Best City To Live in is...

What's your guys' opinion? Where is the best city to live in and why? Of course it depends on a ton of stuff: age, job, preference, etc...

Mine is London but that's biased af because I spend most of my time there, if I visited NYC I'm pretty sure it would take the number one spot for me because of my fetish for tall buildings and London just doesn't seem to have that many (despite being the capital). Do you guys think it is better to grow up in a big metropolitan city? Or does it make any difference at all?

 

City boy for life right here. I was watching a movie once and me and my friend just went "wtf is that?" at some strange animal that showed up on-screen. It was a moment of realization that we're a very specific type of person. That said, NYC is my home town, and I'm partial to Shanghai as I spent a bit of time there. Amsterdam is another spot, though it's too small for me to live in permanently. Tokyo seemed like home when I visited. All things said, if it's a mega-city, I'd likely feel at home.

Also there are like 17 topics on this already floating around.

in it 2 win it
 
lapike:
Chicago. This has proven on this forum. Repeatedly. Enthusiastically.

Debate over, haha

The only thing that's been proven is that Chicago people don't have enough going on in their city, so they have plenty of time to pile onto WSO posts.

While you guys were posting away, Intralinks threw a party last night for all the bankers in NYC at this club in West Village (free top shelf, etc. - last year had free cigars...) and special guest of honor was Fetty Wap!!

https://media3.giphy.com/media/l46Cs9z7gcp9ilroI/giphy-downsized.gif" alt="fetty" />

 

Chiraq is a shit-hole, and straight up dangerous, I never understood the "charm", by far not the best city. I say Boston if you're into family life/sports, Miami if you're single with a good income... besides the amazing nightlife and everything that comes with it, the beach and everything that comes with it...Miami is also making good progress in Banking/Finance.

 
Marcus Halberstram 1:
Chiraq is a shit-hole, and straight up dangerous, I never understood the "charm", by far not the best city. I say Boston if you're into family life/sports, Miami if you're single with a good income... besides the amazing nightlife and everything that comes with it, the beach and everything that comes with it...Miami is also making good progress in Banking/Finance.

White collar professionals don't live in South Side Chicago, which is a warzone. The area where they live is nice and safe.

Miami is nice to visit during the winter, but it's disgustingly humid during the summer, hurricanes, and feels like a third world country.

 

I hear that too but I can't tolerate hot weather (just a personal thing). Its currently 8:45A there and already 86 degrees. Supposed to be 100 degrees. Looks like it will go up to 105 in a couple of days. According to my weather app.

“The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary.” - Nassim Taleb
 
BobTheBaker:
The answer is there isn't one, there are about three. Houston, Austin, and (I guess) Dallas. Sorry San Antonio :(

Hah, I've never been to Houston, but I haven't heard good things. Dallas is a lot like Atlanta and has unbelievable brisket but downtown was dead after 6pm and that was odd to me. I liked it though. I was not sober most of the time I was in Austin.

Commercial Real Estate Developer
 

I think Century City is really underrated. You're right next door to Beverly Hills, close enough to Santa Monica Beach (and not too far from Malibu), you're close enough to the Hollywood Hills/ Sunset Strip for parties. And you're not terribly far from Downtown Los Angeles. Granted, it may not have a lot of finance jobs (which is what this site is geared towards), but if you want to work in Real Estate/ Entertainment/ Tech it's a great place.

“The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary.” - Nassim Taleb
 

Good point haha. It’s funny to see the news describe CA like it’s actually hell on Earth. It’s not perfect, but it’s not definitely not hell.

“The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary.” - Nassim Taleb
 

Too broad of a question.

If you are a single man making $300K+, NYC is the best city hands down. If you are making closer to say the $100-$150K range, Chicago is better.

If you are married and want to raise kids in a great public school district but still want to be near a city, Seattle and SF are good, but keep in mind that both are quite expensive. If you can't afford it, then secondary cities such as Denver, Austin, Atlanta, Charlotte, are good bets.

 
Marcus Halberstram 1:
San Francisco is definitely a great place to raise a family, especially when you can expose your kids to homeless people shitting on themselves, and injecting heroin with hypodermic needles.

I should have clarified. I meant the Bay Area suburbs, not the actual city. Some of the nicest suburbs in the country are there: Atherton, Los Altos, Menlo Park. Of course, you have to be wealthy to live there, so my point is moot unless you fall into that category. Seattle is far more affordable, especially the eastside suburbs of Bellevue and Kirkland.

 

And here we have yet another person who thinks "good place to raise a family" = Levittown c. 1955. I mean you're right, I have to go to therapy every afternoon because of that one time I was 8 and saw a homeless man peeing in public. Irreparably scarred me.

 

Denver and SF for me. Mainly for the proximity of good fly fishing and beer/food scenes. Don't think you need anything more than that, IMO.

"That was basically college for me, just ya know, fuckin' tourin' with Widespread Panic over the USA."
 

Having only stayed in 3 cities long term I can't say it's the BEST city out there, but San Francisco/Bay Area has a great diversity to the types of things one wants to get up to on the weekend (hiking, surfing, mountain biking, local travelling) compared to some of the more limited features of living in Manhattan.

 

The suburbs of Boston aren't bad at all. There's good access to great private and public schools in the region for raising a family, the housing is not as ridiculous as NYC or SF, and the finance jobs aren't lacking either. In addition, you got the Cape and Harbor Islands for vacation. Overall not a bad place to be. One major downside would be the absolute disaster that is the road layout.

Made ya look
 

Let me go through. Milan has simply everything you need: nightlife, beautiful girls (Milan, Paris, NYC and London are models hub), capital of fashion and design, and banking is really not bad (you have all the BB, EBs and a few MM other than a lot of AM/FO) and is growing a lot. Is the financial capital of Italy, hence you have all the italian advantages (eg food) and downside (eg tax) Furthermore, you have proximity with mountains during the winter and sea during the summer (3h from the French riviera)

But trust me, the city of Milan is literally exploding! Take a look at the new financial district of Porta Nuova.. Huge!

 

Crazy rent/housing price (and upward trend!) vs. Montreal/Calgary. More gun related homicides. Can't remember which ratio but homicide-death/pop or gunshots/pop makes NYC looking safer. Toronto suffered the most from FED's refugee dumps. Refugee funding took away municipal and provincial budget on homeless aids/beds. I remember Toronto downtown was super clean and uncrowded 10 years ago. Now? Homeless everywhere (even camped up below the downtown highway decks!?) and garbage bag flying with pigeons. Traffic jam everywhere I go around downtown area. Although large cities all suffer from traffic congestion, homeless, and garbage issues, Toronto is definitely fallen the fastest I've seen.

 

Why not Vancouver? Rent is the only major issue I can think of, and also being far from the East Coast in general.

Quant (ˈkwänt) n: An expert, someone who knows more and more about less and less until they know everything about nothing.
 

NYC for young living, going out, feeling like you're a part of what's going on in the world. Just walking out your door is an adventure. There is no competition.

LA/SoCal is pretty unbeatable when it comes to nature and a true sense of home (i.e. mansion w/back yard and neighborhoods that don't feel like a city is looming over you). The weather is perfect, the cost of living is relatively low compared to SF/NYC and the culture is much calmer. Driving sucks, but if you've made it enough to retire there then you should be calm enough not to kill someone on the highway when you get cut off because you're gonna be late to a meeting.

 

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