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Old 02-24-2011, 08:22 PM
 
Location: compton
138 posts, read 359,281 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffredo View Post
You can cherry pick stats all you want to craft a list that comes up with a very similar result year after year. I've traveled a fair bit in my life and have been to a good number of those cities. They are very nice, but they aren't better or markedly better than many US cities. I'd pit Seattle, Portland, Minneapolis/St. Paul, San Jose, San Francisco, Des Moines, Denver or Honolulu against most of them any day in many areas. I'm not an apologist for the US. I would have loved to see a single payer health care plan in this country decades ago. Still, many US cities are extremely livable in one critical area that a lot of these list winners can't match - you can actually afford to "live" in them.
Yessur
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Old 02-25-2011, 02:27 AM
 
241 posts, read 740,957 times
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Has anyone here lived in Vancouver? I'm trying to see what makes it special, but using Google Street View, it seems very NA suburban-y. Only a few streets in the core of the downtown have small shops lined up (Robson St., W. 4th Ave, Commercial Drive). Go a bit off those streets are suburban houses, large buildings (the area with all the skyscrapers), or shops spread too far apart. Outside the downtown is nothing but suburban houses. The roads are extremely wide, even downtown. It appears you must own a car there, and if you do, get ready for long drives because they don't have freeways. I'm not sure how useful their rail system is for most people since the city is not dense and stations are not throughout the city. Maybe you can get by w/o a car in the skyscraper part of the city, but I'm not sure how many people really live and hang out there aside from well-off professionals. Maybe those who don't like cars live and hang out in this area?
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Old 02-25-2011, 03:46 AM
 
Location: Macao
16,284 posts, read 42,980,152 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by poxonyou View Post
Has anyone here lived in Vancouver? I'm trying to see what makes it special, but using Google Street View, it seems very NA suburban-y. Only a few streets in the core of the downtown have small shops lined up (Robson St., W. 4th Ave, Commercial Drive). Go a bit off those streets are suburban houses, large buildings (the area with all the skyscrapers), or shops spread too far apart. Outside the downtown is nothing but suburban houses. The roads are extremely wide, even downtown. It appears you must own a car there, and if you do, get ready for long drives because they don't have freeways. I'm not sure how useful their rail system is for most people since the city is not dense and stations are not throughout the city. Maybe you can get by w/o a car in the skyscraper part of the city, but I'm not sure how many people really live and hang out there aside from well-off professionals. Maybe those who don't like cars live and hang out in this area?
I've never lived there, but have been there.

Vancouver actually is a very beautiful city. Very beautiful and dense skyscrapers more or less on an island or something island-like. You have a great urban atmosphere, and surrounded by a lot of natural beauty. I certainly think it is one of Canada's most beautiful cities.

It definitely deserves a #1 spot at least once, but definitely not 5 years in a row. It's nice, but so are a lot of other places in this big world of ours.

Toronto is the mystery one to me. Granted, I grew up next door in Michigan. But the weather in that entire region is just brutal cold for too many months, and it's super flat. The beauty of Toronto is the fact it has a lot of international restaurants and international people. But than again, the same thing can be said about Sydney, New York, London, Los Angeles, etc.

Anyways, if I were to make a list, I'd probably take what I perceived to be the best one or two of a country, and then spread around the very subjective list. Maybe Vancouver and Melbourne/Sydney (dont know which is better). But I would certainly have HONOLULU on the list. I'd definetely put TWO Asian cities on there...maybe Hong Kong and Tokyo...or Fukuoka (the Edmonton equivalent), if I thought Tokyo was too costly. I'd probably grab a Latin American city, they aren't all bad. If not Rio de Jainero, maybe somewhere equally beautiful and interesting. In Europe, perhaps Barcelona or somewhere like that.

