Best Places to Live for 2012

A new year brings many opportunities for new adventure. If your New Year’s resolution involved relocating to a new state (or even country!), we can help. We’ve taken the guesswork out of the situation with our all new list of Best Places to Live in the World.

Best Places to Live in the Middle East

Although the Middle East has earned a reputation filled with strife and struggle, there are several safe and sane places to live in this region. Built on oil profits, Dubai is now has a gross domestic product exceeding $90 billion a year. Dubai also has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the entire world at just over 1%.

Best Places to Live in Australia

Australia is an amazing place to live. In the “land down under“, there is no better place to live than Sydney. A 3.8% unemployment rate, relatively low cost of living and plenty of entertainment makes New South Wales in general and Sydney in particular a great place to call home.

Best Places to Live in Africa

South Africa is an incredibly Americanized place to live. Many residents speak English. Although once a den for violence and crimes against citizens, South Africa has recently invested billions of dollars into making the streets safer for all. Education is a priority here and a great emphasis is placed on traditional art and music.

Best Places to Live in Europe

Ah, Europe. The name practically screams affluence, and there is no more affluent place in all of Europe than Switzerland. This beautiful country nestled in the Swiss Alps is as picturesque as it is prosperous. With a stable economy, a mere 1.5% inflation rate and some of the best education in all of Europe, Switzerland is a sure bet.

Best Places to Live in Canada

British Columbia is among the best places to live here. With incredibly low taxes, a great job market and some of the cleanest air in the world, British Columbia clinches a mention. British Columbia is cold, but does have some of the best weather in Canada.

Best Places to Live in UK

London is great, but rural England offers some of the best living around. With quaint cottages, lush, green fields and plenty of opportunities for livestock and agriculture, rural England has a charm all of its own. Yorkshire county boasts low unemployment, a strong emphasis on simple family living and a high priority on educating their youth.

Best Places to Live in Asia

Singapore lies in southeast Asia off the Malay Peninsula. Once a poor, struggling city-state, it has now become a hub of commerce with a healthy market-based economy. The 14th largest exporter in the entire world, Singapore has a triple A credit rating from all three major credit rating agencies. In an effort to increase population rates, Singapore actually encourages foreign immigration.

Best Places to Live in the US

Globetrotting not on your resolution list this year? There are plenty of opportunities for relocation right here in the states. With an incredibly low crime rate per capita, New Hampshire tops our US 2012 list. Rated 46th lowest in the nation for violent crime and 48th in the nation for homicide by weapon, this is an amazingly safe place to live. As of December 2011, the New Hampshire unemployment rate was 5.2%, more than three points below the national average.

Whether your New Year’s resolutions involves relocating across seas or simply across state borders, opportunity is everywhere. Make a leap of faith, spread your wings and fly to a brand new home in 2012!

Canada's Best Places to Live Poll Results

The poll is closed and the results are in! Yes, we closed down the poll for the Canada's Best Places to Live as voted on by you. The poll was open for the month of April and here are the results along with a comparison to our original article

MoneySense: Best Places to Live in Canada

Back in early April we presented the MoneySense Best Places to Live in Canada for 2011. The Top Places in Canada were:

#1 Ottawa
#2 Kingston
#3 Burlington
#4 Fredericton
#5 Moncton
#6 Repentigny
#7 Brandon
#8 Victoria
#9 Winnipeg
#10 Lévis

And as you know we threw it all back at you in our Best Places to Live in Canada Poll last month. And here;s what you said -

1. Victoria, British Columbia - by far the leader with 44% over the total votes
2. Ottawa, Ontario - with 17% of the votes
3. Burlington, Ontario and Kingston Ontario - tied with 8% each
4. St. Albert, Alberta and Winnipeg, Manitoba - tied with 6% each
5. Edmonton, Alberta - with 4%
6. Fredericton, New Brunswick - with 2%
7. Brandon, Manitoba and Repentigny, Quebec got not votes. 

Vote Canada - Best Places to Live

Reminder - our poll for the Best Places to Live in Canada ends this weekend!

