The most livable cities

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/06/22/the-worlds-most-liveable-cities

by krigath • 4 years ago

135 276 4 years ago

thriftwy• 4 years ago

There should be some in-built bias, such as adding points for just being in the Northern America. Otherwise it's hard to explain how all of the diverse cities of the USA end up being clumped in one place of the scale.

That, or not having sufficient dynamic range.

dagmx• 4 years ago

Why would clustering be odd? Culture, industry and other aspects of city life spread outwards. It makes sense that if there's a given city that's very livable, that areas around it similarly benefit and prosper too. This of course assumes no segregation based policies

martindbp6• 4 years ago

how all of the diverse cities of the USA

Have you perhaps considered that they're not very diverse? NYC and SF are a bit different yeah, but other than that they're all remarkably similar. Honestly it's a significant factor in why I decided to move back to Europe. It always bothered me when Americans claim that the US states are as diverse as separate countries in e.g. Europe. No, just no. You are blinded by the fact you've grown up there and are attuned to the small regional differences. There are as large regional differences within individual European countries as there are in the US.

drstewart• 4 years ago

There are as large regional differences within individual European countries

Have you considered that they're not very large differences and you're just blinded by the fact that you're attuned to them?

burntoutfire10• 4 years ago

Have you perhaps considered that they're not very diverse?

This. Being a European, 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) and absolutely not worth the trip.

Americans speaking about large cultural differences between regions always surprise me - I often suspect they don't understand what "cultural differences" mean and instead talk about political differences.

lbrito10• 4 years ago

I'm always surprised how Americans have a radically different interpretation of diversity. This debate always comes up.

Large American cities have many minorities that tend to congregate socially and geographically, hence "Koreatown", "Little Russia" etc. You have your Cuban-Americans and eat Thai food.

An American will say this is diversity. I guess it is in a sense, but with very flawed integration. Other countries also had large influxes of immigrants in the past century and they eventually are integrated, enriching themselves and their host country in the process. I wish people would reflect more why this doesn't happen in the US.

andsoitis3• 4 years ago

Los Angeles is way more diverse, on just about any front, than San Francisco.

mbg7212• 4 years ago

You're also comparing the biggest cities to each other. If you compared say, Lafayette, LA to Montpelier, VT to Las Cruces, NM, you might draw a different conclusion.

postsantum3• 4 years ago

That bias is called "I have a car and I need to drive everywhere"

manc_lad• 4 years ago

It would take away the legitimacy of the results if they introduced bias. Asia is more diverse (Sydney, Gujarat, Luang Prabang, Jakarta) and maybe the USA just isn't.

masonic• 4 years ago

adding points for just being in the Northern America

To the contrary, I find it odd that there isn't a single upper-tier livable city in the western 2/3rds of the US but every city in the eastern 95% of Australia is top tier. Hell, my neighbors immigrated from Australia.

mantas• 4 years ago

Different people have different definition of livable. Even same person has different definitions in different stages of life.

And frequently people move for bigger money or career opportunities over livability.

isubasinghe2• 4 years ago

I think Australia is very easy to have a good life in thanks to the laid-back culture and government support (healthcare, benefits etc), imo it is a mix of Europe + America.

The problem also is the laid-back culture which creates mediocrity in my opinion, the tech scene in Europe, America, Singapore is much better as a result.

Depending on priorities its a great place to live, but if you are super passionate about whatever you are doing, it may not be the best place to advance career wise.

postsantum3• 4 years ago

I'm glad Tashkent is finally in Eastern Europe

altvali• 4 years ago

Yes, but of all the cities in Eastern Europe, it's the least livable. Even Baku is better.

postsantum3• 4 years ago

How about Kabul? It's not that far away

moltar• 4 years ago

How can Calgary and Vancouver be next to Vienna and Copenhagen. That list must be rigged.

frozencell5• 4 years ago

Probably because of new events or night life.

hunglee2• 4 years ago

office activity is taken as evidence of livability, rather than a consequence of a 'let it rip' pandemic response policy + antediluvian bosses who hate remote

sascha_sl5• 4 years ago

The fact that there isn't a single dutch city in the top 10, but 3 in car-infested Canada tells me that I have very different standards for "livable".

bergenty4• 4 years ago

I love “car-infested”. Taking public transport and living densely is my version of hell.

burntoutfire10• 4 years ago

I think it's most people's version of hell. Even in Scandinavian countries, well-off people live in houses on a plot of land, not in apartments.

sascha_sl5• 4 years ago

You don't need to live densely to have public transport and access to services. US city planning (and Canada for the most part) have a problem with either allowing very high density (in limited space, so you get huge towers) or single family homes, very few things in between.

