Best Cities To Live

http://www.forbes.com/2009/04/27/cities-best-live-lifestyle-real-estate-best-places-to-live.html?feed=rss_popstories

Rank 2009	Rank 2008	City	Country	Index 2009	Index 2008
1	2	VIENNA	AUSTRIA	108.6	107.9
2	1	ZURICH	SWITZERLAND	108	108
3	2	GENEVA	SWITZERLAND	107.9	107.9
4	4	VANCOUVER	CANADA	107.4	107.6
4	5	AUCKLAND	NEW ZEALAND	107.4	107.3
6	6	DUSSELDORF	GERMANY	107.2	107.2
7	7	MUNICH	GERMANY	107	107
8	7	FRANKFURT	GERMANY	106.8	107
9	9	BERN	SWITZERLAND	106.5	106.5
10	10	SYDNEY	AUSTRALIA	106.3	106.3
11	11	COPENHAGEN	DENMARK	106.2	106.2
12	12	WELLINGTON	NEW ZEALAND	105.9	105.8
13	13	AMSTERDAM	NETHERLANDS	105.7	105.7
14	14	BRUSSELS	BELGIUM	105.4	105.4
15	15	TORONTO	CANADA	105.3	105.3
16	19	OTTAWA	CANADA	105	104.7
16	16	BERLIN	GERMANY	105	105
18	17	MELBOURNE	AUSTRALIA	104.8	104.8
19	17	LUXEMBOURG	LUXEMBOURG	104.6	104.8
20	20	STOCKHOLM	SWEDEN	104.5	104.5

Best Cities to Live:

#1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 16 are all in German speaking Countries! (I would say that they are all German speaking, but I am pretty ignorant about Switzerland, so probably one of those speaks French. XD)

# 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, (14), 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, and 20 are all in Germanic speaking Countries! (I put Brussels in parenthesis because I know it's mostly Francophone. But surely it would have rated higher if they let the Dutchies do more talking ;))

The top 3 speak German, the top 20 speak a Germanic language - that's conclusive enough evidence for me that it's speaking German that makes you happy!

Canada did very well, but I was a bit surprised that Scandinavian cities didn't do as well as might be expected given how high the countries rank for best COUNTRIES to live. Yes, Copenhagen and Stockholm both made a showing, but no Norway, etc. I thought about blaming climate, which is apparently one of the factors that they look at, but the cold didn't seem to have hurt Germany at all. I guess it's because of the lack of big cities in Scandinavia, or maybe all the happy people live outside of cities? For all the shit Norwegians give Oslo, it didn't actually do too bad. (It's 24th). America's first showing is Honolulu at 29th. The only real person I've ever heard of coming from Hawaii is Obama, and I've never met anyone from Hawaii. It just doesn't feel real to me, so I'm not sure we can count it. The next one is San Francisco at 30.

By the way, you can count Germanic-speaking countries all the way to 32 if you give Singapore wiggle room (Danial says that everyone there speaks English, and it's the ordinary language, far more than Malay), and count Swedish for Finland (which seems cruel, but oh well.) At that point, France starts popping in, as does Japan, and the list as a whole becomes far more diverse.

21	21	PERTH	AUSTRALIA	104.3	104.3
22	22	MONTREAL	CANADA	104.2	104.2
23	23	NURNBERG	GERMANY	104.1	104.1
24	24	OSLO	NORWAY	103.7	103.7
25	25	DUBLIN	IRELAND	103.6	103.5
26	32	SINGAPORE	SINGAPORE	103.5	102.9
26	25	CALGARY	CANADA	103.5	103.5
28	27	HAMBURG	GERMANY	103.4	103.4
29	28	HONOLULU, HI	UNITED STATES	103.1	103.1
30	29	SAN FRANCISCO, CA	UNITED STATES	103	103
30	29	HELSINKI	FINLAND	103	103
30	29	ADELAIDE	AUSTRALIA	103	103
33	32	PARIS	FRANCE	102.9	102.9
34	34	BRISBANE	AUSTRALIA	102.4	102.4
35	35	TOKYO	JAPAN	102.2	102.2

The numbers, btw, are comparing them to New York, which is 100.