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The most livable cities

economist.com

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Re: The most livable cities

#161

Post by Simon_O_Rourke »

usrusr wrote: post #127
leto_ii wrote: post #92

First of all, I'm not sure who this index is supposed to help. The EIU puts a new version out every year, but keeps pretty much all of it paywalled - I can't imagine who would be willing to pay a few hundred euros to find out that Western Europe is a nice place to live in. Secondly, it's funny to see how variable the scores are from one year to the next - with rare exceptions (e.g. Kiev right now) cities don't really…

Say you run a company offering the building of some novel power distribution facility, globally. Part of your offer is a team of specialists deployed at the site for the first five years, then the kinks are out and local staff has enough experience. This week is funny, seems to be D week. Because through some coincidence the cities asking for a quotation are Dhaka, Denver, Dublin and Douala. On your third internation…

It's all well and good saying Dublin, but just try and find a condo there for rent!

Re: The most livable cities

#162

Post by k__ »

antifa wrote: post #158
Loic wrote: post #29

As I wrote last year, these liveability index ignores all the best cities in Europe and I suppose in most countries by focusing on the largest cities. I enjoyed living in the US, France, Denmark and Germany, I can't find Boulder, Besançon, Nantes, Helsingor, Münster, etc. These are all smaller cities outside of the big ones and they would all have a score higher than Vienna in this index. I am 100% confident that you…

The real challenge is finding a remote job then finding a city with good internet.

I know a few devs who have their home base in Bali.

Seems to be a nice place for remote work.

Re: The most livable cities

#163

Post by Avicebron »

antifa wrote: post #157
jiggawatts wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These lists also often ignore the weather, which makes a huge difference to what most people consider to be "livable". Nordic European winters are horrible, and no amount of amenities can compensate.

One person's nordic winter is another person's Californian desert.

I can second this, I love living somewhere with deep winters and frigid temperatures, although we do also have beautiful spring and summers where I am now. I spent years in the bay and even there was pretty hot and humid, not to mention having wildfires and having my power turned off because PG-E cant update their infrastructure.

Re: The most livable cities

#164

Post by thrwy_918 »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #53

Some factors rapidly changing in UK cities are - Empty offices since the pandemic - Disappearance of the high-street due to Amazon - New "In-between" builds Most British cities still have empty or skeleton-crewed office buildings. That can't be sustainable. Surely these will be sold off as housing. Shops are vanishing at a terrifying rate. Some city centres are boarded up and only charity shops, Tesco minimarts and t…

>sold off to developers to "fill in" with profitable (but in my reckoning totally unneeded) housing

I have no idea what "unneeded" housing is. Are these units sitting empty?

YoY house price growth in the UK is running at around 10%. I am not aware of a glut of "unneeded" housing.

Re: The most livable cities

#165

Post by duped »

k__ wrote: post #162
antifa wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real challenge is finding a remote job then finding a city with good internet.

I know a few devs who have their home base in Bali. Seems to be a nice place for remote work.

The hard part is finding companies that will hire you in wildly different time zones and figure out all the payroll headaches. Not every company wants or is able to have a bunch of 1099 contractors doing core work for the business.

Re: The most livable cities

#166

Post by lbrito »

enw wrote: post #156
lbrito wrote: post #152

Affordability doesn't seem to count in this list. On average housing expenses (rent or mortgage) are around 60% of income in Vancouver metro. I won't even get into weather: the first few days of blue skies just started this week after a year of bleak gray-on-blue. Depressing is an understatement.

And health care in Canada is a joke. Unless you have terminal cancer or close to death, good luck getting any specialist’s attention. You’ll wait for a year on a waitlist for someone to care. Doesn’t matter if you have money either, no way around it.

The system has serious issues, but I think you're being a bit too harsh. Trust me - I come from a country with a barely functioning single payer system, so my dynamic range here is pretty good.

Family doctor crisis is real, there are absurdly long wait times and people suffer as a result. But some things are also top notch. My wife just had our first son a few weeks ago and everything was really good - and parts of the process that were free would be very expensive in other places.

Re: The most livable cities

#167

Post by lbrito »

antifa wrote: post #158
Loic wrote: post #29

As I wrote last year, these liveability index ignores all the best cities in Europe and I suppose in most countries by focusing on the largest cities. I enjoyed living in the US, France, Denmark and Germany, I can't find Boulder, Besançon, Nantes, Helsingor, Münster, etc. These are all smaller cities outside of the big ones and they would all have a score higher than Vienna in this index. I am 100% confident that you…

The real challenge is finding a remote job then finding a city with good internet.

Yeah, not only that but:

1. Work authorization. It would be great if the "digital nomad visa" thing really happened at some point 2. Taxes 3. COL 4+ those things you mentioned

Re: The most livable cities

#168

Post by spaetzleesser »

enw wrote: post #156
lbrito wrote: post #152

Affordability doesn't seem to count in this list. On average housing expenses (rent or mortgage) are around 60% of income in Vancouver metro. I won't even get into weather: the first few days of blue skies just started this week after a year of bleak gray-on-blue. Depressing is an understatement.

And health care in Canada is a joke. Unless you have terminal cancer or close to death, good luck getting any specialist’s attention. You’ll wait for a year on a waitlist for someone to care. Doesn’t matter if you have money either, no way around it.

Come to the US. Wait as long and be ready to pay a ton of money.

Re: The most livable cities

#169

Post by ghaff »

leto_ii wrote: post #141
usrusr wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Say you run a company offering the building of some novel power distribution facility, globally. Part of your offer is a team of specialists deployed at the site for the first five years, then the kinks are out and local staff has enough experience. This week is funny, seems to be D week. Because through some coincidence the cities asking for a quotation are Dhaka, Denver, Dublin and Douala. On your third internation…

> Not a pat on the back for the nicest place, but a meaningfully closer to objective estimate of how much will our employees hate us if we deploy them there Perhaps, although I imagine that IRL this kind of research might be bought as part of a much bigger research effort. Maybe just to have it and say that you checked some "objective" source before making a decision.

I assume someone in HR is tasked with creating a spreadsheet and making a salary adjustment recommendation. Things are probably go a lot better in their next performance review if that spreadsheet is based on several pieces of purchased research, maybe some internal discussions if the company has a local presence in a place, etc. than if they just stick a finger in the air and do some Googling. Doesn't mean their recommendations are "right" but they at least have a defensible methodology behind them.

Re: The most livable cities

#170

Post by nus07 »

tr33house wrote: post #91
loycombinate wrote: post #30

Haha most livable if you’re a white German speaking European

Lol. But kinda true. Some of those cities have been hostile and openly racist to Africans and hence most Africans would find cities in Africa a lot more livable compared to the racist mess around the world notably in Europe, Asia and North America. Let's all pretend that the experience is the same for everyone, if you're not white, you know this is not necessarily true for you

It’s the same with say Portland , Oregon . Living experience varies wildly on the shade of skin you have and your cultural background. And yet I see it largely on top cities list in the US.
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