Summer’s solstice, the longest day of the year seems to be a great day to sit in the backyard to read the usual weekly magazines and catch up on some writing. In a typical residential area in the middle of the city, my macbook detects almost a dozen different wireless networks including mine, of course. With a broadband connection and a high-end wireless router, there is no difference between what I can accomplish here or at the office on any given day. I’ll take the backyard every time I can.
Already in hackers & work culture I had discussed how the boundaries between professional and private live were blurred. First with a wave of mobile communication devices that made everyone accessible to attend business at any time of the day and now with ubiquitous wireless access points that are now converting everyone into a local nomad, pushing us away from our desks into third spaces, far more amenable and with a twist of social.
Connectivity seems to be an increasingly important factor when deciding where we are going to travel. After all, you wouldn’t want to be disconnected from twitter while travelling… or [...]
On the trail of liveability rankings released recently by both The Economist Intelligence Unit and Mercer, and just a couple of weeks until Monocle’s Global Quality of Life Survey is out, I thought it would be interesting to question why we care so much about liveability?
But first here are some thoughts from a friend on why we don’t want to live in a ‘liveable’ city:
This hurts Vancouver so much…
1) Employers can say, it’s so livable ! so we can afford to pay less – people SO want to live here.
2) Real estate market keeps going up — people want to live here
3) Vancouverites who haven’t been elsewhere keep the same attitude that it is so perfect and there’s no room for improvement :
- Release city restrictions : Velib bikes ? Sidewalk cafes ?
- A little more culture : +art, +theatre.
It is great that you can ski and go to the (cold) beach on the same day, but that does not mean it would be bad if you could ski and go to see ‘Wicked’ or a Monet on the same day…..
Is it possible that a city can hypnotize its inhabitants into such a state of apathy that liveability is [...]
Not much has changed since the last time I reported on the Liveability report from The Economist Intelligence Unit in 2007. Vancouver is still the best place to live overall according to the 2009 ranking:
Vancouver, Canada
Vienna, Austria
Melbourne, Australia
Toronto, Canada
Perth, Australia
Calgary, Canada
Helsinki, Finland
Geneva, Switzerland
Sydney, Australia
Zurich, Switzerland
I’m finding the Mercer’s 2009 Quality of Living survey much more useful as it provides a special ranking for hubs with the best infrastructure. Note that Mercer’ survey is meant to be used as a comparison tool to determine compensation packages for companies with personnel abroad. Yet, as usual, it is fun to make a list of the cities where you would want to live next, right?
Here are the Top 5 cities in each region, according to the Mercer survey:
Americas
Asia Pacific
Europe
Middle East & Africa
Vancouver
Auckland
Vienna
Dubai
Toronto
Sydney
Zurich
Port Louis
Ottawa
Wellington
Geneva
Abu Dhabi
Montreal
Melbourne
Dusseldorf
Cape Town
Calgary
Perth
Munich
Port Elizabeth
Via Stephen Joyce and his T4 blog (Travel & Tourism Technology Trends) I found a brief but great summary of what constitutes a meaningful experience. It comes from the people at the Lapland Centre of Expertise for the Experience Industry in Finland.
But before I repost an abstract of their model it is worth revisiting where this quest comes from: in give up your urban “devil” I suggest that some sort of experimentation is needed for the global citizen to learn of other life-styles… experimentation as in trying various ‘experiences’.
Here is a list of the elements of meaningful experiences and how I see them applied to the notion of exploring global cultures:
Individuality: how unique and extraordinary a product is. One of the key drivers to explore a Global Culture is the realization that unless we are careful to orchestrate our life-styles according to the highest standards, it is too easy to fall into the common place that groups the majority of people living in large urban centres. The quest to learn about how other people (usually small, unique groups) are finding better ways to conduct their lives without [...]
HOME is a film by Yann Arthus-Bertrand, produced by Luc Beson
HOME is an ode to the planet’s beauty and its delicate harmony. Through the landscapes of 54 countries captured from above, Yann Arthus-Bertrand takes us on an unique journey all around the planet, to contemplate it and to understand it. But HOME is more than a documentary with a message, it is a magnificent movie in its own right. Every breathtaking shot shows the Earth – our Earth – as we have never seen it before. Every image shows the Earth’s treasures we are destroying and all the wonders we can still preserve. “From the sky, there’s less need for explanations”. Our vision becomes more immediate, intuitive and emotional. HOME has an impact on anyone who sees it. It awakens in us the awareness that is needed to change the way we see the world. (HOME embraces the major ecological issues that confront us and shows how everything on our planet is interconnected.)
A stunning film showing us our planet and its people from an angle that doesn’t need explanations, it is released today to commemorate World Environment Day and distributed through every possible channel (theatres, dvd’s, tv, internet) free of [...]
When I wrote startup and the simple life a couple of months ago I set in motion a plan that would take me to a rural setting with the idea to create productive business relationships with locals hoping to capitalize on some of the ideas of this blog. Mostly on the idea that we urbanites treasure the calmness that can only be acquired through detachment from our ever accelerating way of live.
It is perhaps a sign that Monocle’s #24 romanticizes the idea of agro as a fundamental human activity that would restore the soul or our society by getting closer to the people that make a living from farming. While the same formula is often cited by advocates of organic produce, Monocle’s article seems to be more focused on the art of living a simple life and be productive at the same time. I say it must be a sign because just a few days ago I was using the concept of agro-tourism (as developed in Italy) as a prime example of how people seek to immerse themselves into a lifestyle that seems to be disappearing as urban centres advance.
I too, while trying to refine [...]
Courtesy TECchris @ Twitter
Our species’ survival depends on how fast we embrace the moral shift from “patriot” to “global citizen”. Chris Anderson.
Reminded me of a key post in the evolution of this blog: cosmopolitanism (or the implosion of nationalism)
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