France is the best place to live says study (crime rate, life, cost)
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Britain has dropped to 25th place on a list of the best places in the world to live - behind countries such as the Czech Republic, Lithuania and Uruguay.
While France tops the poll for the fifth year running, the UK's climate, crime rate, cost of living, congested roads and overcrowded cities have pushed it even further down from last year's ranking at 20.
The Quality of Life Index, published by International Living magazine for the 30th year, says the French live life to the full, while Britons are over-worked.
In all, 194 countries are surveyed on nine criteria, including the cost of living, culture and leisure, environment, safety, culture and weather.
Australia is placed second after France, followed by Switzerland, Germany and New Zealand.
Even former communist countries where unemployment is still rife are considered better places to settle down in than Britain, with Lithuania and the Czech Republic coming in at 22nd and 24th place respectively.
Variety is also seen as a major factor in France's appeal, with the survey noting: 'Romantic Paris offers the best of everything, but services don't fall away in Alsace's wine villages, in wild and lovely Corsica, in lavender-scented Provence. Or in the Languedoc of the troubadors, bathed in Mediterranean sunlight.'
Britain does not top a single category in the survey, which is compiled using official government statistics, data from the World Health Organisation and the views of the magazine's editors around the globe.
The U.S. fell from third to seventh place because of the economic crisis last year. A magazine spokesman said: 'Sustaining the American Dream has escalated out of the reach of many.'
Germany is widely praised for its efficiency and leisure facilities, with the magazine noting that 'the Harz Mountains now has a specialist hiking trail for nudists. Germany is arguably the world's most naturist-friendly country'.
It's #30 and I think I figured it out why. They scored Cost of Living as 0 for some reason (only country marked 0 or anywhere near that low) and still divided by the same number they did for every other country. When dividing by 8, it scores higher than the others. It's hurt a bit by its climate (understandably when comparing to the options of France or the US) and Health for some reason (thought their health system was considered among the top and had high life expectancies). Other than that, they score higher than most other countries in the other categories. http://www1.internationalliving.com/qofl2010/
Actually, I compared Sweden with the top 10 excluding the "Cost of Living" and Sweden edges out all of them at 679 until Germany. So I'm guessing it's actually in the top 5 or 6 if that Cost of Living score was there (unless they really meant to give it a 0, ha).
Last edited by vaga bond; 04-20-2010 at 08:47 AM..
Pictures don't tell you the whole story. I could show you pictures form Houston that are MUCH worse than the one you got there form Lithuania. Every city has its bad parts. That's nothing new.
And there was an economic crisis everywhere. Saying that's the reason the U.S fell is not correct, since pretty much every country had to deal with it. The U.S. feel because it's generally going downhill here.
Who made this quality of life Ãndex???? A U.S. Company??? There is no way that's true. The usa doesnt even have universal healthcare.
The canadian mÃnimum wage is higher than the USA mÃnimum wage. The canadian unemployment is lower. The wealth is more equally distributed among canadian citizens (Gini coefficient) and canadian cities are super developed.
Canadians are pacifist. How can we live la dolce vita in the U.S. when we are constantly involved in a different war every three years.
Well, just look at the data they compared and who knows how they calculated each because the link explaining that is broken. I live in one of the countries scored in the top 15 in climate and it rains here (amount of precipitation) twice as much as Sweden, often cloudy, and as soon as winter stops (mid-April), the humidity shoots through the roof (like today). With all the rain at the same time, this leads to major fungus, mold, and insect problems. Hardly any comfortable spring or fall here. Likewise, sorting by "Crime and Safety" almost all fairly developed countries are scored at 100. I had no idea the US and Puerto Rico (not a country) were 100% safe like Japan and Sweden, haha. An important factor not calculated that people seriously need to know about before moving is how friendly people are too outsiders, how well and readily they can speak English (since it's a magazine aimed at English readers), how easy it is to learn the main language. I think this is a major strike against a few countries including France.
that's not the same thing, and maybe that's the reason why the HDI is called HDI and not quality of life index
Quote:
According to it, USA is 13th and is going down year by year.
Actually, USA still ranks very high, there's no gap between norway and USA, and BTW norway it's 6 millions of people, USA it's more than 300 millions. I tend to think it's an achievement to bring some much wealth to such a large number of people.
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