You know those nutty surveys that keep telling us how the only place more "liveable" than Zurich is Auckland? Because a bunch of academics define what "liveability" is, and construct a pseudo scientific analysis?

Finally, someone's done a proper survey of where people actually want to work.

And guess what: numbers 1, 2 ,3 and 4 are London, New York, Paris and Sydney (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/j...-for-work.html )

How Madrid beats Barcelona in this is unfathomable - as is how anyone would even want to change planes in Dubai. But not a hint of the dormitory suburbs like Vancouver, Geneva, Adelaide and Melbourne that typically populate the imbecile "studies" that get quoted so often here.

This survey comes from the Boston Consulting Group, so anyone with the energy to dig into its methodology will doubtless find it's built on the same shaky grounds as most stuff from consultancies.

But you can at least understand the mindset creating the answers. For most people, the best cities are those that are most urban: interesting, alive, good to get ahead in, often dirty, sometimes a bit edgy - but above all stimulating.

And what can Auckland possibly stimulate, except the desire to catch that evening's NZ002 to civilisation?

I would only want to live in London and maybe Sydney.

The shakiest ground of all is the fact that everybody has a different psychological ratio between "where I'd like to work" and "where I'd like to appreciate the rest of life."

After talking to colleagues in London I would go for that (they work MANY fewer hours than we do - since apparently the rules defining "managerial" positions not qualified for overtime pay is different than the US.

(For those from other places, in the US almost all business employees are "managerial" - except administrative assistants - and work on flat salary no matter how many hours they work. Typically only admins get OT for extra hours worked. For instance, in my business the typical work week is 55 to 60 hours versus the 40 hours scheduled.)

Shaky data being posted....what's the purpose of that? Oh, right, Mrs. Flanner's head is under the dryer.

Good comparative stuff on hours worked being researched in the BBC at the moment, I'd link the Pod but they don't link outside UK

In NYC but I'd happily move to London again. An extended stay in Paris would be attractive, too.

What about the people who actually do work in London?

Or people who work in the kind of jobs that the sponsors of this report and their jobseekers wouldn't touch with a bargepole?

Or people who, having got a job in London, find themselves on the receiving end of anti-immigrant bile from certain newspapers we shan't mention?

Lord, no, I don't want to live in London. I have a 10 minute commute to the office (if all the lights are red), a 15 minute drive to the beach, and I couldn't afford a 1 bed flat in London. No thanks. I'll happily trade income for quality of life.

Hilarious, no doubt the driving factor in the supposed 'study' is where can you earn the most money. If you must work for a living then obviously (and without needing a study to tell you) the place to do that is where you are likeliest to get paid the most for working.

But that has nothing whatsoever to do with where is the best place to live based on quality of life. So any 'studies' that are about work vs. 'studies' about quality of life cannot be compared.

Personally, having grown up in a major city, you could not get me to live in any city ever again, anywhere in the world. Cities are indeed places where you live if you must work. That's where the money is. But if you do not need to work for a living, cities are bottom of the list in desirability for anyone with a brain.

Does anyone really think living in a city is more desirable than living in a nice little village somewhere? Once you grow up and realize that getting drunk and laid on a Friday night is not the ultimate good life, why would you want to live in a city? Pollution, crowding, impersonal, higher prices for everything, etc. The 'rat race' does not refer to anywhere other than a city.

What's more, there are 'studies' which show that living in a city actually shortens your life span because of the inherent stress.

What you need to look for flanneruk is how to stop needing to work for a living and get out of cities altogether, not which city to work in.

I read the article, but it doesn't say how the sample was selected or what the actual question was, so I dug out the survey methodology. Let's just say it's not a scientific sample, because it's based on an online survey, which usually people would ignore if they were happy working where they were. The respondents were heavily weighted towards people who were actively seeking a new job, being almost entirely drawn from job search boards. 30% were people who had been working for 5 years or less, so they were probably a very young group. Here is an interesting graph showing the reasons why the respondents said they would be willing to relocate to a foreign country:

https://www.bcgperspectives.com/Imag...m80-172521.png

The answers are what you would expect from a sample of young people, and show mostly a spirit of adventure. Many of the answers have nothing to do with working conditions at the destination.

