What cities have a high quality of life?

[pdxtex]

This should be interesting. Don't over think it. When you think of top shelf urban life, what cities do you imagine. Don't worry about actual stats. Just which places do perceive to be well run and successful. Ill start. Choose 5

Boston, London, Seattle, Zurich, Vienna.

[MolsonExport]

Jacksonville. That skyline is just breathtaking.

Seriously? In Canada, I would vote for Montreal. You won't be as wealthy, but damn it, Montrealers know how to have a good time. Great food, great neighborhoods...je ne sais quoi. You can make way more money yet still need to be miserly in your spending in Vancouver and Toronto.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Seriously? In Canada, I would vote for Montreal. You won't be as wealthy, but damn it, Montrealers know how to have a good time. Great food, great neighborhoods...je ne sais quoi. You can make way more money yet still need to be miserly in your spending in Vancouver and Toronto.

This feels a bit dated. Montreal's economy is doing relatively well (by Canadian standards) and it certainly has more opportunity & higher wages available than Vancouver, but prices are also quickly catching up. Still the best value in the country, at least for now.

Originally Posted by isaidso

Helsinki, Copenhagen, Oslo, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Calgary, Vancouver, Toronto, Zurich, Vienna, Auckland

Great quality of life if you're an older, established homeowner. Pretty awful for everyone else.

[niwell]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

Great quality of life if you're an older, established homeowner. Pretty awful for everyone else.

Indeed. Boston in particular strikes me as a very unaffordable place unless you're wealthy or already established. Even coming from Toronto which is quite expensive the rents I looked up when visiting recently were shocking. Going out was considerably pricier than I'm used to even in comparison to other American cities that seem much more expensive compared to a decade or so ago. Great place if you can afford it though.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by niwell

Indeed. Boston in particular strikes me as a very unaffordable place unless you're wealthy or already established. Even coming from Toronto which is quite expensive the rents I looked up when visiting recently were shocking. Going out was considerably pricier than I'm used to even in comparison to other American cities that seem much more expensive compared to a decade or so ago. Great place if you can afford it though.

Maybe it’s a misconception of mine, but Boston also seemed a bit dull from the perspective of a person that like massive cities and urban energy. Toronto and Montreal don’t give me that at all.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by niwell

Boston in particular strikes me as a very unaffordable place unless you're wealthy or already established.

Boston has high incomes and housing prices aren't crazy compared to metros with similarly high incomes.

Originally Posted by niwell

Even coming from Toronto which is quite expensive the rents I looked up when visiting recently were shocking.

Toronto doesn't have high rents. Unless things changed recently, all the big Canadian cities have cheaper rents than the big American cities.

Canada has a housing ownership crisis, not a rental crisis, mostly due to bank/govt. manipulations and immigrant cultural affinity for ownership.

[SIGSEGV]

Boston, Montreal, Tokyo, Amsterdam, Copenhagen

[iheartthed]

Global:

Tokyo
Paris
New York
London
Barcelona

In the listed order. Megacities automatically get extra credit from me. Barcelona is not a megacity but it is such an overachiever that it can feel like one.

[Yuri]

1. São Paulo
2. London
3. Berlin
4. Montreal
5. Buenos Aires

I’d probably prefer to live in Rio over Buenos Aires, but let’s keep it more international. And there are two of those that I haven’t visited but I hardly am positively or negatively surprised by new places I visit.

[strongbad635]

In no particular order:

-New York
-Barcelona
-Tokyo
-Sydney
-Amsterdam

My particular hot button considerations are a climate that is not too frigid, reasonably priced housing, streets that are well-detailed and not full of blank walls, and an extensive transit system so car-free living is easy for people of all incomes. Each of these cities is strong in some areas and weak in others, but these are my all-around favorites.

