Nowadays, oversea and domestic citizens and governments focus on the livability and security in city. It is worthwhile to analyze the research advancement on this field and to discuss the construction of livable city's theory system. This article has three parts to discuss this issue. The first part analyzes the research advancement of international livable city, mainly summing up the research direction in Western livable city and UNEP's work. The second part pays attention to the research origin of the livable city in china. Because of the declaration and assessment on the Best Practice and Local Leadership Program, the practice of livable city construction makes progresses. On the other hand ,the article discusses the origin and development of human habitat theory. Thirdly, it analyzes the challenges and theory construction of livability in Chinese cities.