Fairly happy not to. I love visiting Copenhagen, but I see no reason to live there. Travel times in and around Copenhagen are insane, compared to most other Danish cities, and housing is way to expensive.
The fact that Singapore is even on this list shows how weird these metrics are. Everyone I know who works a full-time job in Singapore, including my wife, is waaaay overworked. 40 hours a week is considered "light" among most companies there.
I see Tokyo and Hong Kong in there as well, which seems crazy. I know from experience in Hong Kong, that if you work in a local company, it’s almost expected to work overtime.
"very strong employment laws" is Germany-wide and not specific to Berlin. Berlin has much less holidays than any other place in Germany. Beside that, Berlin has problems in all areas listed under "CITY LIVABILITY". There are much better places to live in Germany other than Berlin. I left Berlin to live in Lisbon, TBH I'm shocked that Lisbon isn't in the list at all, but for sure I would never come back to Berlin. Maybe Freiburg, Nürnberg, Kiel, even Potsdam, but Berlin? No way.
A couple of Catholic holidays doesn't change the situation much. Our own experiences are anecdotal, but I used to live in a high-ranking Nordic city from this list and prefer Berlin myself.
The list doesn't rank any mid-tier cities so that's out of scope. It would be the same for Nordics: medium cities would top the capitals if they were included.
When you say Potsdam is better than Berlin, have you have ever been outside of Mitte, Kreuzberg and Neukölln? Because there are a lot of places in Berlin that are very much like Potsdam. For example Schmöckwitz.
And about public transport: If I travel M10 in the rush hour, its obviously hell. But traveling S5 saturnday night after a very nice concert is pretty hard to beat. But then again, it's the same as Potsdam where you would take S1.
When you start a family you can move to a different part of Berlin - quieter, safer, greener, family-friendly. This is what I did, so did some families I know.
We moved from Prenzlauer Berg to Biesdorf. Our friends moved to Zehlendorf. No more loud neighbours running all-night parties, much less people under drugs. You get a sense of community, your neighbours own their houses, do not change every year, and take care of the place.
I think that almost in every city of the world you can find a good chunk of local people who thinks the same about their city. Grass is greener etc etc
Maybe, but probably for people without family, coming from different countries like Berlin. Depending on the ranking (which are like benchmarks), Berlin doesn't even appear in the top 10 cities in Germany https://www.wiwo.de/politik/deutschland/staedteranking-2020-...
I wonder what is your concern with public transport, etc in Berlin. The price?
IMO they are pretty reliable, and very often partly subsidized by your employer. Lots of of bike lanes too. In 30-40 min you can go anywhere inside the ring.
How so? Currently living there, have a nice park 1 min from the house, few pollution, no crime around here (beside graffit and a fire in an abandoned shack 2 weeks ago), growing bike infrastructure. I can go sailing in 30 min, Skiing and mountain climbing are impossible. Culturally one of the best in the world (and a lot cheaper than say NewYork at that). Job is great with 30 days vacation etc pp, though a little lower than in the US. The motorway is a bit noisy, though I am very strict there. Sure, if you live in a shitty neighboorhood, thats different, but thats different everywhere (as number of remote jobs also doesn't help you if you are not remote yourself)
I am in East Berlin, so I certainly disagree. And most places in the East that are single family housing are nice anyways. For example, the borough Hellersdorf-Marzahn contains the big 12-level blocks of Hellersdorf, Marzahn and Kaulsdorf-Nord with problems up and down, but also ~30k single family houses in Biesdorf, Kaulsdorf and Mahlsdorf (as well as the original village of Marzahn, not much left of Hellersdorf) that are super safe and more and more expensive.
Localities that are not so nice (but again, it depends on the exact location) are Tiergarten, Wedding, Hohenschönhausen, Weissensee, Hellersdorf, Marzahn, Neukölln (the locality). Basically, cheap places are cheap for a reason.
See the top rated comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27343109 Montreal isn't there because it wasn't rated. It would probably be above Toronto and Ottawa but below Vancouver.
But dont tell anyone, the "boring" reputation is a feature not a bug.
Watching the value of my house double recently suggests the word is getting out - although I get it that it's also that there's more realtors than listings, and of course money printer go Brrrr.
Not in July :P It can get very hot (>40C) & sticky in the valley.
Can be very cold in Jan/Feb, but often too cold to snow so it can be more sunny than say Toronto, and there's a ton of outdoor activities nearby to enjoy like ski hills & trails, snowshoeing, and skating.
One of the first comments I heard from coworkers on work-life-balance was "hope you're not working with a team in Mountain View", and they weren't referring to just the time zone difference (we're in Austin). Before Covid the office was empty before 8:30am and after 4:30pm.
I think it's obvious this list doesn't take into account cultural properties or medium sized cities, as others have commented.
