Despite roaring bulldozers, snail-paced traffic and overwhelming dust on windy days, it is believed the central-northern area of Beijing, where several main Olympic venues are being built, will be one of the most livable places in the city in the near future, according to a recent survey conducted by the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

At the moment, the central Olympic district, 10 kilometres north of the Forbidden City, only ranks 91st out of 134 residential districts covered in the survey of people's perceptions of the livability of the areas, according to the survey.

The central Olympic area under construction

The survey, with a random sample of 11,000 residents in the urban area of Beijing, was carried out to evaluate the living conditions of different areas of the city. A total of 7,647 valid questionnaires were collected.

Safety, health, convenience, amenity and sustainability were the major criteria that respondents needed to take into account when scoring the neighbourhood where they lived, said Zhang Wenzhong, a researcher of the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who led the survey team.

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