Friday, January 11, 2008

Nice places to live again


Having spent very few days at home in the last 6 weeks my mind has been wondering about where the best place to live might be. I think about this a lot and perhaps there is some story about a goat, a bridge and some green, green grass that could apply to me given that Copenhagen is places at number 10.
Here is the official list of the best places to live according to Mercer. The analysis is based on an evaluation of 39 quality-of-living criteria for each city including political, social, economic and environmental factors, personal safety and health, education, transport and other public services. What they don't take into account is that most of us are spoilt and take many of these things for granted and just focus on our leisure time without thinking about freedom of speech, the availability of clean water or education standards. Then there is another personal element taking into account the proximity of friends and family and as an expat (as one of us two will always be) the ease of fitting in to society.
What has prompted me to re-post on this subject was MKs answer to me this morning in the car when I mentioned that Oslo sounded like somewhere that would be nice to live. My thoughts are based on the 2 Danish families that I know who have lived there and thought it is a great place to be.
MK said "no way we're not going there, it's expensive, it's cold and grey, it rains and they speak Norwegian"
"So just a language change then... but they do have mountains..."
I have already suggested Geneva ( #2) and Vancouver (#3) but so far I have not been able to find anything to do in Geneva and apparently moving half way around the world on a whim is a bit much at the moment. I suppose that in moments of clarity, even I can see the logic in that statement added to which it apparently does rain a lot in Vancouver.
Next week we have an announcement to make; any guesses?


6 comments:

  1. Anonymous8:56 pm

    You are leaving behind consumerism and moving to Vancouver to hunt Bigfoot ?

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  2. Anonymous9:03 pm

    You are about to announce you will give up complaining about life in Denmark?

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  3. NO chance, why would I give up one of the few benefits and pleasures of living here? Added to which I wasn't complaining about Denmark, at least that wasn't the intention of the post...

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  4. Anonymous11:11 pm

    Surely the question of how you would make a living would be one of the first to answer. Then the actual possibility of being allowed to live and work there - this would reduce the list to a very few places. This list you have published might, at that point, become of some use?
    I know I sound like GBN but this is actually WRM.

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  5. Anonymous11:27 pm

    Your'e going to live at rheArctic & breed penguins!
    Where is Birmingham in this list of most desirable places to live?
    Surely an oversight here.
    m

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  6. Anonymous11:40 pm

    You are going on yet another freebie skiing trip in company time? Telemark hero!

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