I'm sure that English-speaking countries have a huge advantage in a survey like this, because so many people in the rest of the world have a passable knowledge of the language, and most would think that a chance to improve their English could be beneficial for their future careers. Frankfurt might be a great place to work, but you'd have to learn German, and what good would that do you?.

The real weak point of all these surveys is that the best-known places are the only ones that ever make it to the top of the list. Any one person probably knows next to nothing about most of the possible choices of place to work. Reykjavík might be the best place in the world to work, but nobody knows anything about Reykjavík.

The only thing that surprises me is that Canada came in ahead of Australia. At least here in Italy, Australia has become a very popular overseas destination for young people hoping to work abroad.

I live and work in London and absolutely love it. We could move to a village but we love the buzz, the restaurants and pubs, the cultural activities on our doorstep. I even enjoy commuting on the train - I luckily get a seat - and enjoy the trip. I am not ready to leave this fabulous city. Plus it's convenient for all of our travels.

Guess I don't have a brain (all that education must be wasted on me)

"But if you do not need to work for a living, cities are bottom of the list in desirability for anyone with a brain."

Silly old me.

<<Does anyone really think living in a city is more desirable than living in a nice little village somewhere?>>

There are cities other than capitals. I live and work in a city, albeit a small one. I've lived for a thankfully brief time in a (on the face of it) nice little village, with a nasty undercurrent which treated incomers with hostility. I'd rather have the anonymity of city living. But not London.

Big cities are actually a collection of areas which are actually individual small cities in everybody's mind. Londoners who work in the West End or the City probably do not have the same opinion of the attraction of working in London as people who work in Brixton, just as Parisians who work in the Golden Triangle do not at all see the city of Paris the same as the workers of Porte de Montreuil.

This survey was taken all over the world. Most of the respondents were young, with over 30% who had begun working within the previous five years. You can't expect young people in Kuala Lumpur or Freetown to mention small cities or suburban areas when you ask then where they'd like to relocate for a job. Most of them probably don't even know much about work opportunities anywhere outside their own country.

As I said before, in this kind of survey, only very well known places make the grade.

<i>Does anyone really think living in a city is more desirable than living in a nice little village somewhere?</i>

Let's see - when I lived in Edinburgh the shops were, literally, on the doorstep (as were 2 ATMs), a decent supermarket was 100 yards away and open 13 hours a day, a cinema was 5 minutes walk away as was a library. A bus stop was 15 yards away with 10 buses per hour into central Edinburgh. Using said buses I was within 20 minutes of 4 other cinemas (2 arthouse), 5 theatres and a concert venue along with more restaurants and pubs than I could go through in a year. I had a swimming pool within 10 minutes walk, I had a choice of a couple of dozen museums and galleries to go to and was within 15 minutes bus ride of decent walking.

I'm now in a large village and only would go into 2 of the 4 pubs, restaurant options are extremely limited (though admittedly the Indian restaurant is better than in Edinburgh), I do have a library & swimming pool as well as decent walking, there's a small theatre mainly for AmDram. The supermarket is average and the other shopping opportunities are - to be generous - limited. It does have a train station but it's a twice an hour service and 30 minutes travel time to a range of cinemas etc.

I pass through small villages on my way to work and EVERYONE relies on having a car to do anything or go anywhere

<<Does anyone really think living in a city is more desirable than living in a nice little village somewhere?>>

I'm a Londoner born and bred. Of course I prefer it here. It's home and I never tire of it - well, not enough and not often enough to want to up sticks and move permanently.

<i>Does anyone really think living in a city is more desirable than living in a nice little village somewhere?</i>

Absolutely. When we came to the SF Bay Area we had a choice of cheaper housing or living in SF itself. We chose the city (34 years ago). Whenever we admire the view from the hills of Marin or the Berkeley hills, we then remind ourselves that it is too far from the store to run and get a lemon, or as a friend says: "it's not walking distance from a bookstore."

It is ironic that this was put together by a major consulting firm. My experience with consulting firms is that they are strong on advice and weak on accountability.

As someone who is a native NY'er who has only worked in NYC it is impossible to compare it to working in other cities. On business trips I have visited almost all major American business cities. And I guess that is the major difference with the UK and France, is the US has other business cities that are regional, national, and international in importance. For example, Houston for energy and LA for entertainment are important internationally. Southern LA is the busiest US port and Atlanta has the busiest airport.

And like all places, in NY you learn the tricks of living which make it more comfortable and enjoyable.