I live in a mixed used era, in a 5 story appartment block, which is the high end of density around here. I have two tram lines within 400 meters and an S-Bahn station less than 100m away.

And also, dutch cities allow for bikes, if public transport isn't your thing.

LeonidasXIV2• 4 years ago

Cars make cities worse for everyone, whereas public transport makes cities better for everyone, even people using cars because there is less traffic.

I enjoy biking, public transport and the density to support a nice shopping/bar/party street within walking distance, but what do I know, living in the second most livable city.

einpoklum• 4 years ago

1. Use a bicycle; public transport is the (popular) backup.

2. Living in a city means living densely (for some definition of dense). If you don't like that, you should probably not live in a city in the first place.

3. Dutch cities are not really that dense in my experience.

jakkos• 4 years ago

Can I ask why?

I'm genuinely curious, as I feel the opposite

isubasinghe2• 4 years ago

What is wrong with public transport? I understand in America it's not great, but having frequent, reliable, fast, clean & safe public transport is amazing. Public Transport in a lot of Western European countries are like that with the exception of the DeutscheBahn (DB is hell).

usrbinbash4• 4 years ago

Where I live, public transport is a breeze. Roomy, punctual, good serving frequencies, clean, constantly improving (more stations, modernizing vehicles). I don't have to concentrate on driving, I dont have to worry where to put the vehicle when its not in use, I have not been in a traffic-jam for year. And they cost less than owning a car.

sime2009• 4 years ago

The problem with cars is the huge negative effect it has on city planning and neighborhoods. It is not really about cars vs public transport. It is about cities built for cars vs cities built for people. I live in the Netherlands and have lived many years in a big western style modern city (Melbourne). It is day and night.

Neighborhoods for cars:

* Noise

* Pollution

* Dangerous for all, especially children and cyclists

* Discourages simple outside exercise like walking or jogging

* Forces car ownership. You can't do anything without a car.

* Massive amounts of space are required for roadways, parking etc.

* Sprawl. Everything has to be spread out.

* Anything immediately outside your home is unpleasant.

Neighborhoods for people:

* Quiet

* Less pollution

* Safe. Children can play outside and go to the park or shops by themselves, or visit their friends by foot or bike. (I sent my 7 year old to get a couple things from the supermarket last week.)

* Biking and walking is pleasant

* You don't need to buy a car

* The neighborhood isn't full of ugly car parks.

* neighborhood is compact, making biking and walking much more viable.

* more space for public green areas

Flashtoo• 4 years ago

Amsterdam is #9 in the report (scoring 0.1 lower than Toronto), but not mentioned in the article for some reason.

EdSchouten• 4 years ago

I don't know exactly what the criteria are of being included in the list, but the Netherlands doesn't have that many large cities. Only Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague have a population of >500k. If the cutoff is at >250k, the list only grows by one city; Utrecht.

yread• 4 years ago

Hey don't let the secret out. Do you want all those people who read the economist and believe their lists to come over here and ruin the housing market even more?!

lbrito10• 4 years ago

Paging Not Just Bikes! Code red, someone made a lost where Amsterdam is not number 1. Outrageous!

camillomiller2• 4 years ago

what is living well? Why are these lists always so skewed toward such a normative view of liveability?

Zürich is a beautiful and well-organized city, for example, but every single time I've been there I've found out that its quiet translates into a boringness I've seldom experienced anywhere else. For me, a man in his late thirties who has no plans to have kids and form a normative family, it's a living nightmare.

thecopy• 4 years ago

Zurich is interesting since on the outside and to a lot of people it seems to be a very boring city indeed. However, in my experience, under the surface there are a lof of cool things happening in Zürich. As well, don't forget that there it has a huge airport with connections to the entire world (only 10 minutes away with S-Bahn btw) and 2 hours train-ride to world-class skiing.

creativenolo2• 4 years ago

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.

pmkiwi4• 4 years ago

creativenolo: former child :)

DrRobinson• 4 years ago

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.

leto_ii3• 4 years ago

I think parent's point is pertinent. The ranking is reductive, but purports to be objective and all-encompassing.

