Best places to live

[screamingman12 30]

Netscape recently did a survey on the best and worst places to live, the results aren't what you think they will be:

® www.netscape.com

Zurich was crowned No. 1 for the fourth year running based on 39 criteria that included a variety of political, social and economic factors such as the quality of health, education and transportation services and even the quality of schools, bars, restaurants. Cities in Canada, Europe and Australia dominated the rankings, with almost half of the top 30 cities located in Western Europe.

All 215 cities worldwide were judged against New York City as the baseline, which came in at No. 46. Honolulu is the highest-ranked American city, coming in at No. 27. Other high-scoring U.S. cities are San Francisco (28), Boston (36), Washington, D.C. and Chicago (tied at 41) and Portland, Ore. (43).

Top 10 Cities With the Best Quality of Life:

Zurich, Switzerland
Geneva, Switzerland
Vancouver, Canada
Vienna, Austria
Auckland, New Zealand
Düsseldorf, Germany
Frankfurt, Germany
Munich, Germany
Bern, Germany and Sydney, Australia (tie)

Cities With the Worst Quality of Life (in descending order):

Baghdad, Iraq
 Bangui, Central African Republic
 Brazzaville, Congo
 Khartoum in Sudan

Fun facts to know and tell:
1) The top three cities each held the same spots on the list last year.
2) The biggest jump in the top 10 was made by Auckland, which rose from No. 8 a year ago to No. 5 this year.
3) Due largely to reduced crime rates, Chicago was one of the biggest climbers, rising from 52 to 41.
4) Houston is the lowest-ranked U.S. city.
5) Overall, U.S. cities continue to slip slightly or remain stable in the rankings.
6) Eastern European cities, including Budapest, Ljubjana, Prague, Vilnius, Talinn and Warsaw, all rose on the list thanks to an improved standard of living. Why? As countries join the European Union, it attracts greater investment and that improves the quality of life.
7)  Cairo, Egypt tumbled nine places to No. 131 due to political turmoil and terrorist attacks on the city and surrounding area.
The top-ranked Chinese city was Shanghai at 103rd place.

Edit: 111th post!

[screamingman12 30]

What happened to the edit button? The post screwed up.

[sim1234 62]

What happened to the edit button? The post screwed up.quote>

The Edit button should be next to the other buttons in the bottom right corner of the post.

[screamingman12 30]

Nope, only the reply, quote, top, and bottom buttons.

[SC4Noobie 5]

I dont get how Atlanta Is the top! I have been there, and it isnt as great as they describe it! But, what came as a big surprise to me is that Chicago was ranked above NYC! Sweet, the windy city above the Big apple! Boston isnt that bad, either!

[Micah 16]

Haha!!! Houston is the lowest rated and yet Houston is one of the fastest growing cities in North America! Everybody is moving here... all my new neighbors are from all around America...

Who in the world would want to live in Baghdad? This has to be a joke.

Personally, I would want to own my own island out in Oceania and retire at the age of 21.

(I always disagree with these dumb city rankings. lol.. I can already see Duke getting outraged that NYC isn't on there... ha!)

[beebs 129]

Duke... hooboy. Of course, NYC should be on top... it's NYC!

I wonder where they ranked Edmonton though. Would be nice to see a full list.

[toxicpiano 125]

HA! Vancouver is once again voted one of the best cities in the world to live in. I will live there one day, even if it kills me. I think it came third cause it has the highest land value in Canada. Hmmm Vancouver is Canada's hollywood!

[JGalvin 0]

Calgary is the best place to live in my opinion

http://laptops.freepay.com/?r=29448713

Check this out

[sloppet 3]

Best place to live? Definietly Cracow... Poland!

[brancra 1,060]

Right, and from this we can draw the conclusion that there is no concrete system, and that each survey is based upon its own attributes, period.

[Duke87 1,070]

*ahem*

It seems my arrival has been predicted...

Actually, I'm not offended by the fact that New York isn't on top of this list. There are plenty of better places to live than New York, but none of them are major cities. That's the distinction.

