Global Cities Index: Top 25 Cities To Live In (best city, 2009)

[City of Rain]

here is the source:

Global Cities Index: Melbourne is Best City to Live - Travel, sceneadvisor.com

and the list:

1) Melbourne
2) Zürich
3) Geneva
4) Copenhagen
5) Paris
6) Tokyo
7) New York
8) Vienna
9) Barcelona
10) Singapore
11) Amsterdam
12) Sydney
13) Toronto
14) Bangkok
15) Berlin
16) Hamburg
17) Munich
18) Vancouver
19) London
20) Washington
21) Dusseldorf
22) Cape Town
23) Buenos Aires
24) San Francisco
25) Oslo

so, there you have it.

its good to see a couple of asian cities on that list

i noticed that 14 out of the 25 cities are european..

.. and only 3 are american. how do you all feel about this?

and what do you think of the list in general? does it seem fair?

thanks

[MJay]

♥ New York ♥

[danielsa1775]

I always regret not moving to Melbourne when given a job opportunity down their.

For some reason american cities never to well in these surveys!

[Dport7674]

Seattle seems like it would be very easy to live in. IMHO, easier than NY and San Fran.

[City of Rain]

anyone else?

[grmike]

most other recent lists put Vancouver in the top 5. this one already loses credit there.
why would Melbroune be number 1 ?
they talk about gdp per capita in the article and Australia's nominal gdp per captia has shrunk from 47,400 in 2008 to 34,475 in 2009.
Toronto and Sydney are in the right places, but many other cities don't seem right.

[danielsa1775]

Originally Posted by grmike

most other recent lists put Vancouver in the top 5. this one already loses credit there.
why would Melbroune be number 1 ?
they talk about gdp per capita in the article and Australia's nominal gdp per captia has shrunk from 47,400 in 2008 to 34,475 in 2009.
Toronto and Sydney are in the right places, but many other cities don't seem right.

Where did you get that GDP Figure from? Australia is the only devleoped country in the world to record postive economic growth over the last 12 months. (At least thats what our newpapers and television stations are telling us). Our dollar has also shot up over 30% against the USD in the last 5 months, from around 63c US in march to currently 86c US. If that GDP figure was taken in $US 5 months ago $34,475 might be about right. However if measured today (as nominal GDP is by my understanding - measured at current prices) it would be much closer to the $47,000 in 2008.

Anyway i have seem lots of these lists and yes Vancouver is always near the top, as is Auckland (New Zealand) which is not their at all? I also think this must be prepared from travellers perspective or something. For instance Bangkok is number 14 on the list? The only word i can think of to describe Bangkok is Chaos! It stil is in some respects a third world city, complete with slums, a dizzy aray of crowded streets packed with a multitude of different forms of tranportation (not all of them machine powered either), the income of your average resident of bangkok would only be a fraction of that of your average german!

Aussies also have a Sydeny vs Melbourne thing, in my opinion Melbourne would be a far Superior place to live.

[grmike]

Originally Posted by danielsa1775

Where did you get that GDP Figure from? Australia is the only devleoped country in the world to record postive economic growth over the last 12 months. (At least thats what our newpapers and television stations are telling us). Our dollar has also shot up over 30% against the USD in the last 5 months, from around 63c US in march to currently 86c US. If that GDP figure was taken in $US 5 months ago $34,475 might be about right. However if measured today (as nominal GDP is by my understanding - measured at current prices) it would be much closer to the $47,000 in 2008.

Anyway i have seem lots of these lists and yes Vancouver is always near the top, as is Auckland (New Zealand) which is not their at all? I also think this must be prepared from travellers perspective or something. For instance Bangkok is number 14 on the list? The only word i can think of to describe Bangkok is Chaos! It stil is in some respects a third world city, complete with slums, a dizzy aray of crowded streets packed with a multitude of different forms of tranportation (not all of them machine powered either), the income of your average resident of bangkok would only be a fraction of that of your average german!

Aussies also have a Sydeny vs Melbourne thing, in my opinion Melbourne would be a far Superior place to live.

latest nominal gdp estimates for 2009
List of countries by future GDP (nominal) estimates - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Australia's nominal gdp in 2008 1.1 trillion dollars US
Australia's nominal gdp in 2009 755 billion dollars US

over the same period the country added 700,000 to 1 million people.
that's a decrease of about 13,000 dollars per capita.
It's not unique since every other country suffered a per capita loss (Great Britain, Canada) but Australia's was one of the worst losses. currencies go up and down but there's no denying that the actual gdp figures are lower. when the dollar is higher there's less production as a result of less demand.

[BigCityGuy]

I live in number 7. Heres my neighborhood.


YouTube - Harlem

[golgi1]

Originally Posted by danielsa1775

For some reason american cities never to well in these surveys!

lol. from my experiences travelling within the cities that consistently rank above american cities in lists such as this, american cities are generally ranked right where they should be. Many of the world cities that rank higher, in these lists, all things considered are generally in another class than anything that is present in the USA.

As a matter of fact, if your comparing this list to the average results in the mercer quality of life rankings, than this list is being generous. I think New York comes in higher on this list because these guys are also using factors that cant be quantified, such as culture... This is highly subjective and no one would take anything away from NYC in this category, insofar as being at least competitive with or even dominating, any other city in the world...