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One of the smaller things I took home from London was the July / August issue of Monocle, which is dedicated to an evaluation of the world's most liveable cities. The ranking of the 20 most liveable cities not published on the public site is as follows: Munich, Copenhagen, Zürich, Tokyo, Vienna, Helsinki, Sydney, Stockholm, Honolulu, Madrid, Melbourne, Montreal, Barcelona, Kyoto, Vancouver, Auckland, Singapore, Hamburg, Paris, Geneva.
While I am certainly glad to note that 2 Swiss cities made the cut, I am surprised at the bile expressed against Berne, the nation's capital. I am not exactly saying that Berne is a global metropolis - quite on the contrary. But if easy access to a long haul hub is such an important criterion as it is made out to be, then the metropolitan area of all of Switzerland should actually enter the competition, thanks to the country's small size. After all, Singapore is there, too, and some people are beginning to think of Switzerland as one big metropolitan area with a really huge natural park (the alps) in the middle. At any rate, I think I am not going to buy another issue of Monocle, because I am going to take out a subscription.
Speaking of cities & the world at large, I also stocked up on those new Wallpaper* Guides of the cities that I currently have an active interest in: Bangkok, Basel, London, Singapore. Great concept!
2 comments:
I agree with what you say about considering Switzerland (at least Northern CH) as one big metropolitan area.
When we lived in suburban Chicago, it took us about 45 minutes to one-hour to drive to O'Hare. Here in CH, it takes us (if there's no traffic), just under an hour to drive to Zürich Airport.
In some ways, Basel just seems like a suburb of Zürich to us. I guess one could think of Bern in the same way.
Suburb of Zürich - oy!
But then again, the lack of an outside perspective may be the reason why a Swiss metropolitan area will still be some way off.
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