Oh, how I love ranking lists which is why I was totally thrilled to discover the City Mayors site. City Mayors describes themselves as “an international network of professionals working together to promote strong and prosperous cities as well as good local government.” There’s a lot of interesting information there if you want to learn more about what it takes to make a strong, healthy, well-functioning city and all that, but what I really care about is the lists.

Specifically, I am intrigued with their listing of “the world’s top cities offering the best quality of life”. By this list, Seattle is ranked number 50 for 2008, sinking a full point from last year when we were 49. This year’s number 49 is New York City. This year’s number 48 is Portland, Oregon. This is where I start to wonder what just criteria are being applied in terms of determining the “best” “quality of life”. Glancing at the notes I see that the rankings are determined by measuring a variety of issues including political environment, socio-cultural environment, economic environment, public services and transportation, recreation, consumer goods, housing and natural environment.

Numbers one, two, and three are Zurich, Vienna, and Geneva. The highest ranked US city is Honolulu at 28, immediately followed by San Francisco. Boston comes in at 37, and Washington, DC and Chicago share a three-way tie for 44 with Lisbon, Portugal.