Please take a moment to vote Canada! You'll find our poll over on the left sidebar.

VOTE Canada!

And another reminder for all Canadians to get out and VOTE for your Federal representative on Monday.

This is a much bigger and more important than our little poll!

If you are registered to vote you will have received your voter card in the mail.Bring it along with proof of your identity and address to the polling station indicated on your card.

If you didn't get a Voter Information Card go to http://www.elections.ca/  to find out what you need to do and where you need to go.

Best Places to Live - Canada

Canada

We've spent a bit of time looking at the best places to live in the US and to be honest it is a lot easier to do. There are just so many more options to write about because there is so much more country! Many Americans don't realize that the United Sates has ten times the population than our cousin to the north. Canada has a population of around 34 million people and yet it is the second largest country in the world. It has a total area of almost 10 million square kilometers or about 4 million square miles. It is bordered by 3 oceans: Atlantic, Arctic, and Pacific.  Toronto is the largest city at 4.3 million people followed by Montreal at 3.3 million, Vancouver  at 1.8 million people and Ottawa at 1 million people. Despite the fact this is one huge place -  90% of the population is found within 160 kms (100 miles) of the U.S. border and most of the people love between Windsor and Montreal in the east-central part of the country. (Source: www.nationsencyclopedia.com)  So, although Canada is big the places to chose for living are small - at least in number.

Best Places to Live for Singles

For single's its no surprise that Canada’s largest cities typically top the international best of lists. Vancouver has been named "the most livable city in the world" by the Economist magazine for the past two years.   Toronto ranked the 15th best place to live by AskMen.com. Montreal was Ranked 13th. But don't rule out Canada’s smaller cities. The new livability rankings from the Martin Prosperity Institute name Ottawa, Guelph, and Victoria right up there with their bigger sisters in terms of livability. For singles and couples these small cities have joined the larger ones among Canada's most livable places.

CreativeClass.com offerred this ranked list for the best cities in Canada for singles:

1. Calgary
2. Ottawa - Gatineau
3. Victoria
4. Edmonton
5. Guelph
6. Montréal

Top Places to Live

As we discussed in a previous post the MoneySense Best Places in Canada suggests the following as the Top Places to Live in Canada:

#1 Ottawa
#2 Kingston
#3 Burlington
#4 Fredericton
#5 Moncton
#6 Repentigny
#7 Brandon
#8 Victoria
#9 Winnipeg
#10 Lévis

Best Places to Live in Canada

These give us some idea for selecting a place to live in Canada but no list tells the whole story. As we've said over and over it's almost completely subjective. One persons 'best' may be another's 'worst'. A young professional single with money to burn may love the big city and have no concern for expenses while a retired Canadian maybe be counting their pennies and looking for the cheapest place to live.

Best Place to Live Poll

So our solution has been to throw it back out there for you to give us your opinion. Please look to the left sidebar and you'll see our poll for the best place to live in Canada. Place your vite and let's see what our readers come up with by the end of the month. We'll post the results next week.

The Best U.S. City for Retirement

It's time for a recap - last month we took a look at the Best U.S. Cities for retirees. Asheville North Carolina was ranked number one but I thought I would throw it out here and get your opinion. So, we ran a poll for the month of March to see what you thought. Here are the results of our poll along with the ranked list we started with which was complied by RandomForest -

Blog Poll for Best U.S. Cities

#1 Asheville, NC (26%)
#1 Ft. Myers, Fl (26%)
#2 Sarasota, Fl (13%)
#2 Prescott, AZ (13%)
#2 Winston-Salem, NC (13%)
#2 San Diego (13%)
#3 Paris, TN (6%)
#3 Beaufort, SC (6%)

Austin, TX and Green Valley, AZ received no votes.

Here's the original list from our article:

10 Best U.S. Cities For Retirees

1. Asheville, NC
2. Sarasota, FL
3. Prescott, AZ
4. Paris, TN
5. Austin, TX
6. Green Valley, AZ
7. Winston-Salem, NC
8. Beaufort, SC
9. San Diego, CA
10. Ft. Myers, FL

It was interesting and kind of fun watching the poll to discover your opinion and to compare it to the original rank. Of course it would have been nice to get more people voting. But we'll get there! It's our hope these fun and interesting articles help you as you think about and develop your Personal Retirement Plan.

