Super cities

Dateline Seoul notes the 2006 ranking of cities by Mercer Consultants on the basis of "quality of life" in which Stockholm scores highly at no. 20 - to which I would add that Brussels comes in at no. 14 and Seoul, at no. 89! Some other cities' positions in this list are: 1 Zurich, 2 Geneva, 3 Vancouver, 9 Sydney/Bern, 13 Amsterdam, 24 Dublin, 26 Hamburg, 27 Helsinki, 28 San Francisco, 33 Paris, 34 Singapore, 35 Tokyo, 36 Boston, 39 London, 45 Madrid, 46 New York, 53 Lisbon, 55 Tsukuba/Birmingham/Glasgow/Los Angeles (!), 62 Rome, 73 Prague, 78 Buenos Aires, 103 Shanghai, 107 Bangkok, 108 Istanbul/Sao Paolo, 117 Rio de Janeiro, 122 Beijing, 131 Cairo, 150 Mumbai/New Delhi, 160 Chennai, 178 Tripoli - and last and definitely least, 215 Baghdad.

Pelle's blog links to Mercer's site, but as it requires registration, the top 53-odd cities are listed here and you can find the complete rankings below the article here.

Of course "quality of life", measured according to Mercer's criteria, is different from "quality of living" which is a subjective issue - but I must say some of my favourite cities are places I might not want to live in for any length of time! All the same, the idea of visiting Istanbul, for example, sets the heart racing in a way that Zurich does not (not mine, anyway).