Personally I also find very well organized, well functioning Western European cities quite boring. I would take Athens over Frankfurt any day - but of course the 'objective' index says I would be wrong to do so.

prvit• 4 years ago

It’s difficult to figure out who this is really for. It’s clearly skewed towards lower income folks, who are decidedly not the people who read The Economist.

The Patek Philippe-wearing jet set, towards whom most of the advertising on The Economist is aimed at, is going to have very different ideas of livability.

andsoitis3• 4 years ago

A great, sophisticated city can cater to a large range of lifestyles. Whether you’re into art, sort, outdoors, movies, dining, reading, etc.

Whether you’re a teen, in your thirties, or in your eighties.

If you’re city doesn’t cater for this range, it simply isn’t a great city, but rather a playground for a particular type.

goodpoint• 4 years ago

It's really weird that people publish rankings without any slider to set the viewer's preferences.

refurb• 4 years ago

Take a step back and think “why would the economist publish such an analysis that is clearly subjective”?

The answer is the analysis gets tons of press, people get worked up over the rankings, share the link, more eyeballs, more arguments, more eyeballs —> more ad revenue.

It’s the same reason starts up do blog posts of analyses, it’s free PR.

Pretty clearly it works based on the HN discussion alone.

intellectronica• 4 years ago

It's a list of liveable cities, not partyable cities ;)

gravelc• 4 years ago

So Australian, Canadian and some European cities are the places to be. Not overly surprising (at least to me). They're the only 3 regions I'd choose to live and work due to the balanced lifestyle that the Economist rates in its study.

exitb• 4 years ago

Other cities affected by the contagion of war, such as Budapest and Warsaw, saw their stability scores slip as geopolitical tensions increased.

Meanwhile, kids in American schools are getting shot at, but yeah, Warsaw is definitely less livable than any large US city.

blfr2• 4 years ago

Mass shootings are rare but yeah, the only way you could tell that Warsaw is anywhere near a war is because of a large number of Ukrainians and all lower cost rentals gone from the market.

chrischen• 4 years ago

To be fair livable probably means the nice parts of the American city. Most American city have nice parts and bad parts, where life in the bad parts can sometimes be as bad as living in a third world. Take Chiraq for example, or even Detroit. Schools have metal detectors to prevent weapons from being brought in, even if there isn’t a risk of mass shooting.

peoplefromibiza6• 4 years ago

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, the United States is the only country examined that shows a propensity for mass shootings. The data itself supports this interpretation, as the United States endured mass shooting events all seven years, but the other countries all experienced mass shootings during only one or two years. Thus, in a typical year, most countries experience zero mass shooting deaths, while the US experiences at least a few.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/mass-shoo...

LightG• 4 years ago

You're right, relatively rare.

However, the background threat of it and cultural acceptance of guns over there would be intolerable for me (from a liveability perspective).

cjbgkagh• 4 years ago

Wars kill far more people than school shootings, just not in the US and just not lately.

I don't think Poland and Hungary have a high probability of entering a war, but it is a small percentage increase multiplied by a devastating outcome.

tremon• 4 years ago

I don't think Poland and Hungary have a high probability of entering a war

I agree it doesn't seem that likely, but keep in mind that Poland's entire eastern border is Russian or Belarussian territory, with a speck of Ukraine in the southeast. The probability is still low, but it's higher than a year ago.

Loic• 4 years ago

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 can find in your country a lot of incredibly nice cities to live in.

This article should be titled "The most livable big cities".

zfxfr• 4 years ago

I was going to share the same observation. Also I am impressed someone mention Besançon on HN. I live nearby ! In Vesoul which is also a really good place to live ! And I say it after living all around Europe and asia.

jiggawatts• 4 years ago

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.

xadhominemx3• 4 years ago

Europe in general is quite gloomy

antifa2• 4 years ago

One person's nordic winter is another person's Californian desert.

Legogris• 4 years ago

I take gray and gloomy with cold and dark winters over hot and humid summers, thank you very much.

sandworm1012• 4 years ago

Nordic winters are tame compared to those in places like northern north America. I live in a town that regularly dips below -40c.

But a very cold winter is nothing compared to a very hot summer. Look at how many people die in heat waves. Rarely does a cold snap result in more than a handful of deaths, and most of those will be traffic-related. Heat waves can result in hundreds dead very easily. I'll take a Canadian or Norwegian winter over a Texas summer any day.

