Quality of Living worldwide city rankings

[*Jen*]

So many of the top-ranked cities are outrageously expensive.

But the average salary is MUCH higher and offsets it

I'd be VERY interested in the criteria, because I've lived in 5 of the cities on the list and I certainly wouldn't put them in that order.

I wouldn't have Brussels on the list at all, to be honest

[kwanfan1818]

One reason that Vancouver might rank highly is that the stretch of Hastings, the main drag on the way to the arena, between the eastern border of downtown and, most conservatively Commercial Drive, about 1.3 km long, only at a superficial glance represents the city. (More realistically, the border is Hawks, where the single occupancy hotels stop; between there and Commercial, about .5 km, is mostly industrial, since it is so close to the waterfront, but neither scary nor rough.) After Commercial Drive, which is another 2 km or so from the arena (Renfrew), Hastings is full of markets, shops, and has few homeless people on the streets. (Services and outdoor drug markets tend to center around four blocks much closer to city center.)

Go one block south of Hastings for most of it, and the neighborhoods tell a different story. South of the worst of the worst is a thriving Chinatown. Go directly east of Chinatown, and the tiny townhouse across the street where I used to live in the mostly owner-occupied Strathcona neighborhood, sold for almost $700K in this down market; rising costs were much to the chagrin of artists and artisans who were forced out over almost a decade ago. I think there's one small low-income housing project left in the entire neighborhood. That was two blocks away, and never a problem.

[Rob]

I don't want to offend any Austrians here, but I was in Vienna last month. The inner part is crowded and very expensive and the Austrians in general were not the friendliest people I've ever met, to put it mildly. I'd rather live in Washington than Vienna!

I had the opposite experience. It was during the 2006 Olympics so it wasn't too crowded. People went out of their way to be helpful -- two different times people didn't just give us directions to where we were going, they walked us there to make sure we found it.

[snoopy]

I have been to Vienna and didn’t find the people cold but I did find them patrician. Everyone in the city could have posed for a Talbots advertisement.

It is a very clean and pretty city and even though it is boring as far as big cities go – I could probably be happy living there.

[Aussie Willy]

I don't want to offend any Austrians here, but I was in Vienna last month. The inner part is crowded and very expensive and the Austrians in general were not the friendliest people I've ever met, to put it mildly. I'd rather live in Washington than Vienna!

Well living in Australia I am extremely offended .... oh wait you said Austria.

[allezfred]

I don't want to offend any Austrians here, but I was in Vienna last month. The inner part is crowded and very expensive and the Austrians in general were not the friendliest people I've ever met, to put it mildly.

Somebody didn't say "Gruss gott" enough. Rookie mistake.

Geneva's gorgeous but ridiculously expensive. In most of those cities, you get a great standard of living with an income way above median. I'd like to see a ranking of best cities based on value, worldwide.

Define value. Without measuring it in terms of the exchange rate being good with the dollar.

[Ziggy]

This ranking is pretty much useless to anyone outside its target demographic of the 1%.

[manhn]

Considering how many homeless people there are in Vancouver, I'm pretty sure Vancouver would top a "Quality of Living Worldwide for really poor folks" City rankings list too.

[Celine82]

Vienna and Vancouver definitely deserve to be at the top of these rankings - from the cities I've lived in, Vancouver would actually be #1. Jenny and I must have seen different cities.

I'm surprised the Japanese cities are so low on the "safety" list. I've never felt as safe as I did in Japan. I wonder how they weighed the "crime levels" when comparing a megalopolis like Tokyo to small towns of less than 200'000 people (Bern/Geneva).

[Desperado]

I also don't understand their Personal Safety Ranking as they rate Calgary and Montreal higher than Ottawa and Toronto just a notch below...

[BigB08822]

Honolulu is #29; San Francisco is #30 and Boston 3 more places down.

Still it's disheartening that I had to wait until #29 a US city appeared on the list.

Chicago and DC made it to #43, NYC is at #47. The US cities seem to be tightly clustered around the bottom portion of the top 50.

