What cities have a high quality of life?

[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.

[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.

[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?

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by dktshb

If it weren't for the homelessness plaguing the west coast I would put
San Francisco, Seattle Santa Monica and Portland on the list.

Yes, the homeless problem is one of the few things about San Francisco that significantly affects its grade from me. The city seems to otherwise be very well run from the perspective of fostering a thriving urban environment, and can rival a few European capitals in that regard.

[Innsertnamehere]

Calgary would probably give you the best quality of life in Canada, provided you can stand the weather.

Housing is affordable, incomes are high, infrastructure is basically impeccable with excellent road and transit systems, strong community services, and little in the way of poverty. Strong access to nature being an hour drive from the Rocky Mountains, a great airport with a large amount of connections for a city it's size, a dense downtown which isn't full of parking lots, the list goes on.

The urban life isn't anything majorly exciting, but that's to be expected for a city of 1.5 million. It still has a decent share of night life and restaurants, if not anything mind blowing.

The only reason it's not absolutely exploding in population (IMO) is that it's cold. Summer lasts all of 3 months and snow is common from September to May.

If you are established or have money, Toronto and Vancouver are great as well, if not as good as Calgary. The infrastructure lacks more in the two cities but both also provide great access to nature, bustling cities, etc. - They are just expensive as hell.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by Acajack

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?

What about Edmonton? I follow some urban and transit channels on YouTube and they usually say nice things about it.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[Crawford]

MTA is state-operated. NYC has no direct role in MTA.

[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.

[pdxtex]

Originally Posted by AviationGuy

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

The least amount of potholes. Most grocery stores per capita.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by pdxtex

The least amount of potholes.

Chicago is officially out!!

(not that it was the ever in)


Freeze-thaw is the mortal enemy of pavement everywhere.

[3rd&Brown]

Originally Posted by Crawford

MTA is state-operated. NYC has no direct role in MTA.

Who cares. It's also a system where it costs an exhorbitant amount of money to execute on the most basic services. Last I read the barriers they want to "pilot" at 42nd street on the subway are going to cost something north of $100MM. For 1 subway station? GTFOOH. No wonder why we don't have anything nice.

[badrunner]

Is there a city that offers high quality of life for working class/poor? Most American cities would be disqualified. Maybe Rome, Athens, Istanbul? Casablanca? Marrakesh?

[mousquet]

I wouldn't describe Paris as an easy city to live in in our day and age.

It is expensive, like real estate is some kind of scam all over the metro area.
Of course, there's a lot of pretty things and neighborhoods, but there's also a lot of crime, drug dealing and gang violence that comes along.

And it's always in suburbs gone too far to the left that difficulties occur. When struggling people are all over the same places, it goes wrong.

I noticed something over here. There's a sign that doesn't lie. When you have a little synagogue in your neighborhood, it means it's safe and healthy.
Wherever the Jews can live in safety, everybody's safe. I'm a Catholic and I have Christian faith, so I don't particularly fancy the Jewish or Muslim religions.
But I'm glad to have a synagogue next door anyway, because it means we're ok where I live.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by chris08876

Tokyo IMO.

Its a superior city. The whole region is.

Superior transportation, high-tech, clean, a population that cares, a government that allows affordable housing to be built in mass over the decades (Take note U.S. cities), amazing food, diversity, and did I mention clean?

Superior city. Very low crime too, very low.

Bullet trains to speed around the regions nodes, and vending machines. Seems like the hallmarks of a high quality of life. The Japanese also live very long on average so for the sake of high quality of life, I'd say so!

Japan in general. That is a civilization. Its a shame that they are seeing a population drop because if the world was modeled more like Japan, man... the potential for this planet.

Tokyo is the cleanest gigantic city that I have visited. It is the cleanest city of more than 20 million. It is the cleanest city of more than 10 million. It is the cleanest city of more than 5 million. Heck, it might be the cleanest city of more than 2 million. Way cleaner than Calgary, for example.

Paris and New York are awesome cities, but they are not clean cities.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by mousquet

I noticed something over here. There's a sign that doesn't lie. When you have a little synagogue in your neighborhood, it means it's safe and healthy.
Wherever the Jews can live in safety, everybody's safe. I'm a Catholic and I have Christian faith, so I don't particularly fancy the Jewish or Muslim religions.
But I'm glad to have a synagogue next door anyway, because it means we're ok where I live.

You sounded just like White South Africans back in my stay there in 2008... I was too young and always asking about safety in different neighbourhoods and cities and they were very direct: if you don't see White people, it's not safe. I heard that quite often.

You live there and know better, but I find hard to believe crime is an issue in most of Paris except where Jewish live. I've been in Paris three times and I felt safe most of the time.

Originally Posted by chris08876

Tokyo IMO.

Its a superior city. The whole region is.

Superior transportation, high-tech, clean, a population that cares, a government that allows affordable housing to be built in mass over the decades (Take note U.S. cities), amazing food, diversity, and did I mention clean?

Superior city. Very low crime too, very low.

Bullet trains to speed around the regions nodes, and vending machines. Seems like the hallmarks of a high quality of life. The Japanese also live very long on average so for the sake of high quality of life, I'd say so!

Japan in general. That is a civilization. Its a shame that they are seeing a population drop because if the world was modeled more like Japan, man... the potential for this planet.

I'm completely fascinated by Tokyo as well for all those reasons you mentioned. It's the queen of all metropolises.

I didn't put it on my list though as it's too foreign and I guess after a time I would get tired of living there.

[mousquet]

Originally Posted by Yuri

You live there and know better, but I find hard to believe crime is an issue in most of Paris except where Jewish live. I've been in Paris three times and I felt safe most of the time.

T'as pas compris. I didn't say all safe neighborhoods had a synagogue.
I said all neighborhoods with a synagogue were safe.
Can you get the difference in wording?

As for the rest of your rant, it is yours only, and uninteresting.

Oh, and you claim to love Tokyo... It is probably the least ethnically or religiously diverse megapolis on Earth.
The Japanese don't want to face the human challenges that we have to cope.
Or at least, they've been reluctant to challenge themselves so far.