Why is Bangkok unlivable?

Recently I purchased a survey report from Mercer, a most prestigious quality-of-life research institution, and discovered some intriguing facts about Bangkok’s livability.

Mercer’s quality-of-life survey included 39 indicators, grouped into 10 categories. To quantify the livability difference among various surveyed cities, Mercer’s methodology involved distributing questionnaires to many multi-national corporations, then processing the obtained data into a point scoring index under a definition score of 100. New York was set as the base city.

In their 2008 city ranking, the world’s most livable city is Zurich, Switzerland at 108 points, whereas Bangkok scored 77 points, holding place as the 109th livable city from a total of 215 cities.

To translate the livability difference between Bangkok and other cosmopolitan cities, Mercer’s comments revealed that aside from the living cost factor, any company in New York will pay a hardship allowance of 15% of their employees’ income for those sent to Bangkok.

This gives a clear example of the inferior quality of life in Bangkok.

Although many people perceive that economic factors are problematic in Bangkok, Mercer’s quality-of-life survey reveals them to be Bangkok’s strength. According to Mercer, besides the good exchange rate system, the availability and variety of consumer goods in Bangkok are comparable to those in other metropolitan cities, since Bangkok earned 96 points in the consumer goods category, compared to 100 points in New York.

On the other hand, Bangkok earned only 62 points for the category of medical and health considerations, making this Bangkok’s worst category. In their report, Mercer commented that “air pollution is a major problem in Thailand.” According to Mercer, “Drinking tap water is not advisable,” “Waste removal services are not completely functional which makes some city areas unpleasant,” and also “Sewage systems are not totally reliable and most of the city’s canals are polluted as a consequence.” Bangkok also earned a low score for infectious diseases, especially AIDS for which “Bangkok has a very high incidence.”

For a deeper analysis of Bangkok’s livability, we must examine every single indicator. Mercer commended Bangkok on its top 5 indicators, as follows. “The import and export of foreign currency is unlimited.” “The quality of telecommunications is very good, and services are reliable and efficient.” For consumer goods, “Food is plentiful in Bangkok and of very good quality,” and Daily consumption items “are widely available.” (Table 1)

Unfortunately, all of Bangkok’s top 5 indicators are attributable to the business sector, not to the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration.

Table 1: Bangkok’s top 5 and least 5 indicators (Full scores = 10)

Source: Mercer

On the other hand, Bangkok’s total least 5 indicators are attributable to the public sector. Besides air pollution, infectious diseases and water portability, Mercer commented that “Traffic is a very severe problem in Bangkok, where entire areas, including highways, can often be completely blocked for hours.” Consequently, “it is essential to allow plenty of time for all journeys.” For natural disasters, “the monsoon rains often cause local flooding in Bangkok, which is badly drained.”

To make Bangkok livable for Bangkokians requires a more complex and comprehensive plan than is required to merely turn Bangkok into a tourism hub. For Bangkok to be livable, with quality of life as the end goal, a legion of policies must therefore be employed to march out and beat the problems. At a basic level, Bangkok needs policies to tackle traffic congestion, environmental problems such as air pollution, sewage and waste removal, and the maintenance of sanitary conditions, for example through infectious diseases control, especially to prevent AIDS. Flooding is also a perpetual problem in Bangkok, and the health of Bangkokians should be assisted with “really” drinkable tap water and the other health-related measures.

Dr Kriengsak Chareonwongsak
Senior Fellow, Harvard Kennedy School , Harvard University
kriengsak@kriengsak.com, kriengsak.com, drdancando.com