Parts of Canada are actually about to mandate air conditioning (aka active cooling) in new buildings in recognition of the danger that summer heat can pose in Canada.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/heat-dome-retrofit-building-c...

TacticalCoder• 4 years ago

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.

imartin2k• 4 years ago

Nordic European winters are great for startup builders though :)

byyll2• 4 years ago

The whole idea of "liveability index" is strange to me. Different people have different needs to live and different places have different cultures. This is biased towards the European and generally western style of living which although might be preferable to most people does not mean it's preferable to all.

In addition to there being probably hundreds of variables that are subconscious and/or can't be accounted for with studies.

criddell• 4 years ago

I'm guessing The Economist has some idea of who reads their magazine and so this article is likely written with a specific audience in mind.

iratewizard• 4 years ago

Different standards, too. I've become used to US/Canada restaurant standards for food when I go out to eat. Everytime I leave the country I'm thoroughly impressed by the quality and taste. Still, I'll be somewhere like Osaka and read reviews online. Locals will rate a place 3 stars and stay they could make it at home, it's nothing special. Place that outclass 90% of US restaurants averaging 3.5 stars, while at home there's pig slop getting rates 4.8.

Cultural differences impact what a person believes is the correct answer.

hdjjhhvvhga• 4 years ago

Besançon is fantastic both in the winter and in the summer, it's a wonderful place to live in if you have a chance.

alexalx6662• 4 years ago

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

MomoXenosaga• 4 years ago

I find it difficult to adapt. When I am abroad it always feels creepy how "servant" the service industry is. And stop trying to sell me shit.

People really underestimate how you are shaped by the society that you grow up in.

davidw• 4 years ago

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.

antifa2• 4 years ago

The real challenge is finding a remote job then finding a city with good internet.

k__• 4 years ago

I know a few devs who have their home base in Bali.

Seems to be a nice place for remote work.

lbrito10• 4 years ago

Yeah, not only that but:

1. Work authorization. It would be great if the "digital nomad visa" thing really happened at some point 2. Taxes 3. COL 4+ those things you mentioned

systemvoltage• 4 years ago

I am not a fan of living in urban centers, whether bike friendly, walkable or not. It is generally a shitty experience, noise out of control, cost of living through the roof, crime, too many laws, tiny apartments, high home cost, worse schools, traffic and density of people, high property taxes, drunkards on the streets and annoyance of tourism.

Unpopular opinion: Classic American sub-rural living. Live in outskirts of Denver in a large cookie cutter 4 bedroom house and a Ford F-150 truck. Lots of resources, not a single thing to be annoyed by and cheap cost of living. No gentrification, people are kinder and nicer. Absolute bliss.

hinkley• 4 years ago

There are lists for the US that have Seattle and San Francisco in the top 10, but if you talk to people who have moved out of those cities, they talk about how much less livable they've gotten.

And while it's always possible that the hedonic treadmill is skewing their sense of perspective, I also suspect that these measures are somehow lagging behind reality, and that a list of top 10 is in fact the list of the best places to live 5 years ago, and the best to have moved to 8+ years ago, rather than somewhere you should be making a 2 year plan to move there.

If you are young or adventurous, you might be better off looking at a list of 10 up and coming cities instead. Though you might be slightly worse off there in the case of a recession hitting before you are fully established.

quintushoratius2• 4 years ago

Whatever you're looking for in a city, by the time you read an article in a magazine you're too late. Everyone else that wants that quality is already on their way there (and probably going to ruin it.)

loycombinate• 4 years ago

Haha most livable if you’re a white German speaking European

sirwitti• 4 years ago

What makes you say that?

tr33house• 4 years ago

Lol. But kinda true. Some of those cities have been hostile and openly racist to Africans and hence most Africans would find cities in Africa a lot more livable compared to the racist mess around the world notably in Europe, Asia and North America.

