au Canberra ranked 'best place to live' by OECD

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

Canberra ranked 'best place to live' by OECD

 

The Australian Capital Territory of Canberra in Australia is the best place in the world to live, according a report by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

 

Canberra led the regional ranking while Australia topped the overall country rankings, followed by Norway.

 

The OECD ranked 362 regions of its 34 member nations in its survey.

 

It used nine measures of wellbeing, including income, education, jobs, safety, health and environment.

 

Five Australian cities including Sydney, Melbourne and Perth were also in the top 10.

 

Other top-scoring places included the states of New Hampshire and Minnesota in the US.

 

On the other end of the scale, Mexican states constituted all 10 of the bottom regional rankings.

 

On a country level, Mexico, Turkey, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia were ranked as the hardest places to live.

 

Media reaction

 

The OECD rankings were met with pride by some Australian media outlets and surprise by others.

 

While the Sydney Morning Herald headline said "Canberra the best place to live, in the world's best country", the rival Herald Sun headline went "Is Canberra really the world's best city? More like capital punishment".

 

The Canberra Times said the rankings "yet again confirmed what many Canberrans have long known; that our city is the best place to live in the world".

 

An opinion piece on popular website news.com.au, owned by News Corp, said: "Canberra is not, as you might believe, a desolate wasteland of bleak suburbia punctuated by shiny expensive monuments, fake lakes, porn megastores, snake-riddled grasslands and endless, befuddling roundabouts."

 

The OECD study, while not comprehensive, is one of the few to analyse the quality of life in countries.

 

"Recent years have seen an increasing awareness that macro economic statistics, such as GDP do not provide policy-makers with a sufficiently detailed picture of the living conditions that ordinary people experience," the OECD said on its website.

 

"Developing statistics that can better reflect the wide range of factors that matter to people and their well-being (the so called "household perspective") is of crucial importance for the credibility and accountability of public policies and for the very functioning of democracy."

 

Source: BBC News

[GotBored]

I would not pick Canberra as the best place to live in Australia let alone the world..

[-T- Member]

They've clearly never been there haha. It's also worth noting that this data does not reflect the cost of living, to compare with the higher salaries. We have foodbanks, millions of people close to defaulting on debts and the most inept government i've ever been witness to

[Soham]

water shortage and stuff.

[blerk]

While wages are higher, I've noticed stuff in Australia seems much more expensive. Wasn't there a bit of a fuss recently when they discovered that it was cheaper book a return business class flight to the US and buy Adobe CC from a store there or something? 

[GotBored]

They've clearly never been there haha. It's also worth noting that this data does not reflect the cost of living, to compare with the higher salaries. We have foodbanks, millions of people close to defaulting on debts and the most inept government i've ever been witness to

 

lol, I don't think they have.

 

Cost of living in Australia is becoming borderline ridiculous, I've gone overseas and bought Australian products for cheaper than what they cost here.. How did it get made in Australia, get sold off by exporters, exchange hands with a bunch of shipping agents, bought and sold by importers to stores and then the store takes a cut of the profit margin and its still cheaper than what it costs in Australian stores where the manufactures/producers sell directly to a store? Our Income when offset by our cost of living is pretty low in comparison to most I think.

 

Our government:

[guru]

While wages are higher, I've noticed stuff in Australia seems much more expensive. Wasn't there a bit of a fuss recently when they discovered that it was cheaper book a return business class flight to the US and buy Adobe CC from a store there or something? 

yeah, Its $4 for a 12 ounce / 330 ml coke can in a burger joint  in Perth . The prices here are a ripoff imo.

[Hum]

Hold on .... packing my bags ...

[Raa]

Gets very cold in winter though... But it's a nice place!

 

Well I think it is from the couple of times I've visited. :)

[compl3x]

Australia is generally a great place to live. But it has issues: the price of everything seems astronomical when compared to the rest of the Western World. Our customer service here is garbage. We keep having the same stupid friggin' political arguments that drag on and on (read, asylum seekers), we have 2 right-wing parties and one implausibly naive left-wing party (The Greens). We have a current government that spends 100s of millions of dollars for chaplains for public schools (I know, both labor and the Libs are guilty on this one) but mercilessly slashes the budgets for groups like the CSIRO. Hell, this current government ditched the science minister altogether. I think we rely way to much on coal exports.

 

*takes deep breath*

 

OK. Rant over.

[Torolol]

what about the snakes?