Top 29 Best Cities to Live In; where would you live?

I'm not surprised Cape Town is on that list currently - there are a LOT of retired foreigners living there, which is fucking up the land prices for all the locals. You cannot even buy a shack within 2 miles of the beach for less than $100000.

Aside from the (astronomical for locals) land prices, Cape Town had a good night life (e.g. Long Street)- the new alcohol sale laws will fuck up that place a lot. It will not be on the list next year because of this. With the proposed new alcohol sale laws, you would not be allowed to sell an alcoholic beverage anywhere near the city centre after 10pm.

Also, the water is near-freezing most of the year there - thank you Atlantic Ocean. The ice cubes start floating past in early March... ask me how I know this; don't even think about swimming.

I am completely unsurprised that Durban doesn't feature on this list, despite our proximity to mountains and overall good weather - the two things visitors remember about Durban is the dirt and the crime.

 

I haven't had too much experience in those cities. I have lived in NYC for several years, London for a few months, and only visited a few others. However, NYC was the absolute fucking best out of all these by a long shot. Even taking into account my ignorance, I am firmly convinced that it is the best god damn city in the world. The diversity of people, the quality of food, the quality of nightlife, the insane amount of art/culture/music/etc events is pretty much overwhelming. There is even plenty of open space and natural things in the parks. Think of anything you enjoy. NYC has a limitless supply. Indulge to your hearts content. God damn I love that place.

 

I've only lived in one of those cities, having only properly lived in one other city, and I have been to Montreal for a weekend or two, so I'm hardly qualified to judge there (although I am hoping to visit two of those cities, Amsterdam and Berlin, this summer). What surprises me about this list is how different is it from most other "world's most liveable cities" or "world's best cities" lists:

-no Swiss cities (Geneva almost always tops these lists with St. Moritz or Bern or another Swiss city close behind)

-Vancouver is nowhere to be seen. I actually agree with this: Vancouver has been uppity lately, getting posted really high on the all of the liveable city lists, thinking it's so much better than Toronto which is four or five places back and with a nearly statistically insignificant score difference. This, of course, is despite the fact there is pretty much a third world country right inside of it. Then again I hear it has a culture of people who care more about having the lifestyle of living near the mountains for skiing and camping rather than getting that next big promotion and going to Toronto, so that's a plus.

-Shangai, Tel Aviv, Beirut, Istanbul, Sao Paolo, etc., are here. I mean, it's unusual, and I know that they aren't the third world backwaters some of us would believe. Beirut is surprisingly Western, for example. Hell, I imagine these places would be a fuckload more interesting than Las Vegas with its 13% unemployment and constant annoying tourist factor But, just for an example, one key advantage that most cities have over Shanghai is that you can say and publish whatever you want without being arrested for it. You could send your children to school and not have them taught (still) that Tianenmen Square never happened, or that Mao was a wonderful leader.

Oh, and it's from askmen.com. Have they ever done anything useful?

 

Beriut is an amazing city to live in, however they did miss a couple of cities in that list so realistically I believe it should be lower. You can find whatever you want in the city and if you know where to go you can find stuff for a decent price. On the flip side, this is where Saudi oil tycoons come to play so shit get's very expensive very fast. A small coffee in most street cafes downtown costs $15. In the night clubs don't even get me started on the price of some bottles which the ultra-rich pop open and don't even drink. During the day there's decent entertainment, incredible food (both western and traditional), places to visit, shopping and tons of beaches to go to. Like the article says the weather is always nice although it does tend to go up near the 40's (100's for the Americans) and it never rains in the summer. Winters get a little chilly and it rarely ever snows since you're on the coast but it's not too bad and you're never more than an hour away from the ski slopes. The night life is where it's at though. The clubs/bars over there are spectacular because of the atmosphere yet as toddus stated they can turn into eurotrash central. Beach parties are also very popular as most resorts pretty much turn into nightclubs at night. All of this is usually capped off by the clubs closing at 6-7am and everyone going out to breakfast. Also for the guys, if you're foreign/blonde, all you need to do is flash your passport to get laid.

Now thats pretty much looking at the bachelor/tourist life. When considering raising a family and living there it's a bit of a different story. You're going to want to enrol your children in private schools since the public school system is nowhere near as good. The jobs in highest demand that I am aware of are engineering and computer-anything really. Also, a retardedly high percentage of people I know work in banks over there. Cars can be a little pricey because of the taxes you need to pay on cars under 12 years old if I'm not mistaken, but like everything in that country nothing a loophole and paying off the right person can't fix. Driving there is a bit of an issue as there are no rules and everything is an Autobahn and I love that when I drive there. It's fine once you get used to it since people pretty much drive using plain old common sense. Yes I realize how stupid that might sound to you guys but you have to realize theres 3 traffic lights in the entire fucking country and 2 of them are burnt out.

