Switzerland and Germany are dominating! (ve got ze best cities!)

Lay_Lay said:
American culture places a higher value on property ownership and being a slave to the car. We have Lebensraum. Perhaps other places value more congested living arrangements and being a slave to mass transit.

There is no question which slave I would prefer to be. The one with 3 cars, a large tract of land with a sprawling home and a backyard, deck, pool, barbecue ready for a party. Call me Mammy cuz I be a slave now
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The best cities are the ones where you have all the mass transit you need, and also have a car to use when you fancy it. Again, no Tokyo or Mumbai on that list. Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, and San Fran all have that.

Thorbal said:
Interesting how values differ :) . In my book, your ideal is exactly what I would not aspire to. Being forced to have a car to get anywhere. Massive tracts of land made up of colonies of the petite bourgeoisie etc. And think of all the squirrels that will die of emissions! :sad: Interesting times ahead - I wonder how the "average" American city will react to growing scarcity of resources. I don´t know if there is an alternative to the European approach in the long run.
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The perceived value of America's economy will fall off fairly quickly like so many sub-prime mortgages, as the increased costs of maintaining it become more apparent.
 
I might say Columbus, OH is an awesome city. No doubt it is, if you are 19 years old attending Ohio State University.
 
Yeah, I've been to German cities. Munich is like from fairy tale, not even grass grows in the wrong direction. I liked Berlin better though, a bit more energy and youthfulness.

So, if you combine Munich's tidiness and Berlin's liveliness you get: Vienna! Buwahaha, Austria beats everybody! Vienna is no. 1 on the list but, Graz, Klagenfurt, Salzburg and Linz all deserve to be mentioned. They are just fantastic. Even better than German and Swiss and we all know how hard is to beat them:)
 
Lay_Lay said:
All you got is a political take on it?
I tell you that I expect the freedom and privacy that my car provides, and you offer me mass transit? It's laughable really.

I don't know or care what industries allow for my higher quality of life than what city life would otherwise afford me. If you want to convince me to care, you should begin by admitting that the quaility of life is indeed higher, with plenty of Lebensraum and privacy. Now that you have admitted that, tell me why I should decrease my quality of life. Save the Squirrels?
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Nobody is denying you your 'lebensraum' by proposing mass transit as an alternative to the automobile. It makes absolutely no sense that you see them as absolutes when both forms of travel, in fact, complement each other by alleviating the amount of traffic on roads to reduce congestion and provide an alternative to get to your destination when in gridlock. Where is your 'freedom' when you're stuck in traffic for a few hours every day?

There are certainly inconveniences to taking public transit, but at least with such infrastructure in place automobiles can be regarded as a convenience, as it should be, rather than a necessity to get around.
 
Lay_Lay said:
Well, it's a choice between car or mass transit. One choice has a set route, with a set schedule, with limited carrying capacity. The other allows for free scheduling, free movement over the vast road and highway network, and I can cram it full of stuff I bought, so I don't have to go buy groceries every other day.
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well, vienna is a city of about 1.6 million and i can use pretty much every public transport thingy (trolly, bus or subway) to get pretty much everywhere within the city with a waiting time of at the very maximum 8 minutes.

not much of a schedule.

also, parking situation is bearable if you have a car.
 
I am shocked that Madrid makes the top 50 tbh. love the city but "quality of living" it has not other than in the most basic forms. ghastly in winter, baking in summer, constant shortage of water (unless this has changed since I lived there in the late 90s), dreadful food other than jamon or tortilla espanola, air that gives you coal-black boogers, nobody speaks a lick of english (not a problem for me, thankfully, but for expatriats?) , etc.

personally I love the town but in no way does it make the top 50....

PS: vienna would indeed be a nice town if somebody there spoke German.
 
scherbchen said:
I am shocked that Madrid makes the top 50 tbh. love the city but "quality of living" it has not other than in the most basic forms. ghastly in winter, baking in summer, constant shortage of water (unless this has changed since I lived there in the late 90s), dreadful food other than jamon or tortilla espanola, air that gives you coal-black boogers, nobody speaks a lick of english (not a problem for me, thankfully, but for expatriats?) , etc.

personally I love the town but in no way does it make the top 50....

PS: vienna would indeed be a nice town if somebody there spoke German.
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To be fair towards the admittedly sometimes weird ranking, weather was not used as an indicator.
 
Thorbal said:
Glad my melodramatic thread title lured you in here :D .

Mercer consulting has just published its "Quality of Living Survey". I thought it might be of interest to you. Vienna is the overall winner!

Here is the Top50-list:

Spoiler :
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3 things: Vienna is still being counted as Germany? Amsterdam is no. 13 - which makes me think: Is this a review of cities over, say, 500.000 pop.? (Because I somehow doubt Amsterdam is the best city to live in when In the Low Countries - Brussels didn't make the top 50 -, as many people prefer smaller cities for a number of reasons.) Thirdly: Switzerland definitely got ze bestest Alps.;) (No offence Austria/France.)
 
JEELEN said:
3 things: Vienna is still being counted as Germany? Amsterdam is no. 13 - which makes me think: Is this a review of cities over, say, 500.000 pop.? (Because I somehow doubt Amsterdam is the best city to live in when In the Low Countries - Brussels didn't make the top 50 -, as many people prefer smaller cities for a number of reasons.) Thirdly: Switzerland definitely got ze bestest Alps.;) (No offence Austria/France.)
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Of course it is - it´s just that they don´t want to hear it :D .
And we got Alpz too!

Seriously:
The choice of cities (and this is the central weak spot of that ranking) is rather arbitrary. Mercer has a database of 410 cities and they chose to include 215 of them. I don´t know why they chose these particular cities in the first place, so a lot of cities are not even represented in the ranking. It would probably look very different if more cities were included.
 
JEELEN said:
3 things: Vienna is still being counted as Germany? Amsterdam is no. 13 - which makes me think: Is this a review of cities over, say, 500.000 pop.? (Because I somehow doubt Amsterdam is the best city to live in when In the Low Countries - Brussels didn't make the top 50 -, as many people prefer smaller cities for a number of reasons.) Thirdly: Switzerland definitely got ze bestest Alps.;) (No offence Austria/France.)
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Brussels is 14th?
 
Lay_Lay said:
Strange ranking system.
It appears not to value personal privacy much.
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umm, how so? how do the cities at the top not value personal privacy?

It appears not to value the freedom provided by the automobile.
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In all the top ranked cities you can drive your car....and have a top-notch public transport system to top it off....

It appears not to value weather very much.
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because weather is too subjective. some people like it warm, some cold. Furthermore the climate of the top cities isn't bad, all have a rather moderate climate. Chances for natural disasters (Floods, Hurricanes, Tornados, Droughts, etc.) are rather small..

Thorbal said:
And we got Alpz too!
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yeah, Diet-Alps :p
 
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