I'm shocked to see Toronto high because it's gotten completely and utterly unaffordable.
Ottawa? I'm not surprised. I've lived in both places and my take on Ottawa is that it's affordable (though Canadian skyrocketing real estate market is rapidly becoming an issue here too), tons of outdoor activities, city is fairly alive but not crazy busy that it's ever overwhelming.
Work balance even outside of government is very favorable.
It's cold but people embrace winter and generally try to dress around it, very different from Toronto.
This list looks to go by a unknown filtering criteria for cities. It includes multiple cities in some countries, and limit it to just the largest city for other countries.
For example, the work conditions in the various cities in Norway are probably more or less the same, and if anything, the criteria by Air Quality, and cost of living should place Oslo further down the list than others. And one can wonder why Bergen, Oslo, Trondheim, Tromsø, Stavanger, Bodø, etc. are not on the list.
The answer to this is sort of implied: This list only includes the cities it includes. The important takeaway is that this isn't a list over the top N cities to work in, but rather how a selection of cities rank in this regard.
Well, one part of the work-life balance is also access to interesting work and opportunities, and a mature market that makes it easy to switch between companies when you want to or need to.
In that way, I think it makes sense to focus on some of the largest job markets, as they explain under "Methodology":
> After reviewing hundreds of global metropolises, a shortlist of 50 of in-demand cities with sufficient, reliable, and relevant datasets were selected. This included cities known for attracting professionals and families for their work opportunities and diverse lifestyle offerings.
That quote sure reads like the list is filtered to make it possible to complete the survey, as well as to make it diverse and interesting. There are plenty of cities not in this list that are by no means short of demand.
Oslo is more attractive than these cities despite the higher cost of living.
I live in Oslo and not in Tromsø for many reasons. Oslo has a much better weather, and has more sunlight during winter. It's much closer to other parts of the world, thanks to the international airport, the trains, the boats, and the roads. If you travel a bit, it's a huge difference. You have much more jobs in Oslo, so a higher chance to find interesting jobs. You also have a lot more people, and events, and culture. International music bands do live music in Oslo, rarely Bergen or Trondheim for example. And it has everything I want on the outdoor style, beaches, lakes, islands, sea, ski resorts, thousands of paths for biking, hiking, skiing. All that is well connected to public transport. You can take the subway from work to go skiing in the forest, and it's pretty nice.
Sorry, but regarding outdoor experiences Oslo flat out loses to nearly any other city in Norway. And the point of public transport is irrelevant: it's good everywhere, and outside of Oslo commuting by car is much less of a pain as well.
I'm not saying Oslo has the best outdoor activities though. But it has okay outdoor activities, especially compared to most other cities in Europe. You don't move from another part of Norway to Oslo for the outdoor life for sure.
Well you did bring it up as an advantage while comparing with other Norwegian cities.
Really the best Oslo has going for it is the job market, which is a function of population size. In other respects it remains as adoringly provincial as other Norwegian cities. Being the largest in Noway is not enough to have a big city vibe. If that's your aspiration you'll be better served by a number of other cities down that list.
One example doesn't refute your case, but I feel compelled to mention that the legendary ambient electronic musician Geir Jenssen (Biosphere) is based in Tromsø (along with some others of similar style nearby i.e. Deathprod). If you're looking for music-to-code-to, I recommend a try.
Only 40 cities. The reality is that the best work-life balance cities are not the biggest cities in the world. You get the best in the middle range. I have been working in Copenhagen, yes, it is a nice city, but you get way better quality of life in a 100,000 to 400,000 city nearly anywhere else in Europe. Even Aahrus has a better quality of life.
The problem of these ranking is that they want to be global, so they take very big cities known by most of the people at the world level, but all the quality of life is in the middle. You will not see Münster (DE), Boulder (CO, US), Lausanne (CH), Nancy (FR), etc. etc.
Agree, this is a very incomplete list. Better places at least in Europe are often mid- to small towns. They might be however boring for certain people. But in general, they share most of characteristics with their nearest big city from this presented table.
>but you get way better quality of life in a 100,000 to 400,000 city nearly anywhere else in Europe. Even Aahrus has a better quality of life.
I think you're going a bit far there. Access to a larger international community, international schooling, wider offering of grocery products (e.g. asian supermarkets) and restaurants, diverse music, arts and cultural offering - smaller distance to airport, those are all reasons I'm happier in Helsinki then some random 100,000 person city.
It's weird because in this survey all of those would fall into the 'Happiness, Culture & Leisure', even though it includes a lot more stuff than 'outdoor spaces' for example.
Is there any reason to make this by city instead of by region? AFAIK most cities in a wide region (say, India, where I'm from) have reasonably similar work cultures. Frankly, I'd say cities are a rather poor marker for WLB compared to industry and region.
