MasterCard has ranked Vancouver as the world's "most livable city."
 

Here are the top 10 in 2008 MasterCard Worldwide Centers of Commerce Index

94.38 Vancouver

93.88 Dusseldorf

93.44 San Francisco

93.38 Frankfurt

93.38 Vienna

93.18 Munich

92.81 Zurich

92.69 Tokyo

92.63 Copenhagen

Monday, June 09, 2008


VANCOUVER - Several new studies have given glowing reviews to Vancouver's quality of life, ranking it among the top cities in the world in which to live.

The second annual MasterCard Worldwide Centers of Commerce Index has ranked Vancouver as the world's "most livable city."

Toronto and Montreal also made the list of top 20 cities for livability, evaluation criteria for which included personal freedom, climate, leisure activities and other quality-of-life factors.

Vancouver was ranked No. 4 among 215 cities around the world in the Mercer "Worldwide Quality of Living Survey," released Tuesday.

That study considered political, social, economic and environmental factors, as well as personal safety and health, education, transportation and public services.

Vancouver also was ranked No. 8 by London-based Monacle magazine on its list of best cities for quality of life.

Copenhagen was No. 1 on that list, replacing Munich, which held the top spot last year. Monocle's criteria went "beyond the usual metrics that only look at housing costs and schools" and considered such things aesthetics and where one can get a good drink.

Vancouver also made the Food & Wine magazine list of top 10 restaurant cities in the world, coming in at No. 10 among company such as New York, Paris and No. 1 city Tokyo.

Vancouver was the only Canadian city to make the list.

"These accolades play a big role in attracting international media attention," said Emily Armstrong, manager of travel media relations with Tourism Vancouver. "I think Vancouverites have a lot of pride in their city, but it's always nice to see that we're getting the recognition abroad. Being seen as one of the most livable cities is a nice feeling when you're living here."

I guess that would explain the reason why in the Yaledown area downtown vancouver you can't find a 2 bedroom cheaper than 750k.

Yet / sqft downtown vancouver is still not on the Top 15 when it comes to residential real estate!


Interesting indeed.

Vancouver is one of the nicest places I have ever seen ... :thumbsup:thumbsup

I thought all the gays lived there.

I would love to see all criteria they used to choose that list. I have been to Vancouver a couple of times and it is amazing, but how can San Francisco rank #3. I have been there twice and both times found it to be an overpriced, overcrowded, dirty shithole of a city.

I happen to live in the "gay" area of town. The city painted the fire hydrants pink here.

Have you painted any of them back to red, in protest?

And where's Mexico City on this list, anyways? :)

Here is the full survey; the livability study is near the bottom:

http://www.mastercard.com/us/company...eport_2008.pdf

Are any of your neighbors named Daymon?

YAA for Hongcouver ... lol ...

It gets better; they decided to paint the bus stop enclosures pink too.

its raining all the time and I guess mastercard left out the part about east hastings

The ranking isn't surprising but what I have found surprising in the past couple years is the amount of world renown chefs opening restaurants here.

Yeah those two things suck ass, but it wasn't only MasterCard that saw past that:

From BBC News:

Vancouver is 'best place to live'

Vancouver is the world's best place to live, a survey by the Economist Magazine's Intelligence Unit (EIU) has found.

The EIU ranked 127 cities in terms of personal risk, infrastructure and the availability of goods and services.


TOP TEN
Vancouver
Melbourne
Vienna
Geneva
Perth
Adelaide
Sydney
Zurich
Toronto
Calgary
Source: EIU

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/h...ss/4306936.stm



and this survey:

Vancouver No. 2 in world
Ties with Vienna in quality-of-life survey of 215 major world cities

Drew Hasselback
Financial Post
Monday, March 14, 2005

Vancouver's livability puts it in the top rank of North American cities.

For the third year in a row, Vancouver has been ranked as the city with the second-best quality of life in the world.

According to a survey by Mercer Human Resource Consulting, Vancouver ties Vienna for second place, behind top ranked Geneva and Zurich.

The annual survey grades 215 cities based on 39 criteria, including safety, public services, schools, climate and recreation.

Mercer prepares the survey for governments, companies and organizations looking to place employees on international assignments.

Vancouver is no stranger to the top ranks of the survey. It placed second both last year and in 2003, third in 2002, and ranked first in 2001 and 2000.

The survey uses New York City as a base case, assigning it a grade of 100. Because many cities receive the same numerical grade, tie scores are common. The 215 cities included in this year's survey are distributed to 109 ranks. New York City placed 13th.

elli must be happy once she read this :thumbsup

Vancouver is awesome.

#1? I dunno ...

Close, I had a Damien as a neighbour.

You know this man.

They smoking heroin or what?

Why not? Vancouver seems to be a very good place to live.

vancouver is definitely awesome

its 90% Chinese

Vancouver is cool..

I left Vancouver 4 years ago for the Dominican Republic.

Vancouver is a great city but like all cities it is very expensive and soo much traffic...

Ill hit the beach here instead ;)

Hah, I hardly believe that Calgary makes the top 10 cities in the world to live. If you like living in a huge sprawl of a city with a shitty road and transit system then maybe it's for you. Or maybe spending $400k+ on tiny one bedroom condos and dealing with overpaid incompetent idiots at every entry level job is appealing, hell even the Dairy Queen up the street from me is hiring at $15/hr to start.

No beaches, no ocean. Just wheat fields, cow pastures, and newly rich oil yuppies everywhere.

And about Vancouver being #1. It's a nice place, but I've been to a lot nicer places as well.

LOL

Reminds me of Prague

It's the "Big City" appeal that makes every pseudo competent semi retard think he is big just by living in a big city I assume..

:mad::mad:

Booya baby

pink fire hydrants/bus stops? it's on davie street.. it's the gay village in vancouver

90% chinese? are you kidding?

expensive? yes.. but we're also know for making a great deal of money of people who like buying small box apartments for a million dollars..

who do you think pays for all these wonderful things we have? :)

Vancouver is full folks, do not let the articles sway your thinking. You do not want to live in Vancouver. :)

(enough traffic already)

Vancouver is ranked as the most livable city.. for all others, you got an F.U. from Mastercard.

:1orglaugh its YALETOWN hehehe and i live in that area

If you don't mind rain.. it's a great place to live in :)

Lies..it's miserable here.trying to keep the polar bears and walrus out of the garbage cans is a constant battle..

i soooo cant see SF as one of them in the list!

I was surprised to see Vancouver rated by Food & Wine Magazine's Top 10 Restaurant Cities In The World. Wow. When I went to book a few restaurants in the last Dine Out Vancouver program, I couldn't believe I hadn't noticed all of the nice places that must have opened their doors in the past couple of years.

I read in the last Georgia Straight Best Of edition that all the chefs they interviewed said Vancouverites enjoy probably the lowest prices in the world for the quality...of the top restaurants in the city and meals are less than half as much as in London for same quality...

I love the food in Vancouver! Definitely some of the best around :)

The survey left out one thing about living in Vancouver, if you live there then you pretty much have to be a Canucks fan, The fact that the Canucks always suck makes everyone depressed.

.... and dont forget the safe injection center ..
http://www.vch.ca/sis/

Holy thread bump. I thought I blacked out and posted.

But I still mean all that about the gay part. And Daymon.