Is Your Favorite City to Visit Also A Great Place to Live?

Frankfurt made #7 just like every year. Glad and happy I live here. It truly is a great place to live.

and I, who wanted to live in Tbilisi!

Well, Ralph, we all know you have a lot of quirks regarding which places you think are worthy of visiting. I've heard Austin is a lovely town with a very high quality of life and of course a world-famous indie music scene, and I'd love to visit. I thikk it regularly is at the top of quality of life lists within the U.S.

If Honolulu and Frisco are on the list, clearly cost of living IS NOT a factor... In that case, for me it's Paris! I'll live right in the heart of the right bank, or maybe the 16th. More realistically, I thought Madrid seemed very liveable though it was not one of my favorite cities to visit as a tourist. Copenhagen, Stockholm or Helsinki also seemed very liveable if not for the winters.

There is a Frisco in Texas near Dallas, and a San Francisco in California.

I also was wondering where this city Frisco is located? Unfortunatly my favorite city to visit(Edinburgh) did not make the top 30.

I also was wondering where this city Frisco is located? Frisco is in Texas.

I'm surprised that Copenhagen was the only Nordic city in the top 30, considering that Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland are usually near the top for overall quality of life surveys by country.

I admit that Vienna is a pretty sweet place to live and raise kids. However, it can be expensive.

Looks like my fav made the list at number 15. I would move to Toronto tomorrow if all the stars aligned just right. As it is, I need to wait a couple more years...it's flippin' expensive. I used to travel all over Texas for business (including Austin). Nothing personal, but I wouldn't want to live anywhere in that state. Then again, I wouldn't want to live in BFE Germany either (Berlin is a different story).

Just an FYI, there is also the town of Frisco, CO. It's very small but in the mountains and very beautiful.

I absolutely love love love Paris, but even if I could ( leave family etc) I wouldn't live there. Two reasons, first the obvious, wouldn't want to be away from my kids , but secondly, I actually live in an amazing and beautiful place .. So no, I would not move to Paris, but, what I would consider is staying 2-3 months at a time, but home will always be Victoria.

I would not live in any city, too many people, too much noise.

Laughing because my thoughts were pretty similar to Monte's while reading this thread. Guess thats why we choose to live in teeny, tiny Idaho burgs. Altho Genesee's got Troy beat by about 150 people.

They don't seem to be including the cost of living into the ratings. The cost of housing in Vancouver is among the highest in Canada, with 50 year-old houses on the west side (towards U.B.C.) or along the Oak Street or Cambie Street corridors going for $1 million or more. The costs in West Vancouver and the "British properties" in North Vancouver can be higher. I couldn't even afford to pay the taxes on houses like that. I'm sure the costs are equal or higher in Switzerland. I could have transferred to the lower mainland (Vancouver) area when I was working, but told the Boss I'd have to declare bankruptcy if that happened. Kelowna, Victoria and Toronto can also be on the "pricey" side. I like visiting Vancouver, but no way I'd want to live there! Cheers!

Number 16. I'd move there in a heartbeat. Maybe, one day.

I spend most of the year in Honolulu, HI, at least for the last 11 years.
And before that, less time for another 16 years. Great place to live if you like the warm sun and can afford the cost of living. However, I live quite comfortably on SS and Pension and can even afford to go to Europe every summer for a month. Most retirees who live there do not live on the tourist economy but find all kinds of ways to live inexpensively. aloha charlie

Well, Edinburgh is my favorite city to visit, but I think I would want to live in Inverness which is the "capitol of the Highlands and thus a city. ; ) Particularly, it would be great if I could fix this bum knee and take advantage of the walks and countryside. Almost all these places are really expensive. Note, London is not on this list. Neither is NYC. If you put costs aside I think both of those cities should be on this list. Of course, I lived in Madison, WI when it was ranked the best city in America to live in. Pam

Pam and Monte,
I've heard that the big City (Lewiston, population 28,082) has a great AAA (except for their hangers, you don't want their hangers.) You should come visit some day.

Have visited all but 7 of the cities on the list. Would return in a heartbeat to all of them, but wouldn't want to live anywhere else other than no. 29 on the list, Adelaide SA

Re "cost of living": those lists are basically PR to get big companies to relocate there. The target audience are people who think ten grand is walking-around money.

"those lists are basically PR to get big companies to relocate there". Reading the article, to go one step further, it seems multinationals use the rankings to determine compensation. If I read the article correctly, it seems that the higher the rank, the lower the monetary compensation.

Yeah, in theory this list is supposed to rate desirability, so the idea is you can get top talent for a lower compensation package in a highly ranked city, and you will really have to throw a lot of money at someone to get them to move to a lower-ranked city for a job. In my previous life I was an executive recruiter, and man, we really had trouble trying to fill positions at Yale because nobody wanted to live in New Haven CT. But city desirability is only one part of how compensation packages are determined, cost of living is factored in a well. So you can't just say that a person doing Job A in Detroit is going to be making more than person doing Job A in Zurich.

Well I do learn things by coming here. Now I know where all the Frisco's are, even the one's not named after saints. And I learned that shortening a name to type quicker can be confusing, so no more LA (which can be confused with Louisiana) or Santa Fe (which is really La Villa Real de la Santa Fe de San Fransisco de Assis). And since there are Paris' in at least Texas and Illinois, I will be sure to always note "Paris, France" from now on... ;-)

This ranking takes into account the government stability, that's why there will never be an Italian city!

Except that LA means Los Angeles the world over...there isn't a person on Earth who would think LA means Louisiana. Nobody but a tourist would refer to San Francisco as Frisco. Call it The City or just San Francisco...that's about it (but in context SF is probably okay & nobody would think you mean Santa Fe). BTW, it's the Sears Tower to most everyone, not something else, and you might not want to cheer for the Cubs on the south side (more faux pas closer to your suburb). Cheers.

Probably many of us feel just a bit smug if one or more of our favorite cities is on this list or for that matter any "best of" list of which there are many. For me, yes many of my favorite cities are on the list. I love traveling throughout Europe but do not wish to live there again. Happy camping here.

Well here in Chicago we have tollways, not turnpikes. We have expressways, not freeways. And our expressways are named (they do have numbers but no one ever refers to them or knows which number corresponds to which expressway). We have an elevated, not a subway - even when our elevated is underground. But if a tourist gives me the wrong name for any of the above, I always know what they are refering to. (Unless they give me an expressway number, then I have to figure out which one they mean) So locals might not call San Fransisco "Frisco," but use that term anywhere and people will assume you mean San Fransisco. The city even has it's own sandwich/burger named after it, called... the Frisco. But I now stand corrected. So I've learned LA is ok. How about Philly? Twin Cities? Brangelina?

I don't like telling outsiders not to call it "Frisco" online, I much prefer watching locals yell at the for saying it in person. :)

An "outsider" is?

I think Sarah is referring to people outside of the SF Bay Area who refer to San Francisco as Frisco. No one local would call it that.

LA also means Lower Alabama around here. Really.

Frisco...Chuck Berry and Otis Redding used the word Frisco. No objections from me.

Come to think of it, I believe Tupac may also have called it Frisco a time or two, so it's probably okay.

LA also means Lower Alabama around here. Really. I used to work with a guy that had a very thick southern drawl. He would start a meeting by stating that he was from LA. After giving people a moment to wonder how a guy so obviously from the deep south could be from southern California, he would clarify that LA meant Lower Alabama.