21–30 of 119 posts
I live in Vienna and I see these surveys all the time. I moved in Vienna 2.5 years ago. Vienna is a good place to live (otherwise I would have left) provided you don't care about things that are simply not available, for example no real IT sector, no startup scene etc. It's okay, but it's nothing spectacular. I don't understand what these people find so fascinating about the city. My friends share my opinion too. I g…
But if you're a HN reader it might not be the optimal place to live for you: A population that's in general quite hostile to entrepreneurship, insane amounts of bureaucracy, laws that make it unnecessarily hard to run your own company, etc. Apart from that the weather is terrible, large parts of the population are hostile to immigration and are quite racist, people are grumpy all the time, ...
The more I travel, the more convinced I am that the American experiment with car oriented cities was a disaster that will take untold billions of dollars to rectify. It's affected everything from public safety (e.g. police can no longer walk a patrol), to loss of community (people don't really shop in the same place they live), lost productivity (stuck in traffic), and on and on and on. I'm very encouraged by recent,…
http://www.ted.com/talks/james_howard_kunstler_dissects_subu...
The more I travel, the more convinced I am that the American experiment with car oriented cities was a disaster that will take untold billions of dollars to rectify. It's affected everything from public safety (e.g. police can no longer walk a patrol), to loss of community (people don't really shop in the same place they live), lost productivity (stuck in traffic), and on and on and on. I'm very encouraged by recent,…
Brookings report: http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2013/05/28-city-g...
Related, an excerpt from Hustwit's Urbanized talking about the same issue in Brasilia: http://www.90percentofeverything.com/2012/11/05/brazillia-an...
On these "most livable" city indexes, I wish they would take into account how much it costs to live there compared to wages. San Fransisco is high on their list, but from what I'm hearing, it's really not the panacea that these lists often make it out to be. High wages, but higher cost of living and horrible living conditions compared to the Midwest, for example. I have a friend who just bought a two-story, four bedr…
I pay $450/mo for a 1000 sq ft, two bedroom townhouse apartment (turned the second bedroom into a theater). Gas is < $3/gal. My commute in peak traffic is 15 mins. Parking is free everywhere. If you can tolerate living in a < 100K population city, Midwest is extremely livable:
The more I travel, the more convinced I am that the American experiment with car oriented cities was a disaster that will take untold billions of dollars to rectify. It's affected everything from public safety (e.g. police can no longer walk a patrol), to loss of community (people don't really shop in the same place they live), lost productivity (stuck in traffic), and on and on and on. I'm very encouraged by recent,…
They certainly like their dogs and gelato more any other city I've been to.
The more I travel, the more convinced I am that the American experiment with car oriented cities was a disaster that will take untold billions of dollars to rectify. It's affected everything from public safety (e.g. police can no longer walk a patrol), to loss of community (people don't really shop in the same place they live), lost productivity (stuck in traffic), and on and on and on. I'm very encouraged by recent,…
The writer James Howard Kunstler believes that the American choice of suburban-oriented development was the "greatest misallocation of resources" in history. His TED talk on the topic is worth watching. http://www.ted.com/talks/james_howard_kunstler_dissects_subu...
I think this is a very salient point. I'm glad to see him focus on terrible urban design as well.
Pre-WW2 public spaces and areas are beautiful wonderful places that people spend significant fractions of their yearly income and travel across the planet just to spend a few days in.
The world really would be a better place if we followed what he's advocating here. I'm so heartened to see many new urban projects following this exact plan. http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/tysons/
Earlier quoted context omitted.
the good thing about vienna (or maybe austria) is that it's the biggests city in austria. if something interesting is going on in austria, most often it's happening in vienna. (culturally, jobwise, universitywise,...). so austria is very centered around vienna in my experience.
Also, it used to be part of a much larger country, wasn't it (Austria+Hungary)? I've been there only many years ago, but somehow I had the impression of a slightly multicultural air about it.
I live in Vienna and I see these surveys all the time. I moved in Vienna 2.5 years ago. Vienna is a good place to live (otherwise I would have left) provided you don't care about things that are simply not available, for example no real IT sector, no startup scene etc. It's okay, but it's nothing spectacular. I don't understand what these people find so fascinating about the city. My friends share my opinion too. I g…
Liveability seems rather subjective to begin with, but if you poll enough people you'll converge upon a widely shared view. Doesn't make it right, or make your views wrong, just means that most people are more predisposed to a certain opinion: Vienna is a highly livable city. I know I quite liked it when I've visited family there, and would actually be interested in living there if I had appropriate work.
I personally would find a city with good beer and cheese selection to be more liveable than one with out, but that wouldn't be the only factor. Personally I think the best beer is in California, though.
A startup scene also can be considered a negative by many, if you look at the SF protests vs. techies lately. (The animosity was small when I lived there, but seemingly has grown over the years.)