Whatever people think of these awards, to continuously year after year feature highly on these lists most be pointing to Melbourne doing something right.

Makes it bloody hard to consider moving elsewhere from my own point of view.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news...-1226705762342

The new, English-speaking world is where it's at

We owe 16th-19th century Britain so much

They created their new world - and have seen it surpass them. Which if it wasn't the plan, it should have been

Well done Queen Vic and co!

I like (and know well) melbourne and vancouver, but to be fair both have some total dump areas, with big social problems. But both are very nice places if you can afford some seriously expensive property prices.

Never been to Melbourne but I like Vancouver a lot. I hear the traffic is getting bad, but I could live there - like you say, it's about having the $$$ for a decent place.

I love living in Melbourne..... After serving 2.5 yrs in Adelaide I thought Australia was pretty Meh.....and went back to the UK.... 12 months later I was heading back to Aus.... Melbourne bound, and I've not looked back, even the traffic (which can be horrific tbh) doesn't dampen my enthusiasm for the place.... I love my life here!

Having lived in central London, phenomenally rural New Zealand, and suburban Melbourne, I can honestly say Melbourne has the best of everything.

6 years in and we love love love it here.

Life's good.

BB

Of course each city has some dumpy areas...the poor will always be with us

Are these awards not a bit pointless? How liveable a city is surely depends on personal circumstances/interests/job/responsibilities etc.

I love Melbourne, and will probably move back there, but would be interested to find out what went into the economist rankings. The public transport is brutal and the traffic even worse, so I assume ease of getting around/to work didn't factor that highly in their scores.

Great place to live, so much to do and see, it's amazing...

... yet both considerably better than in, say, Sydney, I understand.

BB

it's relative, and why it's the mid level cities that win these awards, and hence the self perpetual bias. Ultimately London and New York are too busy.

Melbourne did drop off the top rank, presumably the 'pressures' we have seen; I hadn't realized it had gained it's ranking back.

That's right. There was a programme on tv in the UK called megacities which explored this. Apparently once cities hit a certain size (7m?) it becomes basically impossible to effectively move people around it without overcrowding, no matter how much you invest in infrastructure.

It will be interesting to see how Melbourne goes. It's a good size at the mo but is expected to grow at an unbelievable pace till 2025 and maybe onward.

I find the monocle magazine quality of life issue a more balanced view of the oz cities than the economist survey. They point out the great points about Melb, but also the bad points (getting almost prohibitavely expensive, gridlock traffic etc).

I still say liveable is a purely personal term.

Wikipedia lists cities based on size and classification.
Melbourne's traffic can surprise, I left work at 5 and drove 45k in 50 mins last week, the city portion was a breeze.

Agree. It can be fine. But on other occasions I've been stuck in worse than I've ever seen in central London. Think it depends on a variety of factors.

Overall, personally, I'd say the traffic is an issue. A lot of these surveys seem to note that as well.

This is my concern with Adelaide. We lived in London for many years so after that it's a case of eaten the pie and got the t-shirt as far as big cities are concerned, so Adelaide is a good compromise between the big smoke and a small town. My concern is that one day it's going to be as big as Melbourne, then as big as Sydney, and so on. That's when I'll move to Hobart!