This month we're going to do it again and this time we're looking at The Best Places to Live in Canada. So, have a look over at the side bar there on the right and cast your vote!

Best Places to Live in Canada

MoneySense Magazine, a division of Canadian Business has ranked the Best Places to Live in Canada. Their index is based upon data the compile for around 180 different Canadian cities and towns. The MoneySense index rates and ranks these communities for things like - climate; healthcare; crime (safety) house and rental costs; income and other lifestyle categories. Like the International Living Quality of Life Index the overall list is based on total average so one community could fare substantially better in a category than another but still be below them on the total rank list.

It takes quite a while to compile all of the data so we are always looking at the previous year. In this case we're looking at the best places to live in Canada in 2010.

The top city for Best Place to Live in Canada was Ottawa.  For more about Ottawa's honour check out this report on CTV news - Ottawa the best place to live in Canada, magazine decides - CTV News


The next nine spots went to:

The Best Places to Live In Canada

#2 Kingston
#3 Burlington
#4 Fredericton
#5 Moncton
#6 Repentigny
#7 Brandon
#8 Victoria
#9 Winnipeg
#10 Lévis

What is interesting and pretty cool about the list is that the top places to live are really spread right across the country. When looking at the extended list of the Top 25 Places it really shows how quality of life is diverse and truly spread from East (St.John's) to West (Victoria) and from North (Yellowknife) to South (Windsor).

The other thing that strikes me about the MoneySense index is how comprehensive it is. International Living looks at Quality of Life from nine different directions (categories) while MoneySense looks at 6 categories but MoneySense goes much deeper into each category. When you add in the sub-categories the MoneySense index looks at 25 different factors altogether. That's a pretty in depth view of any community. It doesn't come right out and present the Cheapest Places to Live in Canada but it gives you a lot of data and certainly enough to determine if the standard of living in each Canadian location is one you can afford.

With this kind of detail it's not too difficult to extrapolate the data for different uses. Whether you're looking for the Best Places to Retire in Canada or the best places to live from almost any other perspective the MoneySense index works.

Best Places to Live in the World - #8 Belgium

Yesterday I talked about my home land, Canada the 9th Best Place to Live in the World as ranked on the International Living Quality of Life Index for 2010.

Today we move to Belgium as the 8th Best Place to Live in the World.

Brussels, Belgium is home to NATO and the European Union (the EU). It has been a merchant city since medival times and is made up of Flemish speaking people in Flanders and French speaking people in Wallonia. Brussels is the capital of Belgium and is probably the best known city.  The homes in Belgium are easily recognized for their gable roof tops.

With the EU and NATO headquartered here Brussels is quite the multi-cultural mecca with thousands of foreign workers. It's also know as the 'Greenest Capital' with beautiful parks full of flower gardens.

The huge expat population has created a diverse multi-cultural landscape robust with english movies, theatre and sports events. The public transportation system is excellent and a great way to get around to famous brew pubs as well as the numerous ethnic restaurants and eateries. London, Paris and Amsterdam are a short ride away on state of the art trains.

Once we try and answer that age old question, 'Where should I live?' we will drill down further into each country to examine the best places. Watch for our future discussion on the 'Top Places to Live in Belgium'. 

Best Place to Live in Canada

With International Living's Quality of Life Index out this past week and Canada coming in on the Top 10 Best Places to Live list it got me thinking about where the Best Place in Canada to live might be.

Well, I'm going to throw this out there - I'm currently living in Canada and I think my current home town, Victoria British Columbia is probably the best place to live. Now I'm basing that on a few factors, 1st the climate is amazing. It's January and the temperature is already 10 degree celcius today. We rarely get snow and my little neighbour actually has Palm Trees - not just a couple of ornamental ones but over 3,000 big beautiful Palm trees! The lawns have lovely gree grass all year round and we even have beautiful flowers in bloom year round. What else makes Victoria the best place to live in Canada? The stunning beauty of the mountains framed against the ocean. Great restaurants - the most per capita in all of North America I've heard; the symphony; great theatre; shopping and of coourse the wonderful, friednly people.

