Healthcare? Tick. Education? Tick. Infrastructure? Tick.

This year Melbourne scored a perfect 100/100 in these three key measures and has done so since 2011.

And yet, though we hate to put a dampener on the celebration, surely anyone who has driven down Punt Road during peak hour knows that while Melbourne may be pretty good most of the time (and makes the best coffee), it is not without its flaws.

So why the perfect scores?

The reason why we keep on rating so highly is that, for many of the indicators, the highest ranking category is "acceptable", which means pretty good is, well, perfect enough.

Weather

Photo: Jason South

The Economist only marked Melbourne down in three of 30 categories and this was one of them, rating the level of "climate discomfort to travellers" as only "tolerable". While Melburnians take grim pride in the city's tendency to deliver four seasons in every day, visitors may not see the fun in leaving their hotel in a T-shirt only to be caught in a downpour later.

On the plus side, we did get top scores for our temperature, which averages a maximum 19.9 degrees throughout the year. Funnily enough, sunny Brisbane and Sydney got marked down for being too humid. "We argue that higher temperature and high humidity reduce the comfort of life," explained The Economist Intelligence Unit's chief economist Simon Baptist. Well he said it, not us.

Crime

 Photo: Twitter/ABC News

Victoria's crime rate has been rising steadily for a while now – it's up 10.3 per cent in the past year. The engine room has been theft, delivering Melbourne a "tolerable" rating for petty crime in the liveability survey. However, crimes against the person have also spiked, with assaults up 9.5 per cent. And while you're still unlikely to be murdered in Melbourne, a spate of brazen car jackings and aggravated burglaries has left sections of the community concerned violent crime could get much worse. For reasons of adequate comparison with other cities, The Economist used outdated 2013/14 crime figures in its latest report. The statistics have since worsened. This begs the question: Is Melbourne's liveability reign nearing its end?

Education

Melbourne's education system gets an A+ from The Economist, with an "ideal" rating of 100/100. But according to other measures the performance of Australian schools has been slipping. In the most recent Program for International Student Assessment tests, which compares the academic performance of OECD countries, Australia is ranked 14th, behind Poland (11th), Vietnam (12th) and Germany (13th).

The most recent NAPLAN results showed Victoria outranked all other states on writing and numeracy across all year levels, however, NSW was stronger in spelling, outranking most other states in grade 3 and 5 and year 7 and 9. Victoria ranked second in most year levels in reading, trailing the ACT.

Culture

 Photo: Paul Jeffers

It comes as quite a shock to find that Melbourne was rated just "tolerable" by the liveability survey in recreation and culture.

Sure, some of our hundreds of annual cultural events have lost ground to their interstate competition (Sydney Writers' Festival and VividLive!, for example). But other Melbourne institutions such as the National Gallery of Victoria and the Melbourne International Comedy Festival punch well above their weight. That's not to say we can't do better: while the renovated Hamer Hall's interior is a stunner, the Arts Centre spire doesn't inspire quite the same affection as our northern neighbours' internationally recognised architectural icon, the Sydney Opera House.Yet one piece of empirical evidence The Economist cannot argue with is the numbers. Survey after survey has found the arts engage more people in Australia than our city's most ardently followed religion: sport.

Health

 Photo: Louise Kennerly

The Economist gave us full marks for healthcare and we agree Victoria's health system has long been one of the best in the world.

The geographic dimensions of the state mean most people live close to a range of public and private health services, and Victorians generally face shorter waits for hospital care than people in NSW, the most similar state for comparison. However, population growth in some parts of Victoria is putting serious stress on the public system, undermining access and quality of care for some people.

The federal government's commitment to rein in health spending may also cause more people to pay for GP services from now on. This price hike could mark all Australian cities down in future when it comes to international comparisons.

Housing and transport

 Photo: Erin Jonasson

The Economist doesn't consider housing affordability in their matrix, which comes as little surprise when you know the survey is designed to help companies to decide how much to pay executives deployed overseas.

But it's becoming a growing problem for ordinary Melburnians. Just 6.4 per cent of rental properties in the city are considered affordable to low-income earners. Meanwhile, a recent Ernst & Young survey found that almost 40 per cent of Melbourne residents believed housing was not affordable in the city (compared with 56 per cent in Sydney). Growing numbers of people sleeping rough in Melbourne's CBD streets and parks underscore the fact the city is not a "liveable" place for all of its citizens.

When it comes to other Australian cities, Melbourne has comparatively good transport infrastructure but investment has not kept up with booming population, leading to more crowded trains and congested roads.

How do we compare to our old foe Sydney?

 Photo: Bridgeclimb

It hasn't been a great year for Sydney, which has tumbled from 7th to 11th place in the liveability rankings, owing to a heightened perceived threat of terrorism. But before you start gloating, consider that Melbourne could well be in the same position in the future, as The Economist considers Melbourne's terrorism rating as the most likely indicator to be downgraded.

Marketing expert Stan Johnson said Melbourne has become more comfortable in its own skin in recent years.

"It embraced its laneways and its bars and its entrepreneurism and its creativity. I think that's really helped us to become the world's most liveable city because we are not trying to compete with Sydney or any of the other cities".

With Tom Cowie, Timna Jacks, Julia Medew and Deb Cuthbertson.