Posted on 09/23/2007 5:58:50 AM PDT by WesternCulture
Stockholm is the world's greenest, most livable city, according to a survey carried out by the Reader's Digest magazine.
Using a range of sources, environmental economist Matthew Kahn, from UCLA's Institute of the Environment, ranked 72 major international in terms of how 'green and livable' they are.
Environmental legislation, energy prices, waste production and disposal and available parkland were among the factors considered.
Stockholm was ranked number one, followed by Oslo in second place.
"You shouldn't boast, but Stockholm is the world's most beautiful city," said mayor Kristina Axén Olin .
"I get happy every time I come back to Stockholm after being away. We probably don't realise what a unique environment we have," she told Aftonbladet.
A third Scandinavian city, Copenhagen, was ranked tenth, but the top ten was dominated by German and French cities.
Munich was third, with Frankfurt (5th), Stuttgart (6th) and Dusseldorf (8th) completing a German quadruple. Paris was rated the fourth most livable city in the world, with Lyon and Nantes in 7th and 9th places respectively.
The first American city to make an appearance was New York, in 15th spot, while London only managed 27th place.
Reader's Digest also ranked countries and, as is usually the case with these kinds of surveys, the Nordic nations grabbed the top spots. Finland was top, given high marks "for air and water quality, a low incidence of infant disease, and how well it protects citizens from water pollution and natural disasters".
Iceland came second, with Norway and Sweden in third and fourth places.
“You shouldn’t boast, but Stockholm is the world’s most beautiful city,” said mayor Kristina Axén Olin .
- Personally I (and probably Hannibal Lecter too) would say Florence, Italy is even more beautiful than Stockholm, but let’s forget about sheer beauty and environmenal issues for a while. Instead, lets have a look at something that Reader’s Digest perhaps didn’t dare to bring up; Swedish standard of living. Reader’s Digest is one of many publications that for long have printed articles about the ‘doomed’ Swedish/Scandinavian Model of Society. I have actually come across Reader’s Digest articles from the 1950’s predicting that the economy of the ‘Socialist’ Scandinavian countries soon would collapse. Today, more than five decades later, Scandinavia is THE richest part of the world - and the gap to other rich countries is widening.
Personally, I hate Socialism, but I love Scandinavia. To me, Scandinavian economy is about Volvo, Nokia, Ericsson, IKEA, Electrolux, Lego, Carlsberg, SAAB, not Socialism. Scandinavia is one of the best examples of CAPITALIST success on this earth.
Scandinavians (although not Scandinavian companies) might suffer from higher taxes than US citizens. However, their wages are higher and they also get something in return for the taxes they pay. Scandinavians have choosen one way of organizing society and US Americans another. As long as we all believe in freedom, democracy, free markets and hard work there’s no reason for mud throwing between our different parts of the world. Let’s leave that activity to our spoiled, internet abusing youngsters.
Like said above, the standard of living in Sweden is indeed a very high one. Poverty is extinct. Whether one looks at building standards, private consumtion, leisure activities, public environments, income levels, one has to admit few other nations can compete.
Stockholm is just like NYC, Paris, Milan and London in the sense that lots of the inhabitants chose to live in apartments/condos instead of nice single houses, even if they easily could afford to do so. Still, there are a lot of nice houses in the suburbs of Stockholm. An area like Djursholm (one of the richest in the whole of Scandinavia) is worth a trip in itself.
Anyhow, to give you some kind of idea of how life in Stockholm is like in the case of ordinary Stockholm residents who do not wish to live in small, expensive apartments in the inner parts of the city:
An average Stockholm couple together earning around $ 110 000 yearly could afford these things in life (something most Europeans could not)
- A house like this (not big, but I think it’s a nice house for this kind of money):
- A summer house (very common in Sweden) like this:
- A car like this (Volvo V70 is the best selling car in Sweden):
http://www.volvocars.se/All-Cars-MY08/Volvo-V70-new/
(The all new V70 and XC70 will soon be for sale in the US)
So, would I like to live in Stockholm?
Nope. I prefer Gothenburg, Sweden’s second largest city. But that’s another story.
praytell, how much is that 110 thou in euros?
praytell, how much is that 110 thou in euros?
Sweden hasn’t introduced the Euro, we still have the krona (SEK), but $110 000 is around €78 000.
An average couple, both working full time (which is something very common in Sweden) earns less than $110 000, but wages are higher in Stockholm than they are in Sweden in general.
Have you visited or lived in the US?
Nice! You make some very good points. But I prefer to live like this:
http://www.deervalleylodging.com/resort.php/DVL/OVERVIEW
[just kidding, I don’t live like that, although I do live just a few miles from there and do enjoy some great mountain resort skiing]
I have to say, I’m quite miffed not to see Little Rock on the list.
“Have you visited or lived in the US?”
- Yes, I visited Florida in the early 1990’s. Great experience. USA lived up to, or even exceeded, all of my expectations and everyone I talked to was very friendly.
The US is absolutely one of the best places to live in the world.
I forgot to say the quality of Swedish Muslims is a very high one too (even though I think we have too much of them).
The entire population of Sweden is about the same as one American city, Los Angeles.
Most Swedes moved to Nebraska in the 1800’s. We left enough folks in the ‘old country’ to keep it nice for our visits. :-)
That place seems really nice.
I’m not into skiing myself, but skiing is, naturally, very popular in Sweden. There’s no classy skiing resort in the Stockholm area, but there are some really nice ones some hours by car away from the city.
I know from experience that Stockholm is expensive as hell.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
“The entire population of Sweden is about the same as one American city, Los Angeles.”
- Or even less. The metropolitan area of L.A. has over 17 million inhabitants. Sweden has 9.1 million. That’s more or less the same size as Georgia, North Carolina or New Jersey.
Still it’s enough to form a world class national hockey team..
I know from experience that Stockholm is expensive as hell.
- It IS expensive. I’m not so sure the standard of living is higher in Stockholm than in the rest of the country. I’ve heard people from my city say Stockholm seems like a poor city to them. Personally, I don’t know what to think, but Gothenburg is indeed a rich city compared to Europe in general.
By the way, thanks for your posts and views. As you know FR is, ahem, a little American centric and it gets a little boring. You are a good defender of Europe from some of us more jingoistic Americans. Post with assurance that your views are looked forward to.
“Most Swedes moved to Nebraska in the 1800’s. We left enough folks in the ‘old country’ to keep it nice for our visits. :-)”
- I think even more Swedes ended up in Chicago and in Minnesota. I’ve heard somewhere that most of the Danish immigrants to the US settled in Nebraska on the other hand.
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