Let's all pretend that the experience is the same for everyone, if you're not white, you know this is not necessarily true for you

nus072• 4 years ago

It’s the same with say Portland , Oregon . Living experience varies wildly on the shade of skin you have and your cultural background. And yet I see it largely on top cities list in the US.

blowski• 4 years ago

With its colourful graphs and precise numbers, this all sounds very scientific. In reality, I'm guessing a group of people listed where they think is lovely to live and that's what we're now discussing.

notahacker• 4 years ago

I think it's more a bunch of fresh graduates who've never been to most of the cities on the list looked at some data points (and then after realising they were mostly the same as last year's data points did a few news searches to find some points of difference)

frozencell5• 4 years ago

No, in reality you have to pay a few thousands bucks to read the full data report (there are links in the pdf).

usrusr5• 4 years ago

It's mentioned in the text: the metric wasn't designed to declare a winner, it was designed to give organisations who need to deploy employees abroad an idea about how much compensation might be adequate for moving there. The blue ones would all fall into the "good enough" category.

jonasmst• 4 years ago

It might be rendered poorly at my end, but what's the idea behind the first chart? I'm not able to make sense of it. It seems to present the same thing (city liveability index) three times, and all the cities are just thrown on there in no particular order. Honolulu is even off the charts, which indicates that there's some intention of an axis somewhere, but I can't tell what it is. Edit: Ah, it was missing a world map rendered in the background. Now it makes sense.

nonrandomstring2• 4 years ago

Some factors rapidly changing in UK cities are

- Empty offices since the pandemic

- Disappearance of the high-street due to Amazon

- New "In-between" builds

Most British cities still have empty or skeleton-crewed office buildings. That can't be sustainable. Surely these will be sold off as housing.

Shops are vanishing at a terrifying rate. Some city centres are boarded up and only charity shops, Tesco minimarts and tattoo/nail bars remain.

Every tiny plot of land is being sold off to developers to "fill in" with profitable (but in my reckoning totally unneeded) housing. This is changing public footpaths and cycle cut-throughs and squeezing the density of some areas.

I think any metric of "livability" would be in flux and likely to change in many British cities.

fumblebee2• 4 years ago

Disappearance of the high-street due to Amazon

My own anectdata, but I've made the opposite observation. At least in my hometown (~10k population), I've been pleasantly surprised at just how resilient the high-street has been. In the past year, we've had a new bakery, a new arts and craft shop, a new cafe, and the farmer's market is going from strength to strength.

While several years ago, I would order relentlessly from the likes of Amazon, I've found myself purchasing local goods in local stores far more, and am better off for it.

nonrandomstring2• 4 years ago

I've been pleasantly surprised at just how resilient the high-street has been. In the past year, we've had a new bakery, a new arts and craft shop, a new cafe, and the farmer's market is going from strength to strength.

That's awesome. To qualify my comments, I've also seen some of that change. New shops I've noticed filling in are

- a bike repair shop

- a "slow living" craft shop

- a tailors/upholsterer

- a fishmonger (haven't had one for 20+ years around here)

But in my town (city >300k) the decline has been significant with large chains, banks, clothing and brand retail shuttering up.

I do my best to support local trade and petit commerce. The ability to use cash and just browse in spare time is a factor.

usrusr5• 4 years ago

A cluster of new shops isn't necessarily a sign of boom though, that's also how it looks like when landlords still haven't yet failed finding substitute renters in an ever accelerating sequence of try-and-fail. I know places where the same "newly opened!" signs in the windows keep getting reused since the aughts.

BerislavLopac• 4 years ago

only charity shops, Tesco minimarts and tattoo/nail bars remain

And gambling shops. I noticed a large increase in those.

rvieira• 4 years ago

I agree with your point.

But I wanted to add that with the exception of empty offices due to COVID all other problems didn't change that rapidly, IMO.

These have been slowly building up since Gideon's austerity and in almost all deprived areas in the UK, you could play the Charity/Fried Chicken/Bookies/Boarded shop drinking game for at least a decade.

thrwy_918• 4 years ago

sold off to developers to "fill in" with profitable (but in my reckoning totally unneeded) housing

I have no idea what "unneeded" housing is. Are these units sitting empty?

YoY house price growth in the UK is running at around 10%. I am not aware of a glut of "unneeded" housing.

jl6• 4 years ago

Yeah, every extra unit contributes to increasing the supply of housing and therefore decreasing the cost, which at this point has reached crisis levels.

pmkiwi4• 4 years ago

So Auckland dropped 33 places just because of few Covid cases ? It is true that we had a peak of Covid cases this year, but it was never really massive by international standards.

At the same time, Auckland is pretty dead for a while now, especially the CBD. Traffic is not that bad, but we haven't recovered at all from Covid. We will see in the next few months if cruise ships and tourists are back or not.