Seriously, though, Boston a better place to live than New York? What was the creator of this list smoking?

These people also seem to be heavily biased against the US. How does the highest US city end up being #27?

This list has virtually zero credibility. Just ignore it.

[hello_SC4 1]

If anyone's interested, here's a full list, just ignore the stupid comments:

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=337289

Anyway, Ljubljana's number 80, not too bad, I guess. Although I really have no idea why Buenos Aires is higher.. No offence to Buenos Aires, btw!

[GingerBlokey 30]

I think in the UK mine would be

10) Newcastle

9) Tumbridge Wells

Bath

Leeds

7) Conwy

6) Londonderry

5) Plymouth

4) London

3) Oxford

2) Cambridge

1) Norwich

Also, HSC4 on your list it has Baghdad at the bottom; was this a list of all the cities in the world or are there places worse than Baghdad?

[Duke87 1,070]

Okay, I see the inherent flaw here. All they did was take 215 world cities, rate them, and put them in order of those ratings.

After all, Baghdad is not the 215th best place in the world to live, but this list might give you that impression.

So, your title of "best places to live" is misleading, since that's not what it is. I can think of some places which would be very high on such a list were they included. The real trouble is that statistically the best places in the world to live aren't cities, they're little towns and villages.

Still, even if we limit the list to actual "cities", there are some great cities to live in that are but tiny little cities that don't get noticed.

-Stamford, CT

-Norfolk, VA

-White Plains, NY

-Fall River, MA

-New Bedford, MA

...and you get the idea. I bet many of you have never heard of at least one of those places. But they're all places I've been to. And say what you will about them, but they all are certainly better places to live than Baghdad, right?

[hello_SC4 1]

Originally posted by: GingerBlokey I think in the UK mine would be

10) Newcastle

9) Tumbridge Wells

Bath

Leeds

7) Conwy

6) Londonderry

5) Plymouth

4) London

3) Oxford

2) Cambridge

1) Norwich

Also, HSC4 on your list it has Baghdad at the bottom; was this a list of all the cities in the world or are there places worse than Baghdad?quote>

 

You don't actually suppose they included all the settlements in the world, do you? That would be ludacris.. No, that is the full list, and out of the cities they rated, Baghdad fared worst. There may be some other, worse city, but they didn't rate it.

And Duke, going into such detail really takes the fun out of it all, doesn't it?

[vid 0]

'Seriously, though, Boston a better place to live than New York?'

Cleaner safer smarter.. Maybe that had something to do with it?

'These people also seem to be heavily biased against the US. How does the highest US city end up being #27? '

The chance that maybe American cities aren't very good has nothing to do with that, of course.

'This list has virtually zero credibility. Just ignore it.'

Your opinion has even less credibility. There is an official list of the highest ranked cities with many factors taken into account, and cities like Vancouver constrantly rank higher than cities in the US because they're safer, cleaner, and offer a healthier place to live. New York is crowded, smoggy, full of crime. that may be a stereotype, but in this case the bad outweights the good.

'After all, Baghdad is not the 215th best place in the world to live, but this list might give you that impression.'

An idiot would realise that this is a list out of a limited number of cities. They probably looked at cities with metro areas of about 1,000,000 people, and of those, Baghdad faired the worst. Obviously ther aren't going to do a ton of research on every single settlement on Earth. Northern Ontario alone has well over 500 of them.

Now, without realising it, I've just restated the above post. Crazy. But really.

The best place to live can't be generalised, it depends on the needs of the person. I think Grand Marais, Minnesota would be a nice place to live. It's clean, quiet, close enough to a big city to have access to things but far enough away to be a nice place. Compare this to a 17 year old that like partying and drinking, and he'd be bored as hell. So obviously there is no one size fits all. It's just a fun little thought and that's it.

I'd hate to see your reaction if they approved a donut you didn't like as being the best. Mon Dieu, the outrage that would ensue! Ludacris!