With all the abundance of rankings and surveys coming from online magazines or international organizations, it is easy to forget that after all deciding which cities are best in the world is not an entirely objective process. Ask ten different persons what cities they like most and you will get ten different answers. With this in mind, let me introduce you to a YouTube user who created and published a nice video album about what cities in the world he thinks are best to visit.

While you sit down, relax and enjoy watching the video from the top-right corner of this page, read also something about the top three cities from this rankings: Sydney (Australia), Hong Kong (China) and Singapore. Continue reading »

AskMen.com published in 2007 a Top 10 of Bicycle Cities, about best cities in the world good for bikes. They looked at how well-connected and incorporated are the bike lanes and paths into the city’s major downtown routes, at the efforts in innovation in accommodating cyclists despite the confines of an urban setting, at the low risk to have your bike stolen, at the overall cycling infrastructure provided by several world cities to ride your bike in.

While North America tries to accommodate increasing numbers of cyclists, many European prototypes have already engineered cities with the bicycle in mind. Among them, Scandinavian countries boast many bustling city centers designed around the bicycle. Continue reading »

According to the UK publication Monocle, the city of Munich (Germany) has been found in 2007 as the most liveable city in the world. Munich is immediately followed, in the top of 20 cities established by the publication, by Copenhagen (Denmark) and Zurich (Switzerland).

Most top places are essentially taken by cities from western Europe. As usual, we also find few cities from Australia, Canada and New Zealand, the new destinations for immigrants. The actual surprise comes from two cities of Japan (Tokyo and Kyoto), Tokyo on a very honnorable place 4. Continue reading »

In 2002, the independent UK organization Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) found Australian and Canadian cities among the best for business expatriates. The city of Melbourne (Australia) shared the first place with the city of Vancouver (Canada). Perth (another Australian city) is on the third place.

The survey was part of a Worldwide Cost of Living service assessing the level of hardship for expatriates in 130 cities around the world. A so-called hardship criterion using multiple factors (convenience of the local infrastructures, the cultural life and how safe is environment, and the health and security systems) was used to determine which cities in the world are safer. Continue reading »

The 2004 Quality of Living Survey of Mercer Human Resource Consulting established a ranking with Best Cities to Live in for Expatriate Workers. Five out of first six cities are Canadian, with Ottawa, the national capital, topping the list. It is followed by Vancouver and Calgary.

As expected, countries open to a large number of immigrants (such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand) performed best. From Europe, a special mention for Germany (with five cities in top 20). From US, only Honolulu appears in the list. Ranking is based on a derived index, in which both the quality of living index and the cost of living index have been included. Continue reading »