EdwardDiego3• 4 years ago

Auckland is lovely - if you can afford to live there.

pmkiwi4• 4 years ago

NZ is not cheap indeed and Auckland is insanely expensive (managed to buy despite the crazy housing market), but nice beaches and awesome for sailing !

rsp1984• 4 years ago

Ranking Frankfurt higher than Munich is a joke. I lived in both cities (currently living near Frankfurt) and it's not even close. Infrastructure, cultural and recreational activities, architecture. None of these things are even in the same ballpark.

rettetdemdativ• 4 years ago

I've also lived in both and Munich is definitely the more expensive of the two and afaik housing affordability is a factor, too. Maybe that played a role.

Simon_O_Rourke2• 4 years ago

From personal experience, Vienna tops the list of places to go see the locals doing the old 1930's style stiff arm salute. If described in terms of cake, as it probably should be, Vienna is a layered sponge cake, two thick wedges of art and culture sandwiching a smaller middle layer of right-wing reactionary local politics.

DeathArrow• 4 years ago

I haven't seen what are the criteria for livability. I am not aware of the process used to apply those criteria. I am not aware of the credentials of the people/company who made the top.

So I don't care about such a top.

fumblebee2• 4 years ago

Anyone else notice that the text labels on the image "Vienna waits for you" aren't embedded as part of the image itself, but rather distinct divs overlaid, meaning you can highlight/copy/etc. the text.

Is this common? / any ideas on why they've done it this way? It's cool, but surely adds unnecessary complexity and require testing to ensure it displays as expected on different devices.

bschne• 4 years ago

From the code it looks like they used this: http://ai2html.org

The FAQ on the front page provides a hint as to why this might be superior to just using an SVG or PNG.

jaimex2• 4 years ago

Melbourne is the world's most leavable city.

Honest mistake on their part. I think the exodus count is over 50,000 so far.

leto_ii3• 4 years ago

First of all, I'm not sure who this index is supposed to help. The EIU puts a new version out every year, but keeps pretty much all of it paywalled - I can't imagine who would be willing to pay a few hundred euros to find out that Western Europe is a nice place to live in.

Secondly, it's funny to see how variable the scores are from one year to the next - with rare exceptions (e.g. Kiev right now) cities don't really change that much in the short term.

A few other small observations:

1. It's absolutely comical that Frankfurt ranks 7th. I know the city quite well, it shouldn't crack the top 50 in any vaguely sane ranking.

2. It's also plainly weird that Istanbul is Western Europe but Budapest is Eastern Europe, together with Tashkent, which is comfortably to the East of all of Iran.

3. Why no breakdown for Southern Europe/the Mediterranean?

Year after year when going over these rankings I'm left with the same impression - arbitrary tastes and cultural flexing + some basic common sense observations, all masquerading as science.

usrusr5• 4 years ago

Say you run a company offering the building of some novel power distribution facility, globally. Part of your offer is a team of specialists deployed at the site for the first five years, then the kinks are out and local staff has enough experience.

This week is funny, seems to be D week. Because through some coincidence the cities asking for a quotation are Dhaka, Denver, Dublin and Douala. On your third international project you learned the hard way that scaling compensation for the team on site by cost of living might work fine in Zurich, but not for a cheap country permanently skirting the threshold to civil war. The company started by that on-site team after resigning mid-deployment likely has the same "D" quotation inquiries this week.

That's would be an example of the target audience EIU is selling the index to. Not a pat on the back for the nicest place, but a meaningfully closer to objective estimate of how much will our employees hate us if we deploy them there. Easily worth a few hundred dollars.

leto_ii3• 4 years ago

Not a pat on the back for the nicest place, but a meaningfully closer to objective estimate of how much will our employees hate us if we deploy them there

Perhaps, although I imagine that IRL this kind of research might be bought as part of a much bigger research effort. Maybe just to have it and say that you checked some "objective" source before making a decision.

Simon_O_Rourke2• 4 years ago

It's all well and good saying Dublin, but just try and find a condo there for rent!

agsamek• 4 years ago

If you plan to spend 1M somewhere to expand then buying a report for $1000 seems OK if you only believe the author did some research. In particular a research better than your assistant spending 40h on it which is more than $1000.

throwaway4good• 4 years ago

Heavily biased towards costal US / Western European cities; ignoring the changes in liveability that takes place elsewhere (Asia, Eastern Europe, mid-sized cities of the west).

nus072• 4 years ago

List for upper middle class white folks created by upper middle class white folks .

torginus• 4 years ago

I am sorry this article is terrible - it's at best a reflection of views of the Economists journalists idea of what the y consider 'liveability' - which they don't feel like sharing with us anyway.

