It's that time of year again.
Monocle has just released their annual Quality of Life Survey. This is their 18th annual ranking of the world's top cities according to what they do best: whether it be housing or nightlife. What I like about this survey is that it does things a little differently. Most liveability surveys tend to be a list of the world's most boring cities. It's as if uneventfulness is the measure of quality of life.
This is not that.
For example, number 3 on the list is Athens. And it's there specifically because of its nightlife. Monocle refers to it as "one of Europe's few truly 24-hour cities." Also on the list, at number 7, is Mexico City. This is a city that is required to have women-only subway cars because the men apparently can't behave in public.
Of course, it's an incredible city in so many other ways. It has leafy neighborhoods filled with the kind of mid-rise buildings that Toronto is now desperately trying to add to its major streets. And according to the survey, the city's population grew by about 600,000 people between 2019 and 2023 — many of whom came from the US and Canada.
Jumping to the top of the list, Monocle's city of the year and best all-rounder is a city that we talk a lot about on this blog: Paris. This is perhaps not surprising given the city's bold moves to pedestrianize streets, plant trees everywhere, build more than 1,000 km of bike lanes, and generally enhance the overall urban experience.
But it's not just that:
All of this, combined with the policies of the country’s most pro-business president in a long time, has helped Paris to draw and foster enough talent to snatch London’s double crown as Europe’s top venture-capital city and its leading technology hub. “Paris lends itself far more to an office-based culture than cities such as San Francisco or London,” says Jordane Giuly, the founder of fintech company Defacto. He points out that the French capital’s gentle density is conducive to cross-pollination between start-ups and preferable to the vast distances that one needs to traverse in its rivals.