I would try to make it at least LOOK LIKE as an author I had a clue about the world and that I actually traveled in it. At least a small inclination of it.
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Old 02-25-2011, 04:54 AM
 
5,909 posts, read 5,817,980 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by paull805 View Post
it depends what you like in a city, some may like the quiet life and some may like a party city. me personally sevilla would be top of my list closely followed by rio. But i think for the 'average' person places like tokyo, london, sydney and new york would probally be up there
Indeed cities such as London and New York are great cities to be in and have a lot of fun,love both very much,but not sure how they would rank for overall livability,with regards to clean air,equality,overall education,crime,raising a family,etc.
Besides a lot of folk tend to move on somewhere in middle age,if at all possible.
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Old 02-25-2011, 06:05 AM
 
Location: Scotland
7,964 posts, read 11,804,489 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by the troubadour View Post
Indeed cities such as London and New York are great cities to be in and have a lot of fun,love both very much,but not sure how they would rank for overall livability,with regards to clean air,equality,overall education,crime,raising a family,etc.
Besides a lot of folk tend to move on somewhere in middle age,if at all possible.
yeah thats what im saying, me, personally i would say sevilla in spain, great architecture, good climate, relaxed, a lot of influences from other cultures, peaceful way of life yet you can go out for a party and a drink, perfect city, for me at least, i love london to but maybe a bit to hectic to live
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Old 02-25-2011, 03:25 PM
 
Location: In the heights
36,921 posts, read 38,855,782 times
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I think there might be an explanation for the skewed results.

First, there's also this list with the least livable cities.

They don't let everyone access the full report (so I can't be sure of this, but it'd be fun for someone to post a link so we can check if this hypothesis works out), but it looks like they took in 140 cities from all over the world with a preference for national capitals (as places like Harare, Colombo, Douala, and Port Moresby are fairly small and almost unremarkable cities that were included), megacities, and cities in the Western world (Northern America, Australia, New Zealand, Europe) with special preference for anglophone countries. Of course, these aren't mutually exclusive categories, but there's no perfect overlap.

As there are well above 140 countries, some national capitals didn't make the cut but a lot were included so they take up a good bit of space on that list of 140. After that you take non-capital obvious megacities such as Shanghai, Shenzen, Osaka, Sao Paolo, Rio, Mumbai, Kolkata, Istanbul, Karachi, Lagos, etc.

Afterwards is where the bias comes in. Obviously, there's going to be a lack of space afterwards for the inclusion of non-capital, non-megacity listings out of a list of 140. So what kind of smaller cities do they populate the list with?

Well, for the single country of Canada (with a population of 30 million), it looks like they decided to include Vancouver, Toronto, and Calgary (obviously). I think it's likely that they probably included more than that (my guess is they probably threw in at least Montreal and likely Ottawa, maybe Edmonton). So going down to at least Ottawa (which is the capital and larger than Edmonton), then you have five cities in contention for Canada alone with the smallest metro going all the way down to a population of a little more than one million. That's a listing for about every six million people.

For Australia (with a population around 20 million), they have included at least Melbourne, Sydney, Perth, and Adelaide (but likely Brisbane and possibly Canberra as well). Including at least the addition of Brisbane, you have five cities for Australia alone with the smallest having a metro of around one million. That's about a listing for every four million people.

For the US (with a population around 300 milliion), they have likely included a huge gamut of cities since they threw in everything from Pittsburgh (metro population of about 2 million) to Honolulu (metro smaller than 1 million) to NYC and Los Angeles. However, it's likely they have included fewer cities per capita for the US than they have for Canada or Australia. If it had a per capita inclusion rate as high as Australia's (1 city for every five million people), we'd hit about 60 which would pretty much mean Australia, Canada, and the US would take up half the list already. However, as the US is a bit more scattered with its population and would otherwise dominate a huge portion of the list, I'm guessing it probably has something between twenty or thirty instead.

My guess is that the UK probably also has more than just London in the running such as Glasgow and Liverpool, but this I'm less sure of.

I think it's obvious that developed/Western Anglophone countries take a disproportionate number of slots on the list. Now couple that with how their rubric tends to favor "mid-sized cities in developed countries with relatively low population densities tend to score well by having all the cultural and infrastructural benefits on offer with fewer problems related to crime or congestion," and you can get a hint of why the East Asian cites don't seem to fare as well as they should--where is there room left over for mid-sized cities in developed East Asian countries after having taken into account how the list contenders are selected? Where are Nagoya (metro 9 million), Fukuoka (metro 5 million), Sapporo (metro 2.5 million), Sendai and Hiroshima (each about 2 million) which are great smaller cities of Japan and likely to do well in the metrics listed? What about Busan (3.6 million) and Daegu (2.5 million) for South Korea listed?