I can second the great work live balance available in Zurich, Switzerland - sorry for the blatant shout-out here in this regard in advance, but we at ChainSecurity are hiring, DM me if you want to work here in Zurich (or remote) and protect blockchain systems from being hacked!
English usage of the term "Scandinavia" is a bit unclear that way - it often is used to mean what locally would be called Nordic countries (i.e. including Finland, Iceland, ...)
But aren't the Scandinavian countries always on top of the list of happiest countries in the world? E.g. this year the top 3 was Finland, Iceland, Denmark.
So it seems that happiness is inversely correlated with warm temperatures ..
Isn't the main factor in work-life balance the nature of the relationship you have with your employer/customer(s), not the physical location? Some employers respect boundaries, some do not, and some staff members are better or worse at enforcing personal boundaries.
Culture also plays a big part. For instance, in many Hong Kong companies (where I live) people tend to stay until after their manager leaves. If the boss burns the midnight oil, so do the subordinates. If your boss emails you on Sunday while you are you are playing with your kids, you answer.
Maybe they included a lot of the suburbs. Vancouver has a fairly peaky distribution in that areas near it get more affordable faster than many other cities.
This was mostly true until about 5 years ago. Over the past few years, housing prices have gone up substantially all the way through Abbotsford and started affecting Chilliwack.
What about banglore india? Why is it not on the list of worst cities? It would beat any place else by miles.
I don't think work life balance is even considered a thing here and I'm talking about what are considered to be better companies, like Cisco; where not coming on weekends is most of the times not even an option imo.
How come weather / daylight is never a factor in these rankings? I come from Spain, live in Germany and I can guarantee you that having just 7 hours of light in the winter fucks up your mental health.
This ranking has no factors pertaining to raising children other than those that also pertain to adults. For parents and prospective parents that makes it almost useless. If not for the quality of education in affluent parts of big cities and their suburbs the optimal plan for work life balance is to make bank in the big city then scale back to a nice small town. You can save enough to retire fairly easily given the low cost of living and low housing prices in small towns. But most small towns aren’t great environments for raising a kid.
"But most small towns aren’t great environments for raising a kid."
This sounds strange? What are the negative factors in such an environment? As a parent I happen to live in a city but never considered a small town would be a poor environment for my kids.
Very insular and only one real chance to make a group of friends (especially within an age group). Limited support for hobbies and extra-curriculars due to population density. Difficult to impossible to get around and do things without a car. Often worse education.
Not sure why you’re getting downvoted - this is 100% true. This lines perfectly with my experience.
Upside at least - with small towns there usually isn’t much need for public transit as much because things are closer together if you live near the stuff to begin with. Downside - usually the people you become friends with at school live in the sticks and take a bus or parents car into school. So, if you want to see your friends... you need a ride. It was very common in my small town to pull in people from 10+ miles away for the high school and middle school.
A lot of small towns are also very poor. We only had four day school weeks because they decided to axe the fifth day due to budget cuts. Almost all elective classes were cut as well - which meant as a student who maybe had an interest that lined up with getting out of small town... very difficult to get learnings on.
People who post here are almost 100% unlikely to have their children in such a trap but it’s worth pointing out.
This list seems to have some sort of threshold and is only including cities of a population above some size. For the vast majority of people that is going to mean this list is useless. Big cities offer better lifestyles for a subset of the population.
I work in Stockholm and I just have a feeling that compared to other Swedish cities, people here tend to work more and have a worse life/work balance. Dunno about cities outside of Sweden though since I’ve never worked abroad.
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[ 5.9 ms ] story [ 219 ms ] threadThere is no way a salaryman life can in any way be associated with quality work-life balance.
The list doesn't rank any mid-tier cities so that's out of scope. It would be the same for Nordics: medium cities would top the capitals if they were included.
And about public transport: If I travel M10 in the rush hour, its obviously hell. But traveling S5 saturnday night after a very nice concert is pretty hard to beat. But then again, it's the same as Potsdam where you would take S1.
We moved from Prenzlauer Berg to Biesdorf. Our friends moved to Zehlendorf. No more loud neighbours running all-night parties, much less people under drugs. You get a sense of community, your neighbours own their houses, do not change every year, and take care of the place.
Edit: removed Neukoelln, it is boring, but not bad.
Localities that are not so nice (but again, it depends on the exact location) are Tiergarten, Wedding, Hohenschönhausen, Weissensee, Hellersdorf, Marzahn, Neukölln (the locality). Basically, cheap places are cheap for a reason.
- Montreal, Canada
- Austin, USA
Cities I was shocked at how high they were:
- Ottawa, Canada
- Toronto, Canada
In Calgary, people come in early. In Toronto, people stay late.
Have never encountered a hustle culture here in Calgary. Toronto definitely has one.
