For the fifth year in a row, France has been voted the best place to live in the world according to an annual survey in International Living magazine.
Predictably CNN and MSNBC ran with this story earlier this week along with live polls on their respective websites which would give you the impression that 80% of Americans disagree with this survey result (!)
International Living is a magazine for and read largely by expats living in countries other than their country of birth, each year they produce a survey comparing the standard of living in a large set of countries around the world.
International Living survey 2010 Quality of Living Index survey results
On the winner :
For the fifth year running, France takes first in our annual Quality of Life Index. No surprise. Its tiresome bureaucracy and high taxes are outweighed by an unsurpassable quality of life, including the world's best health care.
France always nets high scores in most categories. But you don't need number-crunchers to tell you its bon vivant lifestyle is special. Step off a plane and you'll experience it first-hand...it's impossible to enumerate the joy of lingering for hours over dinner and a bottle of red wine in a Parisian brasserie. Or strolling beside the Seine on a spring morning, poking through the book vendors' wares. Or buying buttery croissants in bohemian Montmartre...hearing Notre Dame's bells...walking antique streets paved with poetry.
Romantic Paris offers the best of everything, but services don't fall away in Alsace's wine villages...in wild and lovely Corsica...in lavender-scented Provence. Or in the Languedoc of the troubadors, bathed in Mediterranean sunlight.
Provincial French properties are often keenly priced and lifestyles are less expensive than Paris. The Southwestern Midi-Pyrenees region is a particularly good hunting ground for village homes for less than $100,000—and classic three-course lunches for $14. Houses cascade with wisteria blossom; outdoor markets are everywhere. Foie gras, pink garlic, Armagnac, and crystallized violets aren't gourmet fare for locals. Rather, just another day's shopping.
Wonderful food & drink, unique architecture and a lack of what plagues the US landscape - Walmart and McDonalds on each major street and the growth of bland "every corner" architecture. Beyond the aesthetics however, there is a strong story here. Successful driven Americans and other nationalities who have lived in multiple countries repeatedly rate many European countries higher due to quality of life improvements in these countries which include but are not limited to :
> Single payer or nationalized healthcare where the state bears the cost of protecting the health of its population and can spread the risk across the entire population. For-profit healthcare in these countries is by and large a minor player.
> Labor law protections which provide for more holidays, more vacation time and a controlled amount of overtime, as well as much stringent rules governing firings and restructurings
> Comprehensive and more affordable education, particularly for college students
> Greater use of cutting edge mass transit making travel easier, cheaper and better for the environment
> An embracing of multi-culturism
Expatforum.com :
France scored 100% for health care, safety and freedom in the publication’s 2010 Quality of Life Index. It has ‘an unsurpassable quality of life,’ the magazine said.
On Germany (4th)
Will your US private medical insurance fund a health spa stay? Probably not, but it happens here with a doctor's recommendation. Despite the global downturn, Germans have it pretty good. Along with 30 days paid annual holiday, the average employee earns €41,509 ($61,433).
These are informed, educated, successsful Americans and people of other nationalities that have lived abroad and are the best informed to evaluate the merits of varies countries, their standard of living and the competing philosophies of governance and the responsibility of Govt to serve its people and the responsibility of society as a whole to work together for the betterment of all.
The result is not surprising, the fact that 80% of Americans react in knee-jerk fashion to these truths is however, disappointing. Until the public realizes how poor of a deal it is getting we will not see significant change in how Government participation in the market is viewed in this country.
By the numbers, full survey results for every country and rating :
http://www1.internationalliving.com/...
CNN article