The world's best places to live 2010
Bloomberg Businessweek
It must be that alpine air
It's a question that constantly fascinates people around the planet: Where is the best place to live? Global consultancy Mercer, a unit of Marsh & McLennan, answers this question every year with a detailed study of the quality of life in 420 cities around the world.
The 2010 results are in. Once again Vienna tops the list, followed by Zurich and Geneva. Vienna? Zurich? Lovely, yes, if not the most exciting places on Earth. In all fairness, that's not what Mercer is promising. The firm's research is aimed at companies trying to figure out where to place overseas executives — and how to compensate them for foreign assignment.
The study considers 39 factors that range from political stability and crime rates to housing, health care and education. Of course, lifestyle issues such as cuisine, nightlife, culture and recreation are included, as is the natural environment. These are balanced by factors of perhaps greater interest to expatriates, such as safety and public services. All told, the cities that rise to the top offer the world's highest quality of life across a wide spectrum of measures.
Despite its current economic travails, Europe still dominates the list's higher reaches, with seven of the top 10 cities. Rounding out the top 10 are Vancouver, British Columbia; Auckland, New Zealand; and Sydney. The highest-ranked U.S. city is Honolulu at No. 31, followed by San Francisco at No. 32. For the second consecutive year, Baghdad was chosen as the world's worst place to live. This year, Mercer also conducted a separate "eco-ranking" that assesses cities on factors such as air and water quality, waste disposal, sewage handling, renewable energy usage and traffic congestion.
The world's top cities offering the best quality of life
(New York City is the base city with a score of 100 points)
2010 Rankings
1 Vienna Austria
2 Zurich Switzerland
3 Geneva Switzerland
=4 Vancouver Canada
=4 Auckland New Zealand
6 Düsseldorf Germany
=7 Frankfurt Germany
=7 Munich Germany
9 Bern Switzerland
10 Sydney Australia
11 Copenhagen Denmark
12 Wellington New Zealand
13 Amsterdam Netherlands
14 Ottawa Canada
15 Brussels Belgium
16 Toronto Canada
17 Berlin Germany
18 Melbourne Australia
19 Luxembourg Luxembourg
20 Stockholm Sweden
=21 Perth Australia
=21 Montreal Canada
23 Hamburg Germany
=24 Nürnberg Germany
=24 Oslo Norway
=26 Canberra Australia
=26 Dublin Ireland
=28 Calgary Canada
=28 Singapore Singapore
30 Stuttgart Germany
31 Honolulu USA
=32 Adelaide Australia
=32 San Francisco USA
34 Paris France
35 Helsinki Finland
36 Brisbane Australia
37 Boston USA
38 Lyon France
39 London UK
40 Tokyo Japan
=41 Milan Italy
=41 Kobe Japan
=41 Yokohama Japan
44 Barcelona Spain
=45 Lisbon Portugal
=45 Chicago USA
=45 Washington DC USA
48 Madrid Spain
49 New York City USA
50 Seattle USA
Research by Mercer Consulting