The fact that some things can be measured reliably doesn't mean that they're important (or even desirable) to everyone (or even to most). Yet their object of investigation affords them all a veneer of respectability and even objective truth. For proof that the Economist's isn't definitive, observe only that it competes with very different but equally sober-sounding urban livability indexes. Wherever a city is concerned, though, people study the list like a medical chart. The absurdity of sex appeal rankings is self-evident. (As are similar rankings, of course, including my own top 10 cities list, which, I may have forgotten to mention, features London eight times). Except that People and the Economist imply this isn't so - meaning their lists don't merely happen to be incorrect they are inevitably incorrect, for many people if not for all. We can only assume these are the same people who, for reasons unknown, find Brad Pitt attractive, in contrast to those who long awaited Hugh Laurie to take his rightful place as People magazine's sexiest man alive, only to resign ourselves to the fact that members of the jury hate piercing intelligence, dry humour and, probably, freedom. Others prefer their metropolises to have transit systems that, oddly, aren't purposely designed to break down during peak hours or to facilitate the theft of your wallet. I suppose you could live with dull if you had to, in which case the "livable" list may be correctly named, technically speaking, but is useless for all but those who think that having quite a lot of people in it is an essential characteristic of an urban centre, not a drawback. That's a polite way of saying they're dull. Their top three cities are mid-sized and have low population densities. Livable cities lists, grocery list - no more lists for them. In many words: the fact that London, New York and Hong Kong aren't at the top ought to automatically disqualify these particular judges from ever making a list again. Still, this list is read widely, promising as it does a safe and universally satisfying choice in matters where there is only risk and disagreement.įirst, we ought to establish the extent to which this particular list is incorrect. Like many such competitions, the livable cities index makes the unexceptional the ideal, resulting in an exaggerated sense of pride in the recipient and a confused disdain among audience members.
Pretty stable, pretty good-looking, pretty easy, Melbourne is 2016's prom queen of metropolises. The Economist declares this place - confounder of anyone asked to point it out on a map - the world's most livable city. The search for that which is the least offensive to the most people has led, as it must, to Melbourne, Australia.
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