Uploaded on 2016-06-20 by Hugh Ebdy

1/ From a mixture of personal experience and word of mouth, here are the cities I would consider to be most ‘liveable’: Copenhagen Vancouver Zurich Melbourne Tokyo 2/ My criteria for judging the livability of a city (biased towards my preferences): Culture: if there is nothing going on within a city (thus making it a boring place to live) no-one could bear to live there. In fact, ‘culture’ as a factor is almost of a combination of the four factors below (though it is also heavily dependent on the mix of people who are attracted to such a city). Culture is driven by the inhabitants of a city, so if the below four conditions are met and the citizens are happy enough they will help drive the cultural sphere of the city itself. Environment: The city must not be too hot, nor too cold, the streets should not be unpleasant to walk down, pedestrians should have right of way over vehicles, there should be adequate green space and places to escape to and accommodation must be affordable. If a city is – physically – an unpleasant expensive place to stay, people would quickly lose their energy. Infrastructure: It is important that there are no hindrances if a citizen of the city wishes to go from point A to point B – hindrances that include transport that is too expensive, or noisy, or takes too long, or is inconvenient to use. Safety (Inc. Health): People must feel safe in a city, both during the day and at night. They must also be comfortable with the idea that should they fall ill, or have an accident, aid is only moments away. Education: Education (be it through schools, museums, galleries, universities, talks, or colleges) attracts an educated class of person, and an educated class helps to educate others within the city. A shared and increasing knowledge is beneficial to all, empowers the average citizen, and improves the aspect of the city in question. 3/ I currently live in London. In terms of culture, London has plenty to spare. It is a truly world city with many nationalities and foreign cultures merging and mixing to produce a very buzzy city with every type of person imaginable. In this aspect, is does not lack. Environment is a factor that London often trips up on. Parts of London are very pleasant, certainly, but it is also a big, noisy, expensive, grey city for the most part. People often forgive London of this on account of it succeeding within the other factors. There is opportunity to decrease the number of cars, and increase the number of pedestrian only streets – perhaps allowing only delivery traffic and public transport into the centre. Safety (Inc. Health): There are parts of London which are dangerous, such is the result of so many different people mixing in such close confines, and this is therefore a concern, especially at night. The roads can also be quite dangerous given how busy they can get. Despite this, London is generally speaking (certainly central and western) quite safe, and offers a fair opportunity for seeing healthcare professionals. Education will help to combat areas where crime is more prevalent, and measures such as increased street lighting and prevalence of cameras to make people feel more at ease in the evenings and throughout the night; policing is often a short term solution and can in cases aggravate problems. Education: London is home to top universities, schools, research institutes, museums, galleries, and is not short of intellectuals. Hence in education terms, London is something of a powerhouse.