Startups in Calgary seem to maintain their distinctly corporate nature.
I haven't had a lot of application experience in Toronto except as a new grad, but anecdotally the hiring process out here is far longer.
But dont tell anyone, the "boring" reputation is a feature not a bug.
Watching the value of my house double recently suggests the word is getting out - although I get it that it's also that there's more realtors than listings, and of course money printer go Brrrr.
Can be very cold in Jan/Feb, but often too cold to snow so it can be more sunny than say Toronto, and there's a ton of outdoor activities nearby to enjoy like ski hills & trails, snowshoeing, and skating.
I think it's obvious this list doesn't take into account cultural properties or medium sized cities, as others have commented.
Ottawa? I'm not surprised. I've lived in both places and my take on Ottawa is that it's affordable (though Canadian skyrocketing real estate market is rapidly becoming an issue here too), tons of outdoor activities, city is fairly alive but not crazy busy that it's ever overwhelming.
Work balance even outside of government is very favorable.
It's cold but people embrace winter and generally try to dress around it, very different from Toronto.
For example, the work conditions in the various cities in Norway are probably more or less the same, and if anything, the criteria by Air Quality, and cost of living should place Oslo further down the list than others. And one can wonder why Bergen, Oslo, Trondheim, Tromsø, Stavanger, Bodø, etc. are not on the list.
The answer to this is sort of implied: This list only includes the cities it includes. The important takeaway is that this isn't a list over the top N cities to work in, but rather how a selection of cities rank in this regard.
In that way, I think it makes sense to focus on some of the largest job markets, as they explain under "Methodology":
> After reviewing hundreds of global metropolises, a shortlist of 50 of in-demand cities with sufficient, reliable, and relevant datasets were selected. This included cities known for attracting professionals and families for their work opportunities and diverse lifestyle offerings.
I live in Oslo and not in Tromsø for many reasons. Oslo has a much better weather, and has more sunlight during winter. It's much closer to other parts of the world, thanks to the international airport, the trains, the boats, and the roads. If you travel a bit, it's a huge difference. You have much more jobs in Oslo, so a higher chance to find interesting jobs. You also have a lot more people, and events, and culture. International music bands do live music in Oslo, rarely Bergen or Trondheim for example. And it has everything I want on the outdoor style, beaches, lakes, islands, sea, ski resorts, thousands of paths for biking, hiking, skiing. All that is well connected to public transport. You can take the subway from work to go skiing in the forest, and it's pretty nice.
Really the best Oslo has going for it is the job market, which is a function of population size. In other respects it remains as adoringly provincial as other Norwegian cities. Being the largest in Noway is not enough to have a big city vibe. If that's your aspiration you'll be better served by a number of other cities down that list.
The problem of these ranking is that they want to be global, so they take very big cities known by most of the people at the world level, but all the quality of life is in the middle. You will not see Münster (DE), Boulder (CO, US), Lausanne (CH), Nancy (FR), etc. etc.
They are basically the the best from the worse.
I think you're going a bit far there. Access to a larger international community, international schooling, wider offering of grocery products (e.g. asian supermarkets) and restaurants, diverse music, arts and cultural offering - smaller distance to airport, those are all reasons I'm happier in Helsinki then some random 100,000 person city.
It's weird because in this survey all of those would fall into the 'Happiness, Culture & Leisure', even though it includes a lot more stuff than 'outdoor spaces' for example.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavia#Use_of_Nordic_coun...
I certainly wouldn't want to live more north than I already do. But it seems that all cities in warmer regions have bad ratings.
So it seems that happiness is inversely correlated with warm temperatures ..
Or at least it was until the rise of cooling appliences.
The closer to the Equator I am, the less incliened to productivity I am.
This article's premise is befuddling to me.
Did anyone making this list try to get housing there?
https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/in/Vancouver?displayCu...
$1,342 USD per month is pretty expensive, but the countries ranked below it are even worse.
I don't think work life balance is even considered a thing here and I'm talking about what are considered to be better companies, like Cisco; where not coming on weekends is most of the times not even an option imo.
This sounds strange? What are the negative factors in such an environment? As a parent I happen to live in a city but never considered a small town would be a poor environment for my kids.
Upside at least - with small towns there usually isn’t much need for public transit as much because things are closer together if you live near the stuff to begin with. Downside - usually the people you become friends with at school live in the sticks and take a bus or parents car into school. So, if you want to see your friends... you need a ride. It was very common in my small town to pull in people from 10+ miles away for the high school and middle school.
A lot of small towns are also very poor. We only had four day school weeks because they decided to axe the fifth day due to budget cuts. Almost all elective classes were cut as well - which meant as a student who maybe had an interest that lined up with getting out of small town... very difficult to get learnings on.
People who post here are almost 100% unlikely to have their children in such a trap but it’s worth pointing out.