 

In Canada, Vancouver. Aside from some heavy rain and high costs, they do it right for me.

In America, Pheonix. Arizona is my idea of absolute perfect weather and scenery and it's my favourite state to go to (I have not seen Hawaii or Delaware yet, though. Yet.....). For sin's sake, Vegas is north and you can see the ultimate attraction, The Grand Canyon on the way. It is the one place that I have seen that I will tell people that they are not allowed to die until they see it.

 

You visited them as a tourist - you never lived there. Take a fucking breath and read up a bit, maybe you'll understand something. If you can't even "bother to argue" then don't argue.

Lebanon and Israel don't have great economies and there's a battle, skirmish or war every other year. Why would one ever want to move there willingly?

Read Maltob's post, he even mentioned that the public school system sucks and touched upon the frail public system. It's global awareness speaking, not CNN clips of random bombings - My grandparents are from the mid-east, I'm not that ignorant.

Turkey has deplorable human rights, corruption issues and it's economy is also in trouble.

Argentina is okay but Buenos Aires is not a safe city, not Sao Paolo/Rio di Janiro dangerous, but it's still not North America-safe. Also, again, there's the economy problem. Bogota is just not safe either, human rights are abused and there is no democracy their and corruption is rampant. But you've visited there, right? So you know everything about the country and the lifestyle, right? Moron.

Shanghai is interesting, China has no democracy, no human rights and corruption up the wazoo but if you're rich enough Shanghai can be a tremendous city.

The only city I'll concede is Cape Town, since my last post I read up on it and I retract my statement, given that it wasn't even ranked that high on the almighty list. That being said, South Africa still has problems and I wouldn't feel safe on the street at 3 a.m. anywhere there.

Cities like Berlin, Belfast, Dublin, London, Boston, Chicago, Hamburg, Munich, Brussels, Zurich, Madrid, Barcelona, Rome, Milan, Bern, Geneva, San Diego, Stockholm (good call Kujager), Helsinki (eh.. maybe), Oslo - those are all good choices, some are on that list, some aren't. There's a reason why the Western World has a QoL index much higher than FUCKING COLUMBIA. It's because they're clean, civilized, rich and safe.

To visit? I'd probably go to any of them, I've been to some already. To live in, work and raise a family? Not a single one.

Also, Pheonix is safe, clean and all but fucking boring. Vancouver is a good choice though.

I'd love to know more about South Korea, Tokyo, Kyoto and Malaysia.

 

I have lived in Melbourne all my life and frankly if it comes in at number 2 then any city outside the top 10 must be a bit of a shithole.

Problems with Melbourne.

-Urban sprawl and our population has grown too fast for infrastructure to keep up
-Property prices have gone crazy
-The rental market for housing has become overpriced
-The public transport system is bad , due to privatisation and lack of investment
-Traffic keeps getting worse
-Our weather changes by the hour
-Our Tertiary education system has sold out to the foreign student dollar
-Everything is becoming user pays
-The State government (Victoria) is being run by a pack of inbred f*ckwits
-There is a shortage of slim , attractive, decent women
-There is an oversupply of fat bitches with entitlement complexes
-Speed cameras , lots of f*cking speed cameras
-Police that are never around when you actually need them
-The price of drinks at bars , $7 - 9 Au for a bottle of decent beer

 

Of the cities I've been to in Europe, London is just outrageously expensive. Pars is not as expensive nice from a tourist's standpoint and it's very bourgeoisie (more than 60% of the adults in this so-called "romantic city" are single). Amsterdam, now that city I can live in (duh). It was less expensive than I thought, and aside from its many famous and eclectic vices and haunts it's a gorgeous city with as many canals as Venice and the most tolerant people on the planet. Downside: it rains more than 200 days a year.

 

New York would be a lot more fun if I didn't have to deal with every third idiot I meet asking me where I'm from only to tell me me how fucking awesome New York is and how the whole universe revolves around it. My favorite, though, are the guys who think that being from New York automatically makes them a tough guy somehow, and they need to make sure I'm aware of that as soon as they find out I'm not from there.
Calm down, New Yorkers. You have a nice city, but it isn't that fucking great.

 

I have lived in Paris and currently live in London. Paris is far and away more expensive. It isn't even close.

 

Economically speaking, in PPP-equivalent dollars (which take into account both inflation and cost of living), Lebanon and Turkey currently rank between 50th and 80th in terms of GDP per capital, depending on whose numbers you use. Yes, they're growing. Doesn't mean they still aren't comparatively poor.