At worst, this is an infomercial for the data components they gathered, which they use to come up with these aggregate stats.

timbit42• 4 years ago

They didn't share it because they charge a fee for the full report.

mherrmann2• 4 years ago

I'm from and live in Vienna. It truly is a great city to live in. Feel free to AMA.

lbrito10• 4 years ago

How's the receptivity to foreign immigrants of, um, darker complexion and that speak only English and a second European language that is not German?

Also, how are public pensions? Do people expect to go by with that 30 year from now, or do people usually have a backup plan/private insurance

mherrmann2• 4 years ago

In my second-hand experience, foreigners that do not speak German well are unfortunately sometimes not received friendly by government and other public staff. I don't know anybody with a darker complexion closely enough to comment on how they are treated. My suspicion is that they would feel a little like they stand out, and then depending on their German will be treated a little bit worse on average. (Sad but my best guess.)

Educated young people don't believe in pensions but usually also don't have a backup plan. People 45+ expect to receive a pension.

dzogchen• 4 years ago

This list is a complete joke, evidenced by the fact that they use a definition of livibility that puts cities that are barely walkable in the top 10.

AndrewUnmuted3• 4 years ago

Whether or not a city is "walkable," is not necessarily an improvement upon livability.

In areas of Chicago and Baltimore, for example, the streets are "walkable," however the frequent violent & property crimes that take place in these areas make a casual stroll down the block an unsafe proposition.

I grew up in Harlem during the time it was emerging out of the 1980s crack epidemic. As a child, the streets were easy to walk on and crime did not impact this for me in any real way. Just a few years prior, though, this was definitely not the case. And even today, as "walkability" improvements have been made in Harlem, the streets are quite obviously less walker-friendly, since walking down the street exposes you to a non-insignificant risk of being a random psychopath's next unwitting victim.

My suspicion here is that you have some sort of binary thought process surrounding cars in cities. The fact is that cities are not as livable in general. Any solution involving more or better walking capacity is a temporary fix at best. In actuality, what you need is a very solid city planner who is able to anticipate and respond to cultural trends adequately. Cities need to be able to balance the needs of various transit options, such that they don't compound peoples' other problems that come from living in cities: crime, cleanliness, affordability, etc.

stormbrew3• 4 years ago

"Walkability" on things like this doesn't mean that there are sidewalks you can take a stroll down, it means that essential and desireable services (like grocery stores and restaurants) are within walking distance of most residences, and there's transit service that makes up for what lacks.

If it was just about "can you go for a walk" twisty-turny suburbs would get the highest imaginable walkability score, because you can get lost in those for hours and never see a car. Or any other useful destination, for that matter.

justinpowers• 4 years ago

Most “walkability” scores either directly or indirectly account for crime. For instance, residents rate walkability and are specifically asked to consider crime and safety. Or, conversely, walkability is measured based on the number of actual walkers and the number of walk-accessible amenities in a given area.

High crime areas would naturally have fewer walkers and fewer amenities.

I can’t speak to Baltimore, but in Chicago, crime and scarcity of amenities go hand-in-hand. I can’t think of a single pedestrian-focused area that has both amenities and a significant crime problem (one must understand that Chicago crime is not nearly as prevalent or evenly dispersed as the media and non-Chicagoans enjoy imagining).

JSavageOne• 4 years ago

The problem in your example is crime, not walkability.

mytherin• 4 years ago

Walkability and crime go hand in hand. If crime is high on a street, people will not want to walk on that street. Because of this, shops will close, and any reasonable walkability score will drastically go down. You cannot have high walkability and high crime. They are intrinsically linked.

If your goal is reducing crime, increasing walkability is an excellent way of achieving that. The more walkable areas are, the more regular people will be walking in that area. The more regular people that are walking in an area, the safer it is. Walkable areas are also much easier to police and keep safe since they are naturally much more dense and less spread out, so there is vastly less surface area to cover.

amf12• 4 years ago

While walkability should be a factor, less walkable cities could be better than more walkable cities due to other factors that impact the standard of living - opportunities, public transit, housing, etc.

ihateolives• 4 years ago

If city has good public transport system then it also has pretty good walkability as people have to have a way to get to public transport stops/stations.

bhauer• 4 years ago

I laughed when I saw the high score awarded to Los Angeles.

jdgoesmarching• 4 years ago

These listicles always suck because by design they make huge assumptions about priorities. Including some simple weight sliders would make these way more useful, even if the methodology was a little shaky (it always is).

jjav2• 4 years ago

Agreed. A list that has Calgary tied as third best city? Sorry Calgary but.. no. Miserably cold, in the middle of nowhere, nothing to do but freeze. Something wrong with the criteria for this list.

