I encourage our US commenters to take a true holiday (not a mere week) and go to one of these places. Stay in a local home or agri-tourist spot and enjoy the life. Become aware how violent our cities are.

Many is the time I took the subway (Metro) in Paris or Brussels at very early morning hours (2-3 am) and never felt threatened. I cannot say the same of the DC area.

All these things make such a difference.

Instead of being defensive (aka: America is the best), consider that there are other alternatives out there. We would greatly benefit from having a less myopic view.

I think the makers of the lists need a reality check. Their metrics aren’t taking the temperature of reality.Let me count the ways that the 2 lists are absurd…but will concentrate on 2 points:

1) discounting virtually all of the continental US because of the homicide rate. absurd. the lists are for the timid, inexperienced and those who lack common-sense survival skills.

2) airports. yes, JFK is an abomination. but i can take a $50 cab ride to manhattan with no friction at all. tokyo’s narita? ah, lovely high-speed rail to a couple points in tokyo for about $40. but then what? stumble out of shinjuku station (but which of the dozens of exits?) with luggage and walk to my destination? no. take a taxi for another $20.

all considered, JFK is a walk in the park compared with Narita…

OK, one more point about Japan…i was lucky enough to live in central tokyo. most people aren’t. what’s that mean? most have 90 minute commutes (each way) on jam-packed trains. the men cannot control themselves around the women, so there are separate cars for women during rush hour. at night, half the occupants are drunk, there’s vomit in the stations and quite often on packed trains themselves.

And buddy, Kotkin? Is he the only U.S. planner you were able to dredge up? You all can see what he is about here:
http://www.newamerica.net/publications/queries/topic/detail/423

Finally, even with the obvious anglo-centric choice made by the Monocle and the Economist, the U.S. still can’t get up in the top 25.

I was responding to the comment (that was deleted) that none of the cities on the list had “negroes.”

I just read through the comments and am dazed by how many listeners accused the producers and guests of snootiness. What is more classist than the increasingly stratified structure of wealth in the U.S.? Something like 60 percent of personal bankruptcies are now filed by individuals who can’t afford their healthcare bills. Do we really consider ourselves a model in sustainable living?

I agree with the person who noted the Swiss are making more money, hence Zurich may actually be in proportion to the average income.

But the guests did not suggest Americans all pack up and move there.

As the city planner who called in noted, this is a call for rethinking–not relocation. What is so offensive about this? Perhaps that there are actually studies not written for an American audience? Perhaps that we are not, as we like to think, the center of the universe … but one faulty nation among many? Perhaps the unfortunate realization that our deluded ideas of greatness are already viewed as obsolete by many?

All I know is I came back from Switzerland last summer and said: Everything I experienced in my first three minutes (in the airport) proved true of everywhere we went: It is clean, orderly, and beautiful. Also some of the world’s best pastries and truffles are within walking distance … sigh.

These studies are interesting. My feeling is we keep getting told as Americans we don’t have the money for good public transport or health care but … viola! The fed can materialize trillions for a big war or big financial institution. We shouldn’t put up with it. Americans cities are embarrassingly ugly, polluted, and non-navigable. However, we have a lot of great people. Who deserve better.

What a ridiculous program, at least for the general listener. It was definitely geared for the elite NPR listner/”consumer” who pledges: The kind of audience who can afford the glitz and glamour sold by your guest from Monocle magazine and can travel to the hot spots touted by the travel writer.

I kept wondering whether I was listening to a program on “liveable cities” or a travel show. Don’t you know there’s a difference between visiting a city on holiday and actually *living* there? Mr Kotkin was the only guest on today’s program who made the program interesting; the other two guests were la-dee-dah superficial. I expect better from On Poiont.

Yes, it has TheBus, which is a pretty good bus system. But most places on the island still don’t have recycling. Cost of living is very, very high. Homelessness is a major problem and the city’s solutions tend to be along the lines of moving all the homeless on one beach to a different one or spending thousands of dollars to replace all the benches with stools so that homeless people can’t sleep on them. I know that Monocle cited low crime as a reason for their choice, and yes, violent crimes are low; but property crime is quite high. The public school system has a lot of problems and the state is in a budget crisis. Monocle also said they looked at prevalence of chains versus locally-owned businesses–most of the local businesses in Honolulu died out long ago. You see exactly the same stores you see anywhere on the Mainland. And maybe Monocle did not care about the flying roaches, but they made the city less livable for me.

Honolulu has nice beaches (when they’ve kicked the homeless out). It’s an excellent place to visit as a tourist. From it’s inclusion on the list, I suspect that that’s all the Monocle list creators really cared about.

Vancouver is simply a spectacular place to be with the water and the mountains.

Crime as mentioned is a major factor – having lived abroad in a less developed city, and then in about 5 different cities in the US and a couple in Canada, plus a sibling who lived in Paris for many years – the consensus is that crime has a big impact on how people live, interact and even think about their own cities.