Daraine Luton, Staff Reporter

Residents take a break at a house on Tower Street, downtown Kingston. A report issued by international consulting firm Mercer, used as a gauge for investors globally, ranked Kingston among the 31 most unsafe cities in the world. - Norman Grindley/Deputy Chief Photographer

KINGSTON IS the 31st most dangerous city in the world to live in, according to a global ratings agency report issued earlier this month.

On the quality of life scale - surveying crime, health and sanitation, among other socio-economic indices - Kingston is ranked 137th out of 215 cities.

Mercer is an international agency that rates cities worldwide in terms of personal safety and standard of living which informs investment firms.

According to Mercer, Luxem-bourg in Western Europe is the safest city in the world. Conversely, a person in Kingston is not safer than a citizen of Harare, the capital of Robert Mugabe's violence-torn Zimbabwe. Both cities are ranked at 184.

Unfair

Deputy Commissioner of Police Mark Shields, Jamaica's crime czar, scoffed yesterday at Kingston's low ranking, saying it was unfair.

"I think it is safer here than in Zimbabwe," he said.

"Sometimes, the assessment of Jamaica is too high. Those who are doing the ranking do not understand, for instance, that 80 per cent of the homicides here are gang related," Shields added.

He said people were quite safe in Kingston compared to London and other cities in developed countries.

Murder records

At least 800 persons have been killed in Jamaica in 2008, this May - with 199 murders - being the bloodiest month in recorded history.

Kingston and St Andrew accounted for 723, or nearly 50 per cent, of homicides in 2007, which was the second bloodiest year ever with a total of 1,574 murders.

The Iraqi capital Baghdad is the most hazardous city in the world, Mercer said. It has also ranked the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince at 194, one place below Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa.

In determining personal safety, Mercer identifies those cities with the highest personal safety ranking based on internal stability, crime, effectiveness of law enforcement and relationships with other countries.

Meanwhile, as it relates to living standards, Zurich, Switzerland, tops the list of cities. Kingston has improved one place over last year's ranking.

Weak upliftment

Central Kingston Member of Parliament Ronald Thwaites, who has moved in the House of Representatives for steps to be taken to improve the housing stock in the city, is not surprised by the findings of the report.

"I am not surprised at all. Investment in the upliftment of downtown Kingston has been very weak for many years," Thwaites said.

He added: "For residential accommodation, it is almost impossible to get a mortgage below Cross Roads. If you don't have capital being invested, the infrastructure deteriorates and the human condition is demeaned."

The building of inner-city housing and the enrolment of more persons for social-security benefits are a few ways in which the Government has attempted to correct Kingston's ills.

Yesterday, when The Gleaner traversed some of Kingston's communities, the signs of social decadence were rife. Uncollected garbage, a plethora of zinc fences and run-down houses told the story of urban blight.

Stimulus

Thwaites told The Gleaner that he wants Jamaica to use Kingston's unfavourable rating as a stimulus for new interest in the inner city.

Meanwhile, aside from Nassau, Bahamas, which is ranked at 111 in terms of standard of living, and 51st for personal safety, no other English-speaking Caribbean country is captured by the survey.

Havana, the capital of the communist Cuba, is ranked 188th in quality of life.

War-wracked Baghdad is glued to the bottom of the security and quality of life scale.

daraine.luton@gleanerjm.com