What Makes a Livable City?

[kidgibnick]

These indexes consider a finite set of weighted criteria, often too narrow...and often seem to miss key 'liveable' criteria - such as average commute times, cost and reach of public transportation, air quality, purchasing power parity / cost-of-goods and services, housing costs, 'rough sleeping' / homelessness, mental illness (perhaps difficult to measure), cleanliness (street-level / recycling), public services, emergency-response call times, access to youth services, drug addiction issues, crime-rates, and the list goes on and on.

The challenge is that some factors are more subjective to each individuals social value system and how importance is weighted...including factors that can't be controlled, like weather, landscape, perceived friendliness - which certainly affects 'liveability' for many people. For me, Toronto's public-transportation and long commute-times diminished my view of Toronto as one of the greatest liveable city. In contrast, many big cities (especially here in Germany) have better roads, less traffic, cheaper public transportation, faster/cheaper access to airports, free/cheap street parking, etc. --> those factors affect the lives of millions of people each day in Canada, hence reports like this: https://globalnews.ca/news/4287922/toron...h-america/