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The most livable cities

economist.com

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Re: The most livable cities

#221

Post by lbrito »

msbarnett wrote: post #216
kmonsen wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does Canada not have private healthcare? I kind of like systems like uk or Norway where there is a free system providing the floor and a private system if you want better treatment. Both the Canadian and the U.S. system is a bit weird to me.

Broadly speaking, this is opposed in Canada by some due to the perception that the existence of a private parallel system will be weaponized to undermine the public system, as many feel has happened to the NHS in the UK.

I'd say they have a point. Brazil, where I've lived most of my life, has had its single payer public Healthcare modeled after the UK, and the private healthcare sector which is supposed to be a "complement" to the "universal" public system, is instead parallel to and competing with it. This competition probably is an erosive force.

Public Healthcare absorves the heaviest blows: expensive surgeries, cancer treatment etc are mostly or only done by the single payer public system, while private Healthcare enjoys mostly low severity cases.

Re: The most livable cities

#222

Post by inglor_cz »

frozencell wrote: post #181
xadhominemx wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything north of the alps is pretty gloomy, especially compared to North America

Does Southern France has a climate close to the Bay Area? If the climate is relatively close, why is the region (between Nice and Montpelier) not a top place for technology? In Zug, Switzerland - not that far - there is a hub for blockchain but it looks like a financial paradise more than a full-time living place. Sophia Antipolis ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophia_Antipolis ) is definitely an attempt to build a…

Southern France is south of the Alps, though.

The Mediterranean climate is very different from what you get in Central Europe, or (worse, as far as rain goes) the UK and Ireland.

"Caelum crebris imbribus ac nebulis foedum; asperitas frigorum abest" – "The sky is obscured by constant rain and cold, but it never gets bitterly cold."

(Tacitus about Britain in 98 AD. Not much has changed.)

I personally like the weather on the southern slopes of the Alps the most. Southern Austria, South Tyrol, Slovenia. Pleasant enough to be almost-Mediterranean, but not scorching hot in the summer and still retaining four distinct seasons.

If you like such weather, places like Trieste or Ljubljana can be fairly welcoming and with low cost of living, though you need to forget about Silicon Valley levels of compensation.

Re: The most livable cities

#223

Post by novok »

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #50
blfr wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mass shootings are rare but yeah, the only way you could tell that Warsaw is anywhere near a war is because of a large number of Ukrainians and all lower cost rentals gone from the market.

> Mass shootings are rare Yeah, but... Typical (Median) Annual Death Rate per Million People from Mass Public Shootings (U.S., Canada, and Europe, 2009-2015) United States — 0.058 Albania — 0 Austria — 0 Belgium — 0 Czech Republic — 0 Finland — 0 France — 0 Germany — 0 Italy — 0 Macedonia — 0 Netherlands — 0 Norway — 0 Russia — 0 Serbia — 0 Slovakia — 0 Switzerland — 0 United Kingdom — 0 Using the median analysis, th…

IMO I think the fact that the numbers are so low shows that people should stop giving a shit about death by guns by civilians. I wish humanity put as much focus about the obesity & diabetes crisis, car deaths, slipping in the bathtub, murder by government policy and war than they did about guns. Guns are flashy, but infinitesimal compared to the actual causes of early death.

The dirty secret of gun control policies is they do not much at all. Gun control policies that reduce actual human death are mostly about impulsive suicide prevention, and if you get rid of the guns, I'm guessing a substitution effect would start happening anyway. When you really dig into it, most non-government caused gun death comes from mental health issues, economic inequality, organized crime shootouts and suicide, and those things are not solved by making guns harder to get, beyond some suicide impulse prevention.

Re: The most livable cities

#224

Post by deepspace »

z5h wrote: post #190
enw wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s relative. I’ve been in countries where the care is both top-notch, and you can get specialist attention and full-body checkups in a matter of days.

Proper triaging and optimal utilization of resources doesn't imply you should be seen quickly. You should be treated at a pace that data shows is "good enough" given the severity and nature of symptoms.

Exactly. Specialist wait times in Canada are often exaggerated by special interest groups.

A few years ago, my family doctor noticed something concerning. I was seen by a specialist within a week, and was in the operating room a few days later. It was a potentially serious situation but not immediately life-threatening, yet I still received fast and efficient treatment.

There are longer wait times for high-demand procedures affecting 'quality of life', but that is the nature of triage.

The important part is that the whole episode cost me nothing more than a few sleepless nights, while a friend in the US who went through a similar process and spent a similar time waiting for surgery ended up with substantial medical debt.

Re: The most livable cities

#226

Post by cortesoft »

Legogris wrote: post #160
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.

I take gray and gloomy with cold and dark winters over hot and humid summers, thank you very much.

Sure, but there are a lot of places around the world with mild weather year round.

Re: The most livable cities

#227

Post by mypalmike »

usrusr wrote: post #128
mypalmike wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, just like Las Vegas and NYC, Seattle is just mini malls and intersections. (Ok I couldn't help myself from sarcasm there.)

s/intersections/intersections of precisely ninety degrees/ To the European eye, all parts of all American cities look exactly the same, with the exception of those bits that directly touch a body of water.

All parts of all American cities? Quite a broad brush. Maybe they should visit Boston. Or Taos. Or Santa Fe. Or Boulder. Or Santa Cruz. Or...

Re: The most livable cities

#228

Post by [deleted] »

zfxfr wrote: post #57
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…

I was going to share the same observation. Also I am impressed someone mention Besançon on HN. I live nearby ! In Vesoul which is also a really good place to live ! And I say it after living all around Europe and asia.

[deleted]

Re: The most livable cities

#229

Post by mypalmike »

burntoutfire wrote: post #132
mypalmike wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read the thread. It is intended to be absurd.

Thanks for being helpful...

If you can't distinguish the architecture of Las Vegas style strip malls (and the culture therein) from the neighborhood oriented grids of Manhattan (and its vastly different culture), there's no way to be helpful.

Re: The most livable cities

#230

Post by amadeuspagel »

Jabbles wrote: post #74
peoplefromibiza wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mass shootings are rare Yeah, but... Typical (Median) Annual Death Rate per Million People from Mass Public Shootings (U.S., Canada, and Europe, 2009-2015) United States — 0.058 Albania — 0 Austria — 0 Belgium — 0 Czech Republic — 0 Finland — 0 France — 0 Germany — 0 Italy — 0 Macedonia — 0 Netherlands — 0 Norway — 0 Russia — 0 Serbia — 0 Slovakia — 0 Switzerland — 0 United Kingdom — 0 Using the median analysis, th…

Using the median surely goes too far the other way though, discounting the fact that the US is far larger than any of those countries except Russia. Of course the US is less likely to have shooting-free years, it's far bigger. Other ways to display this data would be: - group Europe into 1 - split the US into states - display error bars - take 95% lower bound assuming a normal distribution https://www.evanmiller.org/…

The US also has a larger population then Russia.
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