It's official - Munich is one of the world's best places to live
Tell us something we don’t know. The news that Munich has one of the world’s highest standards of living comes as no surprise to those of us who are familiar with the city. But, although we all have our own reasons as to why we like living here—be it the buzz of the Viktualienmarkt or the smell of hops being blown on the wind from the local brewery—it’s unlikely that Mercer Consulting, who produced the survey, has taken these small pleasures into account. No, it turns out that the key issue responsible for Munich’s leap up the ranks to fifth place out of 215 cities, is improvements in the efficiency of its waste removal system. Hello? I think they’ve forgotten to take account of me. Bin men are the bane of my life. Not only do they wake me every morning clunking that day’s set of bins through the back yard, up the steps in the hall, down the steps to the front door and then all the way back again (a noisy business, especially when it’s the turn of the glass bins), but they also seem to get a bit touchy if the things are slightly overflowing. Apparently it’s not the job of the bin men to empty bins that are too full. Nor is it their job to take any bags that are left next to the bins. Instead, they’ll just ignore the lot and leave a nasty little note fining residents for producing too much trash. How they expect this to improve the situation is beyond me. Surely it will do nothing more than start a vicious circle—if they don’t take waste one day, there’s going to be even more when they return. And, although I see the need to recycle, it doesn’t seem the most effective method in the world to send the plastic bin men on one day to collect one bin, the glass men the next for three and the Restmüll men the following day for the remaining ten or so bins. Nor, it has to be said, will it do much to help the latest Münchner moan—the Feinstaub pollution problem. Efficient is definitely not the word I’d use to describe it. Mercer, though, has a nice little get-out clause that compares the general quality of living in a city to individual cases of quality of life. “What makes one person’s quality of life better or worse cannot be quantified in an objective index,” they admit.
The consultants go on to add: “A city with a high quality-of-living index is a safe and stable one, but it may lack the dynamic je ne sais quoi that makes people want to live in it. Sometimes you need a little spice to make a city exciting. But that spice may also give the city a lower ranking.” In other words, the top five cities—Geneva, Zurich, Vancouver, Vienna and Munich—are the most boring in the world. Difficult to believe when you take a look at this month’s issue. Where else in the world is it possible to swing from the rooftops of an Olympic stadium, enjoy free beer as you float through the city on a giant raft or sweat it out in a rose-filled sauna? Read about these and other unusual ways to fill one of this month’s many public holidays in our feature on pages 36–37. Anyone who’s still not convinced should take heed from the city’s adopted jazz legend Al Porcino, profiled on page 13. Despite stints in Los Angeles and New York, his decision to make Munich his home for the past 25 years is living proof that the Bavarian capital really is a swingin’ place to be. <<<
