Not surprised. Combine low crime rates with clean living conditions and of course you'll get one of world's most livable cities. Really the only issues I'd have with living in Tokyo is the lack of sizable real estate and the insanely expensive cost of living there.

Nothing from the U.S.? And here I thought being in one of the richest counties (most liveable? I don't know) in the U.S. was a big deal. I'm just even more convinced that I have to visit Japan now.

I would like to live in Tokyo for sure, but Munich, Germany would also be pretty neat!

I wanna live in Japan, but I ain't sure a foreign twit like me has a chance. :P

I would love to live in Japan someday! Whether it be Tokyo or anywhere else!

Glad to see my hometown in the Top10 (although its on the last spot :p).
i have been in 6 of this 10 cities (berlin, munich, stockholm, tokyo, copenhagen and paris) and personally i liked munich the least.
it is just boring.

I agree with both Copenhagen and Stockholm, I've been to both and they're great cities. I might have to object to Berlin and I definitely object to Paris. Neither impressed as far as livability is concerned to me.

@gwjunkie: Well, I would say "one of the most developed" over "richest". Plus, they factored in crime, medicare, and public transportation into the equation. With crime, we're not in horrible shape, but we do have a pretty horrible penal system. Public transportation here is pretty laughable. In LA, trips across cities can require you to take several buses different buses. And Medicare.... wow there's so many things wrong that it's not funny. Though I guess the funny thing would be us not unanimously going for a public health plan and somehow letting people somehow reason that the bloated, expensive, and inefficient medical insurance industry we have now can be fixed. But yeah, that's why we're not in that list.

Lists Paris actually belongs on:
Stinkiest cities in the world
Most overrated cities in the world
Biggest tourist traps

suprises me paris is on there. Saw a documentary once, while downtown is rather safe (enormous rate of pickpocketing), the suburbs are really bad, as bad as Stuff like The Bronx, really!

Paris -- Depends if you call the suburbs the city. It does have great museums and art galleries, and really good public transport.

What strikes me about the list is that they are all pretty expensive places to live. A lot of places are pretty cool to live in if you have plenty of money.

I was born in Japan and have longed to go back my entire life. The fact that NO US city made it up there just makes me wonder what I'm really missing by living here in the US. And Nebraska of all places....so..boring.

@Strey: Waukesha County is actually considered one of the richest U.S. counties (if not THE richest), is what I was getting at. Then again, emphasis on "U.S.", I suppose, and as we all know, money doesn't equal good. Not that I really expected any place in Wisconsin to be on the list.

That last comment of mine makes less sense to me looking at it again. Meh. It still stands that I'd like to foreign exchange myself off to Japan one of these college semesters. If I can't manage to get in on this Semester At Sea thing my friend is applying for and which stops in Japan (twice) anyway.

What no Canadian cities? I live in Toronto and i'd say its pretty livable!

@Kilkrazy:

except Berlin you are correct about the money.
Berlin in fact is one of the cheapest capital cities in europe to live in.

I live in Melbourne and I wouldn't trade it, I think it's a great city to live in. *sigh* we were top of that list a couple of years ago, but then housing prices went up or something and we dropped down.

'Livable' takes into account, I think it was: crime rates, climate, income, education, wages, number of poor people, health care, public spaces and events etc etc.
It's not just how wealthy a city is.

@Strey:

One of the main reasons (among others) the American insurance system has become increasingly inept in meeting our medical needs over the last thirty years is precisely because of bad government policy in that industry, both on the State and Federal levels.

Reform is required, but what we need is market-based reform. This corporate medicine we have now needs to be tossed out, but social healthcare would be even worse. The data doesn't lie.

I'm sure some Canadian here will chime in with the usual "Don't believe the fear-mongering, it's great here!." Usually, that person is either a healthy young adult with no expensive medical conditions or someone who's never suffered a sudden catastrophic injury. Canadians have a lot of pride in the program and like to use it to look down on the United States -- conveniently ignoring all the massive shortcomings and disasters of the system in order to support their own delusion.

As for Japan, it's not really a universal-payer program; it's more complex than that. Having hugged along relatively fine for a while, fortunes are quickly changing. Since payroll taxes fund the bulk of the whole scheme, the combination of a declining birthrate, less existing youth in the workforce, and the crushing burden of the public pension monstrosity will destroy the whole system soon enough.

Yo, America... Y'all just lost the game.

@Girl Who Leapt Through Time
I agree I love Toronto! Its a beautiful city! If I had the money I would love to move there.

Why is nobody commenting on that crazy-assed robot Coke machine? "Exterminate," indeed!

I'll bite. That machine is nothing compared to the Mythbusters' Coke and Mentos Machine.

Given the choice, I'd choose to live in any Scandinavian country. I have heard nothing but good things (except for a certain country's insistent neutrality during World War 2) about them.

@Girl Who Leapt Through Time

Yeah im surprised theres no Toronto. I live an hour outside Toronto and its is pretty good city. not the surrounding cities (Scarborough and such) so much, but the main city itself

i guess i am biased too though lol. i just dont like France lol

@gwjunkie: ahh, I thought you meant "country".

@Ivan M.: Reform is an idea that I'd like to back if someone brought up reasonable course of action for it, but I haven't heard any proposed plans yet. I mean what exactly would they need to do? Consolidate services and create networks of coverage? Though the problem with that is factors like whether or not it may mean changing doctors or places of where services are usually taken by the individual. How about giving incentives for good health in plans and try to promote healthy habits in ad campaigns? Though it's strange that in the 15 years after the last proposed reform, neither idea has been used. They could completely re-organize the infrastructure, policies, and streamline the process of approval for medical services of each insurance agency. Despite how costly and time consuming, a combination of all these things would be needed, but considering these things haven't been done despite that, how reliable or viable is the system to begin with?

@Strey: Last I checked, Waukesha isn't a country, but a county. If it is a country then I've been deceived all my life, because, y'know, I live there.

Yo Palin, stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

lol at no American cities being on that list