Which clearly has upsides and downsides. Downsides being economic development below what we are used to in the US. Upside being the fact that if you are middle class by US standards, you're quite well off there.

One of the problems with these cross-country comparisons is that the lifestyle of an American who drops in for a while (even when we're talking as long as 2 years) versus an actual resident are usually markedly different. Are we talking about Lebanon as it is if I were to pack up my bags and move today? Or for actual Lebanese people? This difference is even more extreme in places like China, where Westerners live with a much greater degree of allowances and freedom than many natives.





Things like crime are exceptionally hard to compare, b/c high crime rates can actually be a good thing in some ways. It means that people actually report crimes, as opposed to considering them part of every day life. It can be a marker of a functioning civil society. For example, by reported crime rates, the five most dangerous countries in the world? Iceland, Sweden, New Zealand, Granada, and Norway. Something tells me the Scandinavians aren't raping and pillaging at a higher rate that say, South Africa.

 

That point in bold. MoreCowbell is right on the money there. Most crime is simply not reported in South Africa, mostly because the police are incompetent, stupid, corrupt, largely illiterate and completely apathetic. I think, currently, 8 out of 100 rapes is reported - even less lead to prosecution. I don't think murders in the townships are even reported. That, and the courts are completely overflowing, and so are the jails, so there's no motivation to report crime, and even less justice for the victims.

 

That's because you breathe like a tourist. You don't know where to find the good air.

 

I'm wondering just how they figured the cost of living. I mean I know it's (1) cost of an ipod nano, (2) cost of a nissan and (3) cost of living index, but I don't see their metric for calculating that into a scale out of 10 (by the way, for some reason on the main page it says cost of living is on a scale from 5 to 10, not 1 to 10. I'm just wondering how much housing prices factor into the metric. Cities like New York and Tokyo would obviously take a big hit while something like Chicago would benefit. If the price of the Nissan has the same weight as housing, I'll be disappointed. Obviously in some cities purchasing a car is almost a necessity, while in others people go their entire lives without ever learning to drive. Also, purchasing a car typically means paying for parking which in some cities can cost quite a bit.

 

I'm looking at the possibility of moving to Naples at the end of the year. It looks pretty damn good. Perfect weather year round, beautiful coastline, 91st best city economy in the world and rising (if it were a country, it would be 64th). Not to mention 2800 years of culture and a 6% gender difference in Men's favor. Not to mention the best pizza on the planet, what with it being the city where it was invented. If I can get the transfer, I'll be on that shit like white on rice.

 

Have you visited Naples? I have not, so I am speaking only from what I was told in Rome by our docent on a historical tour that we did, so, while she was a pretty well informed and educated Italian citizen, take this for as total hearsay. Basically it is just rampant organized crime. She didn't even recommend visiting there, which is a shame because of all of the history there.

 

The member Politik, who I'm going to assume is Jewish given how he also flipped out of Ballsack's remarks in the R&R thread, messaged me that "Israel does not have deplorable living conditions, retard".

I don't know about any of you but if I was under constant threat of being firebombed, suicide-bombed and generally nuked by Hamas and/or Iran - I'd consider it deplorable living conditions. Maybe it's my peaceful Franco-Canadian upbringing but I have never been threatened by another country/political party and as such I find areas like Lebanon and Israel to be terrifying.

Re: Naples. My ex was Italian and I was speaking with her sicilian father once about all the cities in the boot. He said that every city is great, nice and fine except for the fetid garbage dump that is Napoli. Check out Florence, maybe?

 

Did they mention somewhere the min. population size to be counted? I feel like a lot of great cities didn't make the cut because they are too small.

I have a huge problem with the methodology of using a Nissan. In the US, foreign cars are cheaper on the coasts and more expensive inland. That's going to skew your results. Cars and car parts face high import taxes in some places. And, as someone else mentioned, it doesn't (appear) to include how much it's going to cost you to park, etc. .

A few people mentioned Berlin as a great city and that I will completely agree with. Great food, great night life, and amazing public transit system.

 

Once again you resort to insulting me. Would you raise your family there? Would you move to Tel Aviv or to Beirut for your job? I'll concede that I don't know anyone who's lived there and therefore don't have a first-hand or second-hand knowledge of the place but just because YOU'VE lived there doesn't mean anyone else's experience will be the same.

Would you move to East L.A. even though you've never lived there? No.
Would you move to Northern Ireland even though you've never lived there? Probably not.

Now do you want me to bring up every single terror attack and bombing in Israel, Lebanon, Syria and Egypt since the year 2000? America has been attacked twice on home soil since Pearl Harbor - Tim McVeigh and 9/11 - People still haven't let that shit go. Do you think that the average loser reading AskMen will be comfortable living next to fucking Gaza?