Unchanged from last year, European cities take seven of the top 10 spots on the Forbes 2010 World’s Best Places to live list. 
This year Mercer ranked 221 global cities (compared to 420 cities last year) on 39 measures that included such things as; social environment, the strength of the economy, the quality of health care, school quality, recreation, theaters and sports activities. This year there was a strong emphasis on political safety and health and Mercer also introduced eco city rankings, which scored countries on how well they promote sustainability and protect their environments such as the quality of water, air quality, sewage removal and traffic congestion. All in all cities were ultimately ranked against New York as the base city; it has an index score of 100.
So the results; Surprisingly, or maybe not surprisingly, the results of the top 10 list remained unchanged from last year meaning that between them Germany and Switzerland cleaned up all round them taking 6 out of 10 places on the list! Commenting on the results Rebecca Powers, a Mercer consultant said, “The Swiss cities are very pleasant, the natural environment is clean, and we weigh heavily the prevalence of hostilities, and Switzerland is neutral… If you can't be safe in Switzerland, you can't be safe anywhere.”
Forbes Top 10 Best Places to live
10. Sydney, Australia
9. Bern, Switzerland
8. Frankfurt, Germany
7. Munich, Germany
6. Dusseldorf, Germany
(Tied) Vancouver, Canada + Auckland, New Zealand
3. Geneva, Switzerland
2. Zurich, Switzerland
1. Vienna, Austria
