2008 most liveable cities

I owe a big apology to all my loyal readers for keeping you in the dark over the last 3 months. Since my last post I travelled to Mexico twice, shared the stage in San Francisco with some of the authorities on the “geoweb”, travelled to Corsica, the French Riviera, Lake Como, St. Moritz; and managed to launch PlanetEye.com where I lead the Technology team. Intense to say the least. But the most recent issue of Monocle has me burning the proverbial midnight oil and finding energy to start posting regularly again. Thanks for your comments while I was away.

The Monocle Global Quality of Life Index may one day graduate to adopt a scientific methodology that considers a larger spectrum of cities around the world, but I’m happy to settle for their current coverage and play the my-city-is-better-than-yours game, using the tidbits of quick facts they’ve compiled. For those who don’t buy the magazine here are the top 10 cities:

Copenhagen, Denmark

Good looks, brains, perfect proportions, a sunny disposition and a sense of humour are always a winning combination…

Munich, Germany

It combines a strong economy with rich cultural offerings. The city’s workforce is highly [...]

July 24th, 2008 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Category: Cities, Statistics | 3 comments

most liveable cities

Hyper-connected to the rest of the world through an ample offering of long-haul flights, low crime rates, great education and health system, fair balance of sunny and warm days, plenty of ways to stay informed, availability of drinks after hours, good public transit, lots of green areas and a will to keep them green. This is the method behind the first Monocle Quality of Life Index.
For international flight connections it would be Paris but for an airport it would have to be Munich. On crime it would be a Japanese city – either Tokyo or Kyoto would do. Zürich and Helsinki would be our key contributors for hospitals and schools while Sydney and Honolulu offer the best weather. [...] For a good night out we’d want to be resident in Madrid, Tokyo or Barcelona and for getting home we’d opt for Munich’s public transport and Copenhagen’s bike network if we were sober enough to pedal home ourselves.

With a well documented rating behind each one of the cities in the list, it is going to be hard to argue that they’ve done their homework, but it still feels very subjective. In any case, [...]

July 30th, 2007 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Category: Cities, Cosmopolitan, Statistics | 2 comments