America's 100 best/most liveable cities.

I would like to note that California got 27 of the top 100 spots including #1. Sure, it isn't cheap to live here but it sure is nice if you can afford it. Even Mitt Romney agrees as he moved here after he flopped in the election despite bad mouthing the state to his right wing supporters. That kind of goes to show he never believed the nonsense he was spewing, huh?

http://livability.com/top-100-best-places-to-live#/palo-alto/ca

On a different note the list does seem to heavily favor small and medium sized cities over large cities though I have to say both Boulder and Durham scored extremely well and both seem to offer fairly affordable living mixed with a high quality of life.

Interesting.

The Australians and Canadians did pretty well in the world rankings.

http://www.thejournal.ie/most-liveable-city-1058809-Aug2013/

3 of the top 5 cities are Canadian.

A lot of those rankings tend to heavily favor places with universal health care. Sure, that's a good thing and I'd like to see it here but I think they're too heavily weighted on that front.

These cities are mostly too small. I'd be interested in seeing a study of places with at least 500,000 people.

Umm... Toronto's the fifth largest metro area in North America.

We'd be ahead of Van, but their public transit is more efficient than ours.

Woohoo - #44 here, despite the really steep cost of living.

CORRECTION: Fourth largest city in North America.

Every one of the Canadian cities listed are bigger than Boston.

The list I looked at was only U.S. cities. Why would I give a rat's ass about Canadian cities that pretend to be big by annexing their suburbs?

Yay, #100 here! :slice:

I am surprised that Iowa got so much love.

What a surprise, not a single city in New Jersey made the list.

Dang. I can't believe North Carolina had four in the top fifty, but Charlotte didn't even get an honorable mention.

I definitely got the feeling with only a weekend in Toronto that I'd like to live there.

It's pretty awesome as far as cities go. Hugely multicultural, an incredible nightlife, and a great ratio of parks/forests vs. development-even in the core.

Rent and real estate are always high...and can be downright outrageous in some areas. Any of the 100 year old carriage houses on my block rents for about $1000 a floor and won't list for under 900K. The joy of gentrification... that's about 800% over what stuff was worth here 15 years back.

Cincinnati is #72.. Hell Yeah..

you're mistaking Toronto for Mississauga and the other suburbs. Time was when there was actual undeveloped space between'em. Now they just sort of meld into one another between big box shopping complexes.

YMMV, because in my personal book, "over 500,000 people" and "livable" are mutually exclusive.

I'm not; I enjoyed living in Iowa. I would rank Iowa City above Ames, though. (Even though the Great Plains Sauce and Dough Company in Ames remains my favorite pizza place ever.)

I just moved from #51 on the list to #92.

Durham at #4? That was the armpit of North Carolina when I lived in the area back in the mid-90s.

They seem to heavily weigh cheapness of housing in combination with infrastructure. Tacoma and Everett are both midsize industrial cities, currently struggling to make a place for themselves in the new economy. Downtown employment is actually shrinking. But the housing IS cheap.

Ah, they also don't consider transportation costs. That's a mark against places where expensive housing is offset by cheaper transportation (cities).

On the other hand, the two Massachusetts cities that make the list (Cambridge and Newton) have some of the highest housing costs in the country. Interesting also, they both border Boston, and in almost every respect seem a part of the larger city (subway access, urban look/feel, geography, etc.). Both are nearly indistinguishable from the adjoining parts of Boston, but since neither also have less desirable sections, they score better.

I agree by the way, that Newton and Cambridge are very nice, but I disagree that they are nicer than much of what can be found in Boston proper.

My city is #3 in the world, I can see why if you look past the junkies.

Although I'm not exactly filled with confidence when Calgary is named #5 best in the world in the same poll. Calgary. Wow.

I tried to organize a road trip to the Stampede but no one took me seriously.

Be a pretty original trip I thought.

Actually as much as I loathe Calgary the Stampede is a ton of fun. Tons of cool events to go to, getting absolutely pissed every day in the sunshine and all the strippers within 700 miles converge on the city.

I think you'd have to compare it to everything else in it's time zone for perspective. I lived there about 20 years back and found it to be pretty happening and progressively minded. Of course, that was before Alberta went neo-con...