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I live in Vienna and I see these surveys all the time. I moved in Vienna 2.5 years ago. Vienna is a good place to live (otherwise I would have left) provided yo
by 4ad 13y ago
I live in Vienna and I see these surveys all the time. I moved in Vienna 2.5 years ago. Vienna is a good place to live (otherwise I would have left) provided you don't care about things that are simply not available, for example no real IT sector, no startup scene etc. It's okay, but it's nothing spectacular. I don't understand what these people find so fascinating about the city. My friends share my opinion too.
I guess the people doing the surveys simply care about completely different things in life compared to myself. I read their impressions, and I either don't care about those things at all, or I find them completely wrong. The reviewer simply has different expectations than myself. For example, a couple of week ago I've seen another article like this. Among other things, the author liked the huge variety of beers and cheese found in Vienna. I don't know exactly why this matters for such a survey but whatever. Anyway, I happen to be somewhat of a beer and cheese aficionado and in my opinion Austrian beer is terrible, bland, and all the same. Go to Belgium to find good beer. There are not too many types of beer. And don't get me started on the cheese.
Of course these things are subjective things, but because they are subjective things they have no place in such an article.
Other issues are more subtle, for example, nice people. Every article claims Vienna has nice people but doesn't divulge either the nationality and cultural background of the reviewer, nor the way said reviewer interacted with viennese people. For example I don't find anything nice about viennese people because I grew in a country where attributes associated with nice people are different than Austrian attributes about nice people. These people may be nice, I'm sure they are, but I don't see it. Similarly, I'm sure they see me as a misanthropic, asocial, arrogant individual.
It's the same like with restaurants, an american will complain that european restaurant service is precarious, I will complain that the western-european restaurant service is annoying and offensive. The cultural background is different, expectations in social settings are different. Articles like this skip over all this stuff.
Anyway, there are some really nice things in Vienna but no article I've seen mentioned them. They are subjective things, but most of what these article say is subjective.
- facepalm 13y agoYou are probably right. However, presumably we tend to underestimate how horrible most places in the world really are. Compared to the average city, perhaps Vienna really is quite good.
- hoggle 13y agoRaunzt scho wie a echter Wiener! :)
- parasubvert 13y ago>Of course these things are subjective things, but because they are subjective things they have no place in such an article. Liveability seems rather subjective to begin with, but if you poll enough people you'll converge upon a widely shared view. Doesn't make it right, or make your views wrong, just means that most people are more predisposed to a certain opinion: Vienna is a highly livable city. I know I quite liked it when I've visited family there, and would actually be interested in living there if I had appropriate work. I personally would find a city with good beer and cheese selection to be more liveable than one with out, but that wouldn't be the only factor. Personally I think the best beer is in California, though. A startup scene also can be considered a negative by many, if you look at the SF protests vs. techies lately. (The animosity was small when I lived there, but seemingly has grown over the years.)
- fit2rule 13y ago> no startup scene etc Dunno about that. i5invest? sector5? metalab? There's lots going on here in that regard, but you probably have to be a smelly student to have access to it ..
- stewbrew 13y agoIn addition to what was said below/above, there also are a few relevant meetup groups.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- tawan 13y agoI live in Vienna too and one thing I like in particular is that despite I live in a metropole with its 2 million inhabitants, I can jump on my bike in the summer, ride for twenty minutes to Donau, Vienna's river, and go for a swim, while being in nature. I can't think of any other city that offers what a world city has to offer, and being able to enjoy nature to the extent that I can swim in its river without worrying about pollution. Beat that.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- pallinder 13y agoStockholm, Sweden has the same thing going for it. In the few months of the year you can actually go swimming without freezing to death that is :)
- macco 13y agoMost cities in this area, like Zürich, Munich, etc. ?
- picea 13y agoSydney Australia. I suspect the harbour's beaches are bit warmer than the Donau too.
- fauigerzigerk 13y agoI agree, the criteria are highly questionable. I can understand that low crime rates are important for everyone, but for the most part the quality of life is determined by what you want to do in a particular place. Is Vienna a great place if you want to work for a Hedge fund, if you are a jazz musician, an opera singer, a tech startup founder, a chef, an industrial electrician who fixes oil rigs, a UN diplomat? They don't ask these questions at all. I can tell you what this ranking is about. It's a completely pointless PR gimmick by an HR consultancy.