Those are on the Quality of Living list. I was referring to the Personal Safety list which is below the QOL list.

[Lara]

My Toronto made it to #15! hehehe Yay!

Beating Montreal by 7 spots. Hmmph.

[Japanfan]

That's where I wonder how Vancouver rates so highly. All we hear on the news over the past few years is how local law enforcement mishandled the Stanley Cup riots last June, and several high profile crimes before that, including a mass murder case that continues to make headlines. The city also has massive tracts inhabited by the homeless, drug addicts and prostitutes. Those are of course issues in many (most?) cities, but Vancouver is one of the few I've been to where it's such a big part of the fabric of the city, and frankly, quite scary.

One isolated riot that was relatively quickly contained and one mass murderer doesn't impact general quality of living indexes.

The Downtown East Side is really a very small area. There are other pockets of homelessness throughout the Vancouver area but they are relatively hidden from public view. The homeless here are largely an invisible population and most people who live here rarely give them a thought (sadly). There are beggars in your face in some parts of the city and beggars holding signs at major intersections. You just get used to it (again, sadly). The reason there are so many homeless here is that it's easier to live outside in Vancouver's climate than in the cold climates anywhere else in Canada - though poor social policy on the part of the provincial governments has exacerbated the problem (a third sadly).

I question why Vancouver is so high on the list because it's real estate prices are totally outrageous. Good for those who bought their home way back when or made half a million or more buying and selling real estate during the market boom. But everyone else pays a whole lot to live in what would be tiny shoebox space anywhere else in the country.

Yes, it's beautiful here. But it's cold and wet for 10 months of the year too. IMO Winnipeg offers far higher quality of life. Same is probably true of most other small Canadian cities.

Too cold for me though. I prefer the dark and rain.

[Ziggy]

I question why Vancouver is so high on the list because it's real estate prices are totally outrageous. Good for those who bought their home way back when or made half a million or more buying and selling real estate during the market boom. But everyone else pays a whole lot to live in what would be tiny shoebox space anywhere else in the country.

This ranking doesn't take the cost of living into consideration.

It's not meant for the general public. Its target demographic is very high earners.

[Ania]

It's not meant for the general public. Its target demographic is very high earners.

Well, Pittsburgh made the list and it's a very affordable city. Luckily for me!

[Vagabond]

The Personal Safety Rankings are absurd. Four or five cities from the same city are clustered together, suggesting that extrinsic factors (such as the respective countries' international relations, as mentioned above) are given weight all out of proportion to their actual effects on personal safety in particular communities.

As for the Quality of Living rankings, I would only note that the food in Milan (#42) and Paris and San Francisco (joint #30) is miles better than the food in Vienna (#1), Munich (#4), and Amsterdam (#12).

[PRlady]

Somebody didn't say "Gruss gott" enough. Rookie mistake.



Define value. Without measuring it in terms of the exchange rate being good with the dollar.

to you too, the Euro isn't exactly off the charts lately.

I'd define value as getting the most amenities for a relatively achievable standard of living/income. Which lets out NY, London, San Fran, Geneva....

Then there are countries where the rent is high but the social safety net is thick, like the Scandinavian countries.

I dunno. Cities where middle-class (there's that dangerous concept again) people can live reasonably safely without spending 50% of their income on housing.

[Vagabond]

Cities where middle-class (there's that dangerous concept again) people can live reasonably safely without spending 50% of their income on housing.

Grand Forks?

[pingu]

The Personal Safety Rankings are absurd. Four or five cities from the same city are clustered together, suggesting that extrinsic factors (such as the respective countries' international relations, as mentioned above) are given weight all out of proportion to their actual effects on personal safety in particular communities.

As for the Quality of Living rankings, I would only note that the food in Milan (#19) and Paris and San Francisco (joint #30) is miles better than the food in Vienna (#1), Munich (#4), and Amsterdam (#12).

Milan is 42nd, and the food might be good, but everything else is just crappy.

[gingercrush]

I'm not surprised American cities are so low on the list. Who wants to be indoctrinated with americanism. It'd make you sick.