best cities in which to live in Mexico are San Pedro Garza García, Nuevo León; Colima, Colima; and Mérida, Yucatán, according to a new study.

Conducted by polling firm Gabinete de Comunicación Estratégica, Mexico’s Most Livable Cities surveyed residents of the 76 largest cities in the country including the 16 boroughs of Mexico City.

Their responses were used to generate ratings for each city in four different areas: quality of life, social cohesion, satisfaction with municipal services and performance of mayors.

San Pedro Garza García, part of the metropolitan area of Monterrey, came out on top in each of the first three while Colima residents thought most highly of their mayor.

San Pedro received a combined score of 61.7 to rank as the best city in Mexico, edging out Colima, which was two points behind with 59.6. Mérida followed just ahead of Sin Nicolás de los Garza, Nuevo León, and Saltillo, Coahuila.

Rounding out the top 10 were Mazatlán, Sinaloa; Apodaca, Nuevo León; Chihuahua; Aguascalientes; and Mexicali, Baja California.

Venustiano Carranza was found to be the most livable borough in Mexico City, ahead of Benito Juárez and Iztapalapa.

On the other end of the scale, Ecatepec, México state – a municipality in the Mexico City metropolitan area notorious for violence – was ranked the least livable city in the country ahead of Tehuacán, Puebla, and Chetumal, Quintana Roo. Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas, and Puebla ranked as the fourth and fifth least livable cities.

The study also ranked six different regions of the country in terms of livability. The northern region was the best place to live followed by western Mexico, the northeast, Mexico City, the south and central Mexico.

Presenting the report, the director general of Gabinete de Comunicación Estratégica, Federico Berrueto, noted that there is a wide divide between Mexico’s most and least livable cities. Life in San Pedro Garza García is “completely different” to life in Ecatepec, he said.

Berrueto also noted that residents’ ratings of three northern border cities – Ciudad Juárez, Nuevo Laredo and Reynosa – fell this year compared to 2018.

The “deterioration” is “not necessarily associated with the quality of government,” he said, adding that the influx of migrants “seriously compromises the quality of life in those cities.”

Insecurity and poor municipal services were significant factors in the low rankings of many municipalities in the greater Mexico City area, Berrueto added.

Here is the full list of the 76 cities surveyed: