Best Places to Live in the World...

[nudeyorker]

You don't need a bikini at my house unless you want to wear it as a top while retrieving the news paper. I have this sign posted at my pool.

 

[Drifterwood]

I've come to that point too. Live in the peaceful green hills with a decent city in easy reach.

Yep. I have been to most of the places that have been mentioned, but my spirit is only free without concrete, manmade noise and pollution. You won't hear the dawn and dusk choruses that I am currently enjoying in any city in the world.

 

[curious_angel]

You don't need a bikini at my house unless you want to wear it as a top while retrieving the news paper. I have this sign posted at my pool.

*unpacks bikinis, again* :smile:

 

[TomCat84]

Yep. I have been to most of the places that have been mentioned, but my spirit is only free without concrete, manmade noise and pollution. You won't hear the dawn and dusk choruses that I am currently enjoying in any city in the world.

For some odd reason, I suppose I rather enjoy the sounds of the city. It wouldnt be home without me yelling at the neighbors to keep their music down or yelling at the kids to stay off my lawn as it were :tongue:

 

[nudeyorker]

*unpacks bikinis, again* :smile:

No No throw it back in the bag. That's one of the major things I love about Hawaii; fun boxer shorts double as street wear as well as swimwear and sarongs.

 

[D_Tully Tunnelrat]

Yep. I have been to most of the places that have been mentioned, but my spirit is only free without concrete, manmade noise and pollution. You won't hear the dawn and dusk choruses that I am currently enjoying in any city in the world.

To which I love living in cities that are within 20 minutes of such vast open green space, you have no idea are near a downtown or major airport. One can bike for hundreds of miles in the SF-Bay Area in locations like this.

And Curious, NY is right, when on the islands, go native = forget the bikini.

 

[Drifterwood]

For some odd reason, I suppose I rather enjoy the sounds of the city. It wouldnt be home without me yelling at the neighbors to keep their music down or yelling at the kids to stay off my lawn as it were :tongue:

To which I love living in cities that are within 20 minutes of such vast open green space, you have no idea are near a downtown or major airport. One can bike for hundreds of miles in the SF-Bay Area in locations like this.

I don't disagree. I do get urban life, the buzz, pace, edginess etc. But I think that that list puts some unexpected places high up because they are less bad in the negatives that you get in very large cities.

 

[Crugsy]

I cant say where to live, But dont live in Birmingham, England. I got attacked their at the weekend for wearing an anti-fascist t-shirt. I still wake up with my nose clotted....

I'm a Brummie and i'm proud of it. In my 41 years in Birmingham i've never been attacked by anyone. In fact Brummie's are known for their friendliness in the UK (okay the accent hasn't got a great reputation but there ya go!) I think it's a bit of a generalisation to tell people not to go to an entire city because of what's probably an isolated incident. Thats sort of thing could happen in any city...

 

[Bbucko]

All those top German cities are pretty much boring except for Berlin and Hamburg. This is why citizens of the Federal Republic are, in terms of percentage of time spent abroad measured against the whole population, the most travelled nation on earth.

I've had travel wish-lists for most of my adult life, and the only spots in Germany that have ever held any interest for me are Hamburg and Berlin. The rest of Germany just seems so smugly, tirelessly bourgeois.

I recently had a customer from Munich; when I mentioned that I'd lived in Paris for much of the 90s, he made a funny face and said that Paris is "dirty", conforming perfectly to my expectations :wink:

 

[sbat]

I've had travel wish-lists for most of my adult life, and the only spots in Germany that have ever held any interest for me are Hamburg and Berlin. The rest of Germany just seems so smugly, tirelessly bourgeois.

I recently had a customer from Munich; when I mentioned that I'd lived in Paris for much of the 90s, he made a funny face and said that Paris is "dirty", conforming perfectly to my expectations :wink:

Paris is dirty. Dog shit everywhere.

 

[Bbucko]

Paris is dirty. Dog shit everywhere.

And it's cleaned every single day :biggrin1:

Seriously, if all you can take away from a visit to Paris with its history, museums, architecture, culture, street-life and food (not to mention the general joie de vivre) are anecdotes about snooty waiters in a tourist trap or dog shit on the sidewalk then you have a sorry appreciation of what makes life worth living.

 

[D_Tim McGnaw]

I've had travel wish-lists for most of my adult life, and the only spots in Germany that have ever held any interest for me are Hamburg and Berlin. The rest of Germany just seems so smugly, tirelessly bourgeois.

