The most livable cities • Hacker News Board

Re: The most livable cities

#251

Post by davidw » Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 9:33 PM UTC

alexalx666 wrote: post #149

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…

Livable means different things to diff ppl (duh). For me which city is livable is very personal thing outside of basic necessities. Münster almost bored me to death plus the church bells were super loud where I stayed. Service people were special kind of polite plastic robots, but for some people its what they want

In this day and age, these things ought to be published with an online app that lets you weigh different factors. A sunny, warm climate is really important for me, for instance.

Re: The most livable cities

#252

Post by spaetzleesser » Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 9:37 PM UTC

protomyth wrote: post #193

spaetzleesser wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That's what a fair number of Canadians judging by the parking lot of the hospital in Grand Forks, ND.

I assume they don't have to deal with US health insurance and finding an in-network specialist.

Re: The most livable cities

#253

Post by egman_ekki » Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 9:41 PM UTC

TacticalCoder wrote: post #245

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.

> Nordic European winters are horrible, and no amount of amenities can compensate. Yup... Belgium (and that's not even totally north), where I'm originally from, has 199 days of rain per year. Out of the 166 days left, half of them exhibit a gray sky. Wife and I packed our stuff, put our baby in the car and left for a better life along the Mediterranean sea side six years ago: zero regret.

Where did you end up, if you don't mind me asking?

Re: The most livable cities

#254

Post by nicoburns » Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 9:42 PM UTC

novok wrote: post #218

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.

It does exist, it's just you completely have to pay out of pocket, and if you opt out of it as a doctor, you cannot take any public healthcare system patients either, which means your limited to a few rich people 'executive health' checkups and such. It's a complete either / or system. 'benefits' that cover the few items not covered by the public system also typically do not cover such non-public doctor visits either…

$200k!! (presumably Canadian Dollars, which works out at ~£126k). Here in the UK a typical GP salary is ~90k, and while we do have trouble retaining doctors that is almost entirely due to working conditions (hospitals and practices are understaffed so medical staff end up overworked). I've only very rarely heard doctors complain that they are underpaid. I can definitely see that rates ought to equalised across different medical career paths though.

Re: The most livable cities

#255

Post by zem » Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 9:43 PM UTC

hartator wrote: post #173

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…

It seems a misdirection to use median across years as we have averages available. It's more precise and more readable but probably doesn't align with the policies you want to push: Norway — 1.888 Serbia — 0.381 France — 0.347 Macedonia — 0.337 Albania — 0.206 Slovakia — 0.185 Switzerland — 0.142 Finland — 0.132 Belgium — 0.128 Czech Republic — 0.123 United States — 0.089 Austria — 0.068 Netherlands — 0.051 Canada — 0…

"A more important oversight was the report's use of average deaths per capita instead of a more stable metric. Because of the smaller populations of most European countries, individual events in those countries had statistically oversized influence and warped the results. For example, Norway’s world-leading annual rate was due to a single devastating 2011 event, in which far-right extremist Anders Behring Breivik gunned down 69 people at a summer camp on the island of Utøya. Norway had zero mass shootings in 2009, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015."

Re: The most livable cities

#256

Post by camillomiller » Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 9:44 PM UTC

DrRobinson wrote: post #94

creativenolo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

He didn't say he was single. One can be a man in his 30s without kids and still not be single, not everyone want to have kids.

Indeed, I am not. I live in Berlin, by the way, and I’m not into parties and techno. Despite all its flaws Berlin has a multicultural and less white washed vibe, for example, than Frankfurt.

And talking about catering to a specific type, Frankfurt and Zürich are way more catered toward a very normative idea of family and individuals A city like Berlin by these standards is deemed less liveable, but some of its flaws is what makes it way more humanly liveable. Also, Berlin has so many areas that are completely different from one another that here you can find the millionaire tech startupper with a villa at Wannsee eating out at Hasir in Kreuzberg next to deadbeat students. That’s more my idea of psychologically livable. But yeah, if you’re into skiing, banking, and fancy wines I guess Zürich’s fine.

Re: The most livable cities

#257

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 9:49 PM UTC

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #130

Jabbles wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider cutting the US into pieces whilst maintaining the overall mass-shooting rate. As it decreases in size the average time-between-mass-shootings will increase. As you continue to decrease the size, that time will increase above a year and you'll start getting zero mass-shooting deaths per year. Continue decreasing the size futher and you'll get >3 years with zero mass shootings, at which point these microcosms…

It's the exact opposite. Measuring smaller regions can lead to an increase of the median. For example Norway only had one mass shooting in the past 10 years, while there have been 25 major mass shootings in the US in the same time span, in 2022 alone there have been 22 mass shootings in USA[1], but only 3 in the entire Europe - 746 million people -, including one in Russia and one in Ukraine, and only 1 ( one ) in EU…

[deleted]

Re: The most livable cities

#258

Post by toomuchtodo » Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 9:52 PM UTC

davidw wrote: post #251

alexalx666 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Livable means different things to diff ppl (duh). For me which city is livable is very personal thing outside of basic necessities. Münster almost bored me to death plus the church bells were super loud where I stayed. Service people were special kind of polite plastic robots, but for some people its what they want

In this day and age, these things ought to be published with an online app that lets you weigh different factors. A sunny, warm climate is really important for me, for instance.

https://nomadlist.com/ ?

Re: The most livable cities

#259

Post by Barrin92 » Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 9:58 PM UTC

VoxelBoy wrote: post #246

Barrin92 wrote: post #244

This list seems awful. How is Istanbul ranked this low? Almost all Chinese cities seem incredibly underrated, Beijing and Shanghai on a level with Athens, some of the top 'second tier' cities on par with Latin American cities? Dubai and Abu Dhabi as 'livable', not for the workers there, that's for sure. If you wanted to put a positive spin on it you can say the Economist knows its readership very well.

Have you ever lived in Istanbul? I've lived there for more than 20 years and I'm not surprised that it is ranked low. Terrible traffic (which makes people angry overall), huge sprawl and population, lots and lots of other problems.

Yep I have and it were some of the most fun times of my life. Every 10 million pop. city has terrible traffic and problems, including those high on that list, and all of their residents think they suck in some sense.

But unlike a lot of the high income expat enclaves the Economist chose to put up in the rankings Istanbul also has genuine culture. It's the most actually cosmopolitan city in the world as far as I'm concerned.

Re: The most livable cities

#260

Post by mypalmike » Sat, Jun 25, 2022, 9:59 PM UTC

burntoutfire wrote: post #247

mypalmike wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I never said that. (What I said is that, after already seeing NYC, SF and Las Vegas, I didn't expect the trip to Seatle to be worth it). Next time, please read more carefully before you start posting pointless comments.

You said: "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*"

You later changed to "worth it" because you didn't want to admit that these places might not be "more of the same", because they aren't the same at all.

I suspect you also realized that if you find yourself "bored" in NYC, the problem is not the city. There are few places in the world with more things you can do 24/7 than New York.