[3rd&Brown]

Originally Posted by strongbad635

In no particular order:

-New York
-Barcelona
-Tokyo
-Sydney
-Amsterdam

My particular hot button considerations are a climate that is not too frigid, reasonably priced housing, streets that are well-detailed and not full of blank walls, and an extensive transit system so car-free living is easy for people of all incomes. Each of these cities is strong in some areas and weak in others, but these are my all-around favorites.

I love NY but it's terribly run. The MTA is a joke. Everything infrastructure wise costs way more than it should, etc.

[The North One]

Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown

I love NY but it's terribly run. The MTA is a joke. Everything infrastructure wise costs way more than it should, etc.

Yeah, confused at New York being added to any global quality of life list (other than obvious New Yorker boosterism). The US is a terrible place to live if you don't have enough money. Anything in this country is pretty much automatically disqualified.

[isaidso]

Helsinki, Copenhagen, Oslo, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Calgary, Vancouver, Toronto, Zurich, Vienna, Auckland

[AviationGuy]

Originally Posted by pdxtex

This should be interesting. Don't over think it. When you think of top shelf urban life, what cities do you imagine. Don't worry about actual stats. Just which places do perceive to be well run and successful. Ill start. Choose 5

Boston, London, Seattle, Zurich, Vienna.

Are we talking about quality of life for most residents, or just the affluent?

[pip]

Originally Posted by AviationGuy

Are we talking about quality of life for most residents, or just the affluent?

What I was thinking

[ssiguy]

Originally Posted by pip

What I was thinking

Exactly and my city of Vancouver exemplifies this beautifully. Often it does well on international ratings and the city certainly does a lot of things right and offers a great lifestyle but only IF you can afford it. London, NY, Amsterdam, Toronto, Paris, Sydney are all great cities but not for the average person. All the theatre, restaurants, shopping, nightlife, sports, galleries, and museums in the world mean nothing if you can hardly even pay your rent.

In terms of at least Canada with populations over 1 million, I would say there are only 2..........Montreal and Calgary even though the 2 cities couldn't possibly be any more different if they tried. Both are affordable for the average person but the similarities end there.

Montreal is a beautiful historic city with gorgeous architecture, a nightlife the stuff legends are made of, tons of interesting areas with cafes and restaurants all over with wonderful parks, a vital urban form, endless festivals, with a liberal and bohemian attitude. She was built as a place for people and it's laid back attitude is obvious as soon as you set foot in her while simultaneously being a city that refuses to be anything but centre stage. Montreal's Quebecois culture is unique and the city is a feast for the senses. Montreal is truly a magical metropolis that one can't help but fall in love with.

Calgary on the other hand is a very new city that does sprawl but it's inner city is vibrant with tons of interesting neighbourhoods with a 500km cycling system. The city has the best transit system for any city under 2 million in NA and blows every US city of up to 5 million right out the window. It was recently ranked as the world's cleanest city and I believe it. From fresh crisp air, sparkling rivers from the Rockies, to streets that you could literally eat on. It's incredibly well planned and offers very high civic services along with the highest income levels in the country in a province with the lowest taxes all while enjoying a low crime rate. It's Canada's 3rd most cosmopolitan city which is on full display with its large food scene. All this with incredibly beautiful parks, huge reserve areas within the city limits, and backdropped by the Rockies. It's doesn't enjoy Montreal stylish flair but it offers a very high quality of life to her citizens.

[3rd&Brown]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Exactly and my city of Vancouver exemplifies this beautifully. Often it does well on international ratings and the city certainly does a lot of things right and offers a great lifestyle but only IF you can afford it. London, NY, Amsterdam, Toronto, Paris, Sydney are all great cities but not for the average person. All the theatre, restaurants, shopping, nightlife, sports, galleries, and museums in the world mean nothing if you can hardly even pay your rent.

In terms of at least Canada with populations over 1 million, I would say there are only 2..........Montreal and Calgary even though the 2 cities couldn't possibly be any more different if they tried. Both are affordable for the average person but the similarities end there.