I recently had a customer from Munich; when I mentioned that I'd lived in Paris for much of the 90s, he made a funny face and said that Paris is "dirty", conforming perfectly to my expectations :wink:

Both Berlin and Hamburg are utterly brilliant places, I know what you mean about the rest of Germany but having visited much of it I have to say that it's a wonderful country, and yes it can be bourgeois, but it's such a comforting kind of bourgeois, similar to the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Switzerland, all of which I also love.

Paris is dirty. Dog shit everywhere.

I'm yet to come across any place of dense human settlement which wasn't dirty, and Paris is no more so than any other city I've visited. I saw a guy take a dump on the street in NY once, now that was a street hazard I could really live without.

Paris was once slightly more of a dog toilette than some other cities but they introduced little latrines for dogs on street corners (all fenced off and regularly cleaned out) and guys on scooters with vacuums which suck up stray doings and it's much much better than many other cities can be for this kind of thing.

And it's cleaned every single day :biggrin1:

Seriously, if all you can take away from a visit to Paris with its history, museums, architecture, culture, street-life and food (not to mention the general joie de vivre) are anecdotes about snooty waiters in a tourist trap or dog shit on the sidewalk then you have a sorry appreciation of what makes life worth living.

Parisians are very like Londoners in my experience, a bit brusque and matter of fact but if you're confident in your manner and can speak French (even a tiny bit) they're a delight, and considering how magnificent a city they live in one can forgive some foibles.

 

[bigunzippedstudent9]

I'm from Toronto, which usually fairs well in these rankings. Its a great city to live and I always want to ultimately end up there, but its SO BORING compared to other great cities in Europe and even the US!

Other problems:
- its completely broke
- public transat is a joke for a city its size
- the much lauded multiculturalism actually makes everyone in TO racist and even intoverted (each culture only socializes with their own own kind in the tiny little pickets around the city)

As for other Canadian cities. Vancouver? Yeah goregous but too expensive, and it fucking rains 80% of the year. Montreal? Its heyday was long ago... Other than strip clubs, and lower drinking ages, I'm not sure what that city has going for it.

 

[Bbucko]

Both Berlin and Hamburg are utterly brilliant places, I know what you mean about the rest of Germany but having visited much of it I have to say that it's a wonderful country, and yes it can be bourgeois, but it's such a comforting kind of bourgeois, similar to the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Switzerland, all of which I also love.

The Amsterdam is much like Boston: small-grained and densely settled but without the stage-set drama that makes life in New York or Paris so compelling (what the French would call du cinéma). It felt very much like home the one time I was there.

If I were in the general area I'd like to see Darmstadt if only for the Artist's Colony Grand Duke Ernst Louis built there circa 1900, including several works by Olbrich whom I've always admired. Recent internet searches of Dresden make it look especially sad/fake/stagey: hardly worth a glance.

I've never been to Switzerland, though I've owned several of their watches :wink: In general, your post made me envious of your place of birth, as proximity has allowed you to see so many more places than I.

I'm yet to come across any place of dense human settlement which wasn't dirty, and Paris is no more so than any other city I've visited. I saw a guy take a dump on the street in NY once, now that was a street hazard I could really live without.

Paris was once slightly more of a dog toilette than some other cities but they introduced little latrines for dogs on street corners (all fenced off and regularly cleaned out) and guys on scooters with vacuums which suck up stray doings and it's much much better than many other cities can be for this kind of thing.

Though I never witnessed the actual act, I was stuck on an Uptown subway platform with a pile of human excrement on one of the benches for what seemed like eternity. What struck me was how no one seemed to notice it: very NYC.

I'm glad to hear about the new doggy latrines in Paris; I'm sure they make a vast improvement over the situation as I experienced it 15-20 years ago.

Parisians are very like Londoners in my experience, a bit brusque and matter of fact but if you're confident in your manner and can speak French (even a tiny bit) they're a delight, and considering how magnificent a city they live in one can forgive some foibles.

I've made the same point here and elsewhere a thousand times before: learn at least a few elementary phrases and useful words before traveling some place where you don't speak the language, such as "Good Morning/Day/Evening", "Where is/are...", basic numerals, etc, and "Do You Speak English?"

Just try babbling away in Norwegian or Portuguese at a restaurant, deli or bank in New York or Chicago and see how far you get.

 

[Bbucko]

I'm from Toronto, which usually fairs well in these rankings. Its a great city to live and I always want to ultimately end up there, but its SO BORING compared to other great cities in Europe and even the US!