MrYellowP2• 4 years ago

I'm from Vienna.

Don't believe it.

You're welcome!

lbrito10• 4 years ago

Please elaborate

frozencell5• 4 years ago

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/vienna-is-the-new-h...

MrYellowP2• 4 years ago

There's nothing to elaborate. I live here.

It's nice to live in, unless you live in a district where you rather not.

Anyone claiming those don't exist is just sitting in his tiny bubble.

lbrito10• 4 years ago

Affordability doesn't seem to count in this list. On average housing expenses (rent or mortgage) are around 60% of income in Vancouver metro.

I won't even get into weather: the first few days of blue skies just started this week after a year of bleak gray-on-blue. Depressing is an understatement.

enw2• 4 years ago

And health care in Canada is a joke.

Unless you have terminal cancer or close to death, good luck getting any specialist’s attention. You’ll wait for a year on a waitlist for someone to care. Doesn’t matter if you have money either, no way around it.

lbrito10• 4 years ago

The system has serious issues, but I think you're being a bit too harsh. Trust me - I come from a country with a barely functioning single payer system, so my dynamic range here is pretty good.

Family doctor crisis is real, there are absurdly long wait times and people suffer as a result. But some things are also top notch. My wife just had our first son a few weeks ago and everything was really good - and parts of the process that were free would be very expensive in other places.

spaetzleesser2• 4 years ago

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

kmonsen• 4 years ago

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.

mushbino2• 4 years ago

I've spent $50k out of pocket so far this year on medical expenses that weren't covered by insurance. That doesn't even include other copay expenses. Had to cash out some 401ks early. Also, 44,000 Americans die every year due to lack of access to healthcare. I would gladly wait for over a year in a heartbeat for a cheaper and more fair system.

deepspace2• 4 years ago

That is just not true in my experience. I have had to see specialists three or four times in the past 20 years, and the longest I have waited for an appointment is 6 weeks.

rdl• 4 years ago

"The war in Ukraine is also weighing on liveability. There is no score in 2022 for Kyiv because the eiu’s correspondent had to abandon the survey when fighting broke out"

4cao• 4 years ago

PDF document with some more details (but still not the whole list):

https://pages.eiu.com/rs/753-RIQ-438/images/liveability-inde...

(Need to provide an e-mail address to get the above link.)

frozencell5• 4 years ago

The complete list seems paid though (75 to $10,000).

[0] https://store.eiu.com/product/global-liveability-survey/

stormbrew3• 4 years ago

As someone who lives nearby and is even pretty happy with living here most of the time, let me tell you that Calgary being third on this list is comically absurd. It's an ok city in many ways, but approximately the only way it's a better city than the other two canadian cities on the list is that average income is fairly high (for now) in Alberta, and especially in oil company boardrooms in Calgary, again because of a resurgent oil boom due to the russian invasion of ukraine.

stjohnswarts• 4 years ago

"... according to one magazine"

groby_b• 4 years ago

As a German: Any "livability" classification of cities that has Frankfurt in the top 10 has definitely some issues. It's a place to pass through, at best.

jonstewart• 4 years ago

My connecting flight to my vacation destination in Italy was canceled this morning, so I got to spend the afternoon in Vienna with my wife and kids. Strudel and einspanner at Cafe Mozart, brats from a wurst stand, the CAT train, Stephensplatz, it was all a good reminder why Vienna is such a great city.

joushx• 4 years ago

The CAT train is a scam. It costs much more than a Railjet that takes the same time and you end up at the central station.

ttkari• 4 years ago

They think Istanbul is in Western Europe while Budapest is in Eastern Europe, I'm not entirely convinced that rest of their report is worth reading.

Barrin922• 4 years ago

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.

VoxelBoy• 4 years ago

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.

Barrin922• 4 years ago

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.

panaceaeaea• 4 years ago

Does anyone have access to the full list? Curious whether SF went down from 2021 and also how San Jose ranks

The most livable cities

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