Now like any city there are some negatives. Victoria is on Vancouver Island and as an island community we do tend to pay more for many things. Gas, food and homes are all pretty expensive. And the employment sitation is not so great. I would have to admit that financially secure retires are probably best suited to calling Victoria their best place to live in Canada.

Just thought I would throw these thoughts out there on a sunny Saturday morning!

Top Ten Places to Live

Shelter Offshore just released its review of International Livings '2010 Quality of Life Index' with the Top Ten Places to Live Abroad. This is the first part of a two part article which explores the bottom five of the top 10 in the index and what its like to be an expat living abroad in Italy, Belgium, Luxemburg, Canada and America (meaning the U.S. as Shelter Offshore is a British offering). By the way while I'm talking about the UK it's interesting to note that the UK has fallen to position 25 in the International Living Index of the most desireable (livable) place in the world.

Italy continues to hold the #10 spot from last year as International Living points out, "Italians know how to live well!"

Is Canada the best place in the world to live? Nope the index puts Canada in ninth spot basically due to the snowy, cold winters in most of the country.

Belgium picks up 8th place followed by the United States at positon #7. Of course Detroit wasn't mentioned even though it may well be the Cheapest Place to Invest in Real Estate right now!

Luxemburg tops the bottom half of the top ten list at #6 as a "fascinating, historic, beautiful and very stable country."

It will be interesting to see who tops the list and if there is any mention of the Cheapest Places to Live or the Best Place to Retire as there has been in previous indices. Be sure to follow along if your searching for a good place to live!

Technorati Tags: cheapest places to live, best place to live, Top 10 Places to Live Abroad

best places to live in Canada for professionals

Here's one I found at the Oshawa Express. It seems Oshawa could be considered one of the Best Places to Live in Canada for professionals but it doesn't aspire to be one of the Cheapest Places to Live.

The article says,

"According to the Next Generation Consulting (NGC) ‘Next Cities’ list, Oshawa ranked 23 out of 27 Canadian cities, after the company collected and analyzed 45 measurements for cities with a population of more than 100,000. NGC studied residential and relocation patterns of 20 to 40 year olds since 1998 and has developed an indexing system that evaluates a city based on assets that are important to workers. The cities were assessed based on earning,
learning, vitality, around town, after hours, cost of lifestyle, and social capital.

The recent rankings are based on a city’s total score in all seven areas.“Simply being the cheapest place to live, or the city with the most jobs is not a long-term workforce strategy,” says NGC’s founder Rebecca Ryan in a press release.“The next generation is very savvy about choosing where they’ll live. They look carefully at quality of life factors like how much time they’re going to spend in traffic commuting, if they can live near a park or hike-and-bike trail and whether a city’s downtown stays awake after five.” Victoria, British Columbia ranked first among the cities.

Canada's Best Places to Live

Canadian Business Money Sense Magazine ranks the 'Best Places to Live" in Canada each year. Here's the line up for the Top 10 Best Places to Live in Canada:

Ottawa-Gatineau, ON
Victoria, BC
Frederickton, NB
Kingston, ON
Levis, QC
Moncton, NB
Winnipeg, MB
Burlington, ON
Halifax, NS
Vancouver, BC

The introduction says, "If you've ever wondered about picking up and moving, you've probably pondered what makes a community a good place to live. Is it climate? Salaries? Real estate? To be honest, it's probably a bit of each of those factors, plus many more."

MoneySense's third "Canada's Best Places to Live" list has a lot of data to help readers sift through some of the most important factors in choosing the Best Place to Live. It may not exactly come out and say, "Hey, here are the Cheapest Places to Live!" but at least it provides some criteria whereby you can figure out what kind of lifestyle you might be able to create.

To see the complete list and read all about it go here - The Best Places to Live in Canada.