Montreal is a beautiful historic city with gorgeous architecture, a nightlife the stuff legends are made of, tons of interesting areas with cafes and restaurants all over with wonderful parks, a vital urban form, endless festivals, with a liberal and bohemian attitude. She was built as a place for people and it's laid back attitude is obvious as soon as you set foot in her while simultaneously being a city that refuses to be anything but centre stage. Montreal's Quebecois culture is unique and the city is a feast for the senses. Montreal is truly a magical metropolis that one can't help but fall in love with.

Calgary on the other hand is a very new city that does sprawl but it's inner city is vibrant with tons of interesting neighbourhoods with a 500km cycling system. The city has the best transit system for any city under 2 million in NA and blows every US city of up to 5 million right out the window. It was recently ranked as the world's cleanest city and I believe it. From fresh crisp air, sparkling rivers from the Rockies, to streets that you could literally eat on. It's incredibly well planned and offers very high civic services along with the highest income levels in the country in a province with the lowest taxes all while enjoying a low crime rate. It's Canada's 3rd most cosmopolitan city which is on full display with its large food scene. All this with incredibly beautiful parks, huge reserve areas within the city limits, and backdropped by the Rockies. It's doesn't enjoy Montreal stylish flair but it offers a very high quality of life to her citizens.

You sold me. I need to check Calgary out.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown

You sold me. I need to check Calgary out.

Calgary is probably the most functional of Canada's major cities right now, in addition to being reasonably affordable. (Ottawa used to rank up there but I wouldn't place it even with Calgary now.)

Quebec City would also rank up there but it has about 850,000 people in the metro, and we're kind of unofficially limiting this to metros of 1 million or more, right?

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Montreal is a beautiful historic city with gorgeous architecture,

I'm nitpicking but it bugs me that Montreal is frequently described in such a manner. Montreal isn't a particularly old city, nor does it have much (admittedly subjective) gorgeous architecture. It's the incessant Francization (?) of Montreal/Quebec, turning it into some fiction of baguettes and chateaus.

Montreal was much smaller than, say, Cleveland or Buffalo. Is Cleveland frequently referenced as some historical gem? Montreal, outside the core, looks very typically Canadian, with lots of postwar commieblocks and the like. It doesn't have anything like a French feel, or even a Philly feel, for that matter. It's very North American, just with a differing dominant language. The really nice areas look like Brookline, not Versailles.

[Zeej]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I'm nitpicking but it bugs me that Montreal is frequently described in such a manner. Montreal isn't a particularly old city, nor does it have much (admittedly subjective) gorgeous architecture. It's the incessant Francization (?) of Montreal/Quebec, turning it into some fiction of baguettes and chateaus.

Montreal was much smaller than, say, Cleveland or Buffalo. Is Cleveland frequently referenced as some historical gem? Montreal, outside the core, looks very typically Canadian, with lots of postwar commieblocks and the like. It doesn't have anything like a French feel, or even a Philly feel, for that matter. It's very North American, just with a differing dominant language. The really nice areas look like Brookline, not Versailles.

Nobody thinks that Montreal looks like France, but despite having similar populations to rust-belt American cities in say 1950(?), it offers some of the better urbanism you will find on this continent and people tend to like it because it fits the current urbanist trends pretty well (particularly for Norther America) and continues to urbanize along those lines. People also like it because its cheaper than other 'urbanist' cities, particularly with the USD to CAD conversion. This tends to contribute to its reputation as a vibrant city. And because this thread is about quality of life, Montreal is one of the safest cities in North America (if not the world). Don't think the same can be said for Cleveland or Buffalo.

The comparison to similar sized cities in another country some 75 years ago is overly simplistic. No one refers to Cleveland as a historical gem in part because it has experienced significant de-urbanization, the likes of which hasn't been witnessed in any Canadian city. I personally find much of Downtown Cleveland to be very beautiful and well composed. I'd say the same for its peer cities in the region, most of which I've had the pleasure of spending time in. Then you cross the interstate into the inner-city and the drop off is severe.