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The most livable cities

economist.com

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Re: The most livable cities

#21

Post by sascha_sl »

bergenty wrote: post #14
sascha_sl wrote: post #10

The fact that there isn't a single dutch city in the top 10, but 3 in car-infested Canada tells me that I have very different standards for "livable".

I love “car-infested”. Taking public transport and living densely is my version of hell.

You don't need to live densely to have public transport and access to services. US city planning (and Canada for the most part) have a problem with either allowing very high density (in limited space, so you get huge towers) or single family homes, very few things in between.

I live in a mixed used era, in a 5 story appartment block, which is the high end of density around here. I have two tram lines within 400 meters and an S-Bahn station less than 100m away.

And also, dutch cities allow for bikes, if public transport isn't your thing.

Re: The most livable cities

#22

Post by thecopy »

camillomiller wrote: post #13

what is living well? Why are these lists always so skewed toward such a normative view of liveability? Zürich is a beautiful and well-organized city, for example, but every single time I've been there I've found out that its quiet translates into a boringness I've seldom experienced anywhere else. For me, a man in his late thirties who has no plans to have kids and form a normative family, it's a living nightmare.

Zurich is interesting since on the outside and to a lot of people it seems to be a very boring city indeed. However, in my experience, under the surface there are a lof of cool things happening in Zürich. As well, don't forget that there it has a huge airport with connections to the entire world (only 10 minutes away with S-Bahn btw) and 2 hours train-ride to world-class skiing.

Re: The most livable cities

#23

Post by exitb »

> Other cities affected by the contagion of war, such as Budapest and Warsaw, saw their stability scores slip as geopolitical tensions increased.

Meanwhile, kids in American schools are getting shot at, but yeah, Warsaw is definitely less livable than any large US city.

Re: The most livable cities

#24

Post by EdSchouten »

sascha_sl wrote: post #10

The fact that there isn't a single dutch city in the top 10, but 3 in car-infested Canada tells me that I have very different standards for "livable".

I don't know exactly what the criteria are of being included in the list, but the Netherlands doesn't have that many large cities. Only Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague have a population of >500k. If the cutoff is at >250k, the list only grows by one city; Utrecht.

Re: The most livable cities

#25

Post by creativenolo »

camillomiller wrote: post #13

what is living well? Why are these lists always so skewed toward such a normative view of liveability? Zürich is a beautiful and well-organized city, for example, but every single time I've been there I've found out that its quiet translates into a boringness I've seldom experienced anywhere else. For me, a man in his late thirties who has no plans to have kids and form a normative family, it's a living nightmare.

You should be able to have fun anywhere.

But seriously, should they be skewed more single 30s guys with no commitments? Should they be skewed towards the things that benefit the majority of people who are not single 30s guys.

Saying this as a former 'single guy in his 30s' myself.

Re: The most livable cities

#26

Post by drstewart »

martindbp wrote: post #11
thriftwy wrote: post #3

There should be some in-built bias, such as adding points for just being in the Northern America. Otherwise it's hard to explain how all of the diverse cities of the USA end up being clumped in one place of the scale. That, or not having sufficient dynamic range.

> how all of the diverse cities of the USA Have you perhaps considered that they're not very diverse? NYC and SF are a bit different yeah, but other than that they're all remarkably similar. Honestly it's a significant factor in why I decided to move back to Europe. It always bothered me when Americans claim that the US states are as diverse as separate countries in e.g. Europe. No, just no. You are blinded by the fa…

>There are as large regional differences within individual European countries

Have you considered that they're not very large differences and you're just blinded by the fact that you're attuned to them?

Re: The most livable cities

#27

Post by burntoutfire »

martindbp wrote: post #11
thriftwy wrote: post #3

There should be some in-built bias, such as adding points for just being in the Northern America. Otherwise it's hard to explain how all of the diverse cities of the USA end up being clumped in one place of the scale. That, or not having sufficient dynamic range.

> how all of the diverse cities of the USA Have you perhaps considered that they're not very diverse? NYC and SF are a bit different yeah, but other than that they're all remarkably similar. Honestly it's a significant factor in why I decided to move back to Europe. It always bothered me when Americans claim that the US states are as diverse as separate countries in e.g. Europe. No, just no. You are blinded by the fa…

> Have you perhaps considered that they're not very diverse?

This. Being a European, after seeing NYC, SF and Las Vegas, I passed on an opportunity to go for a week-long business trip to Seattle. Even though I had the time, I imagine Seattle being just mostly more of the same (an uniform, boring city consisting of XX century architecture built on a grid) and absolutely not worth the trip.

Americans speaking about large cultural differences between regions always surprise me - I often suspect they don't understand what "cultural differences" mean and instead talk about political differences.

Re: The most livable cities

#28

Post by LeonidasXIV »

bergenty wrote: post #14
sascha_sl wrote: post #10

The fact that there isn't a single dutch city in the top 10, but 3 in car-infested Canada tells me that I have very different standards for "livable".

I love “car-infested”. Taking public transport and living densely is my version of hell.

Cars make cities worse for everyone, whereas public transport makes cities better for everyone, even people using cars because there is less traffic.

I enjoy biking, public transport and the density to support a nice shopping/bar/party street within walking distance, but what do I know, living in the second most livable city.

Re: The most livable cities

#29

Post by Loic »

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 can find in your country a lot of incredibly nice cities to live in.

This article should be titled "The most livable big cities".

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