Damn straight Toronto’s better than Montreal. Montreal has its charms, but I’d rather live here, for a lot of reasons.
18th place and just a hair behind Vancouver. Not shabby! However, the list does not include smaller cities at all, like Victoria or Kingston.
I agree, though, that the list seems… weird. Detroit is better than San Jose? Holy crap, Detroit’s a hellhole. San Jose is nice. I’ve been to Detroit; it’s horrible. Even people from Detroit admit it’s horrible. As one ex-Detroiter put it, “it’s a great place to be from.”
The silly thing is that people actually believe the numbers mean something. It is ridiculously easy to manipulate the results, and the choices are always completely arbitrary. You could design a listing like this to many any city rate high.
Good point there… <lecturing mother voice> “Just because it´s fun doesn´t mean it´s good for you.” </lecturing mother voice> - and vice versa…
While my city isn´t quite as boring as those two, I´d change it for Amsterdam, Berlin (102) or Barcelona anytime. Hey, it may only score 97, but I guess the missing 9 points are exactly what makes living there fun…
I guess we just don´t use the same parameters as the survey guys…
Sure, but what would be the point? Are you saying that the mayors of various cities are paying off the survey guys? Or that there’s a tin foil conspiracy brewing, trying to herd everyone into particular cities for mind-stealing microwaves? Everyone knows statistics can be easily manipulated, but unless the organization doing the stats has some under-the-table agenda, why would they fudge the numbers? For fun?
Anyway, I’m in Surrey, which used to be part of Vancouver, so I guess we’re close to number two. However, Surrey boasts the highest car-theft rate in North America, so I guess you could knock a few points off for that little problem
I thought Vienna had one of the highest suicide rates in the world? Oh, wait, there use to be that whole Cold War spy thing - especially in Vienna. Maybe some of those were not voluntary suicides.
I liked Vienna, that’s where I’ve spent the fourth most time in my life. The first three are, yawn, all cities in Florida. Orlando sucks unless you are five years old. I miss by a few decades, and that’s where I live now.
Sarasota, my hometown - you may know it as where Bush was when September 11th happened, or where Gore prepped for debates, or the home of the Ringling Bros. Circus, or the Mote Marine Laboratory - is really beautiful. I bet that ranks up there. All those Euros love to visit from their icy ‘paradises.’ Many don’t go home.
Oslo’s in a six-way tie for 15th place, with Dusseldorf, San Francisco, Perth, Toronto, and Brussels. I notice the survey didn’t count the weather or how fargin’ expensive everything is, though