Neat.
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Old 02-25-2011, 05:17 PM
 
1,092 posts, read 2,164,327 times
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It's very political. It's true that those cities like Vancouver and Melbourne have free healthcare access and its country is more humane in treating people when they get in trouble. They also have more liberal idealog like helping out the environment and cleaning up their air pollutions. They also are more into recycling. For me, do I want to live in Vancouver? Heck no! Vancouver has a rotten core with drug infested and homeless problems. The downtown is just a boring bedroom community with its nightlife in the heart of Gastown, the worst section of the city. Don't forget its lousy rainy climate, too. I'd rather be in San Diego and Kauai, Hawaii.
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Old 02-25-2011, 10:44 PM
 
935 posts, read 2,405,460 times
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I've been to Vancouver and I have friends who live in Vancouver. I must say I believe it is worthy of being within the top three (though still debating about #1 spot since a few portions of the city have a slightly grungy look). However, their transportation system is far superior in comparison to a lot of areas in the U.S. (though I haven't used the public transport in Boston or NYC). The city is small enough so you don't feel completely lost, but large and diverse enough to keep you entertained for a while. Also, if the city starts to drag you down, just hop on a sea bus and go to Northern Vancouver. They have mountains, nature paths, and Lynn Canyon Park. They also have beaches (though I don't think I would ever try swimming in Vancouver). Yes, there is a drug and homeless problem, but we have worse ones in the U.S. and I feel a lot safer walking around Vancouver at night than I do some U.S. cities or towns.

I haven't been to Pittsburgh, but the U.S. does have some decent cities. However, judging by the criteria they gave for the study I think I would have to agree with them in terms of the higher ranking cities. I've been to quite a few cities in the U.S., Canada, UK, and the main part of Europe. America is a good country, but we could do a lot better.
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Old 02-26-2011, 12:31 AM
 
9,327 posts, read 21,943,445 times
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Ive lived in Toronto and don't know why it makes the list. We had smog alerts in the summer, the highways are jammed with traffic. I am biased towards Oz and not surprised to see Aussie cities well represented, including another city in Oz where I used to live - Adelaide. I always thought that if I had a wifey and kiddies, it (Adelaide) would be a brilliant city to live in. Few traffic jams/easy commutes, close to beautiful beaches and beautiful wine regions, lots of festivals and culture. Great foodie city (just ask the New York Times). Great restuarants and coffee scene and cost of living is lower than most other Aussie capital cities.

Iv'e vactioned in Vancouver, my Mom grew up there..I find the area east of downtown is scary but overall I thought if prices were lower, it would also be another brilliant city to live in. Multicultural, stunning scenery, great cultural and outdoor acitvities.

Calgary.. why is the Dallas of Canada on the list?
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Old 02-26-2011, 12:34 AM
 
9,327 posts, read 21,943,445 times
Reputation: 4571
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tiger Beer View Post
I've never lived there, but have been there.

Vancouver actually is a very beautiful city. Very beautiful and dense skyscrapers more or less on an island or something island-like. You have a great urban atmosphere, and surrounded by a lot of natural beauty. I certainly think it is one of Canada's most beautiful cities.

It definitely deserves a #1 spot at least once, but definitely not 5 years in a row. It's nice, but so are a lot of other places in this big world of ours.

Toronto is the mystery one to me. Granted, I grew up next door in Michigan. But the weather in that entire region is just brutal cold for too many months, and it's super flat. The beauty of Toronto is the fact it has a lot of international restaurants and international people. But than again, the same thing can be said about Sydney, New York, London, Los Angeles, etc.

Anyways, if I were to make a list, I'd probably take what I perceived to be the best one or two of a country, and then spread around the very subjective list. Maybe Vancouver and Melbourne/Sydney (dont know which is better). But I would certainly have HONOLULU on the list. I'd definetely put TWO Asian cities on there...maybe Hong Kong and Tokyo...or Fukuoka (the Edmonton equivalent), if I thought Tokyo was too costly. I'd probably grab a Latin American city, they aren't all bad. If not Rio de Jainero, maybe somewhere equally beautiful and interesting. In Europe, perhaps Barcelona or somewhere like that.

I would try to make it at least LOOK LIKE as an author I had a clue about the world and that I actually traveled in it. At least a small inclination of it.
Honolulu? Eek. ugly architecture. High cost of living. Low wages. Even locals get island fever and go to the mainland. OK waikiki is cute, but not when its jam packed with people. And Travel and Tourism is the main industry... how can a city be liveable with such a narrow choice of jobs?
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