Life in Sydney isn’t perfect. Lockdowns notwithstanding, it can be super spenno, public transport could be a lot better, and what’s with all that black mould every winter? But for all its shortcomings, there are a far greater number of reasons why Sydney is an amazing place to call home. And that’s not just our opinion, but an actual, honest-to-goodness fact, according to a mind-bogglingly thorough assessment of the world’s top ‘cities of choice’ by the Boston Group Consulting thinktank, which ranked the Harbour City as the tenth most desired place to be in the world.
More than 25,000 people were surveyed from 80 international cities, and from this hefty bank of data, the top 44 ‘cities of choice’ were ranked. Cities were assessed on how well they nurture their inhabitants' wellbeing, based on questions like “are you satisfied by life in your city”, “how likely are you to recommend your city to someone from another city”, and “do you believe your city will prosper in the future”.
Cities were also judged on more concrete aspects, such as how many opportunities for professional development exist, the conditions for social interaction, mutual respect and trust, and how respected public discourse and political diversity is.
Sydney scored 58.3 out of a possible 100 – to put that in context, the highest-ranking city, London, scored 65.7 – earning its highest marks for quality of life and interactions with authorities – although whether the city would score quite as highly under the current conditions is another matter. Also in the top ten were New York, Helsinki, Copenhagen, Abu Dhabi, Madrid, Beijing, Vienna and Zurich. Just one other Australian city made the cut of the 44 cities of choice. Melbourne ranked at position 23, with a score of 51.1.
You can read the full Cities of Choice report here.