Other problems:
- its completely broke
- public transat is a joke for a city its size
- the much lauded multiculturalism actually makes everyone in TO racist and even intoverted (each culture only socializes with their own own kind in the tiny little pickets around the city)

As for other Canadian cities. Vancouver? Yeah goregous but too expensive, and it fucking rains 80% of the year. Montreal? Its heyday was long ago... Other than strip clubs, and lower drinking ages, I'm not sure what that city has going for it.

I've been to Toronto twice in the late 90s for Pride. Though we didn't stray too far off the Church St/Yonge St axis, it seemed nice enough. The people were friendly, the food inexpensive and plentiful and everything just had a "rightness" about it that's hard to explain but easy to recognize: it just seemed very comfortable (and my ex was a notoriously bad traveler).

Montreal is a city with so much potential: millions of well-educated, healthy people, its fabulous location, its Old Town, its incredible infrastructure and Metro system (even if I find Pont Champlain terrifying), its cultural and linguistic diversity, etc etc. The current rather tawdry state it's in right now is a mystery: the secession question has been settled and Toronto is booming. It's a city in need of a collective bitch-slap.

 

[sbat]

And it's cleaned every single day :biggrin1:

Seriously, if all you can take away from a visit to Paris with its history, museums, architecture, culture, street-life and food (not to mention the general joie de vivre) are anecdotes about snooty waiters in a tourist trap or dog shit on the sidewalk then you have a sorry appreciation of what makes life worth living.

Haha, I lived in Aix, so I'm on the Marseilles side of the rivalry.

Yes, there's a lot of great fun to be had in Paris. But it doesn't change the fact that (especially) compared to the sunny and open air of Provence, Paris is dirty, just like any city with millions of people packed together is bound to be dirty.

 

[dannyrankin]

Eugene, OR

 

[Bbucko]

Haha, I lived in Aix, so I'm on the Marseilles side of the rivalry.

Yes, there's a lot of great fun to be had in Paris. But it doesn't change the fact that (especially) compared to the sunny and open air of Provence, Paris is dirty, just like any city with millions of people packed together is bound to be dirty.

I've never been to Marseilles except to switch trains on my way to Collioure (which was lovely), but it's never been compared favorably in any way to the Capitol, even by the most hyper-partisan :wink:

I will grant that, in general, the south of France is nicer than the north, though each part has its charms and eccentricities.

My point regarding the customer from Munich was that he was blind to the charms of Paris because of his Teutonic anal retention which has always made me wary of visiting Germany in the first place. Besides, is Paris really that much less clean than Munich, especially during Oktoberfest (for instance)?

He probably had some yucky experience crossing the city from the Gare de l'Est to Gare St Lazar on his way to the Chunnel train, and it scarred his sad, bad little self for life: poor darling.

 

[sbat]

I've only ever been to the north of Germany - Hamburg and Berlin. And they both were cleaner than Paris - not saying that they were "clean." My Economics teacher (who was from Paris) at the IEP where I studied at Aix mentioned something about Parisians lacking a sense of civic responsibility.

But I've already admitted my Provencal bias, so take that with a grain of salt.:biggrin1:

I'm honestly not even saying that Marseilles compared favorably with Paris as a city on metrics such as museified culture, nightlife, landmarks, etc.

I think I just enjoyed the lifestyle of Provence more - I love Mediterranean food, the lower population density, and of course the weather.

Munich, and Bavaria, by all accounts, is comparable in geography and weather to Pittsburgh, which automatically knocks it down several pegs for me. Being cleaner wouldn't be of any solace to me whatsoever. And castles don't do anything for me.

I've never been to Marseilles except to switch trains on my way to Collioure (which was lovely), but it's never been compared favorably in any way to the Capitol, even by the most hyper-partisan :wink:

I will grant that, in general, the south of France is nicer than the north, though each part has its charms and eccentricities.

My point regarding the customer from Munich was that he was blind to the charms of Paris because of his Teutonic anal retention which has always made me wary of visiting Germany in the first place. Besides, is Paris really that much less clean than Munich, especially during Oktoberfest (for instance)?

He probably had some yucky experience crossing the city from the Gare de l'Est to Gare St Lazar on his way to the Chunnel train, and it scarred his sad, bad little self for life: poor darling.

 

[pleasureboy]

If you're gay, I'd say New Orleans.

Overall quality of life is probably highest in Bavaria. But then again the weather can be pretty crappy too.

But every time I return to NOLA there is just a magic that permeates that place and you can't beat the combination of culture and fun and friendliness of the place.