The World's Most Livable Cities for 2024

we've got the list of the world's most livable cities for 2024 and just as I do every year I've got some complaints about the best cities on this list because I don't think these lists take what a nomad capitalist wants into account so today we're going to share the best all the way down to the worst so every year the economist and their sister unit the eiu put out the most livable cities I believe it's heavily skewed to the West a part of the world that here at Nomad capist we think is moving in the right direction one of the things that you see and we're going to talk about today is how there's more competition coming from regions like Asia and I think that's important because if you're looking for a place to move you want to consider all the options not just the one in your own Western bubble and I'm also going to share with you how these least livable cities aren't places you want to live in the first place I'm going to challenge the notion that if you're looking to go somewhere that you have to necess be in the top 10 so least livable let's start with that Damascus Tripoli alers Lagos Karachi port morrisby and uh is that POA New Guinea DACA Bangladesh harrar keev you can imagine why that is and duala I think it's in Cameroon so those are the the the bottom 10 now there was a time not that long ago when a certain class of digital Nomad would say I'm going to go to Ukraine could have been for dating opportunities could have been they were you know building a big back office hiring people in Ukraine obviously that's not uh so livable anymore the rest of those cities has anyone ever thought you know what if only I could move to duala or Alger algers was really high on the list but you know now that it's 171st I mean forget it honey and so when people talk to to us here at Nomad capital in the audience and they say I don't agree with your philosophy of going where you're treated best to lower your taxes to have more freedom to just have an adventure see the opportunities that are coming up in the world you might as well stay in the United States everyone's moving there well who's moving to the United States who's moving to any of the places that I'm going to share with you that are the most livable in most cases it's not high net worth High earners it is people who are looking for a better job and so if you're already successful if you're the kind of person that we work with and you've got a million dollars or more liquid or you have a very high income your issue is not about how are you getting around or how's the public transportation your issue is am I getting what I'm paying for because in some of these most livable places Healthcare is mentioned and yet we talk to clients from these places and they say I I don't bother with public healthare it's ridiculous it doesn't work most livable cities in the world number one Vienna nice place would I live there well what I've argued is uh a lot of people right now who moved to Austria and I love austrians I love the Austrian people but they say it's really hard in same in a lot of central European places it's hard to make friends it's hard to get in there's places in Eastern Europe I've gone there's places in Southeast Asia I've gone to a lesser extent Latin America just because I'm not as fluent in the language uh where I've made friends in some cases they've been my friend for many years now we talk on a repeated basis I made friends much more easily there than people tell me they do in Germany or Austria or Switzerland nothing wrong with that but that should be a factor of liability we'll talk about the factors in a minute why they're not so interesting Copenhagen that's just one of those that's perennially up there on the list okay congr if you live in Copenhagen congratulations you're number two in the list is anybody moving to Copenhagen to pay 58% taxx I doubt it Melborne now one of the things Melborne Australia uh The Economist says the world's cities have recovered from the ravages of co uh Melbourne was kind of uh Ground Zero for some of that stuff and to me livability should include uh did your country forbid you to enter after you paid them a bloody fortune in taxes over the years uh during co uh that's kind of like against all the rules you can't enter your own country but they did it in Australia so maybe having some little slivers of Freedom should be included but no 97.7 out of 100 that's what Melbourne gets Sydney 97.4 uh Vancouver 97.3 uh zurk Calgary and Geneva tied uh and then Toronto Osaka and Auckland good food in Osaka out of that uh you could live in Geneva they tied for seventh they have a uh they're part of Switzerland's lum sum tax deal so you could pay a flat amount depending on your citizenship several hundred grand a year in taxes is if you are a very high earner uh that could be a tax friendly place to live was just in Geneva recently it's a it's very functional no doubt about it Auckland a bit more tax friendly in some of the other English-speaking countries but generally speaking what these countries all have in common is uh besides not so great weather in many cases is they have really high taxes and there's a veneer of just how they're great let's see why the economist ranks these cities what's the criteria they use they use stability okay you could argue they're stable again I don't know how stable it is that if you go on a holiday the wrong time and then some Black Swan of that happens you stuck in God knows where for two years but okay there's stability no doubt about it I would argue that there's plenty of stability in many other places around the world again we're not when you come to Nomad capitalist I'm not telling you to move to Daka to Bangladesh I think perhaps you should look at investing in Bangladesh I think it's one of the top three or four interesting real estate markets for the next 10 years I'm not saying you should move there and so sure they may not have that much stability in Bangladesh some very unfortunate stuff happening there in the last uh month or two but does that mean that nearby qualm poor doesn't have stability I pushed back on that Health Care again I'd argue the health care in places in Southeast Asia where you pay for it yourself living in very tax-friendly countries where you can just pay private healthc care private hospitals amazing it's fast it's Zippy we've talked about that multiple times over the years I okay I mean sure people aren't dying in the streets in Europe um they're not you know here's the secret they're not dying in the streets in most places maybe in these bottom 10 places maybe in a few more I've been all over the world I don't see a lot of people dying in the streets uh that's kind of a an idea that people have in a western bubble that like if you ever leave the US Canada the UK and Italy there's just massive death and destruction everywhere and we have to live in one of stay in Calgary this doesn't work that way culture in the environment no doubt I mean there's certain culture that you get in Vienna that it's hard to get somewhere else uh again if I'm making a high income how many operas I like going to the Opera I like going to the ballet if you told me to go every day I get sick of it just like eating a you know fan every day eating a wagu beef I mean you get sick of it every day just as you know occasionally go out for a nice meal get a nice uh get a nice dish get something fancy you know what sometimes I sit at home and I reminisce and I order you know four tacos from Taco Bell in the same way why couldn't you live in a tax friendly place and you know with all the money you're saving go to Vienna four times a year go and see a museum go to a show let them have their high taxes let them have their regulations uh let them have everything that they have that's not taken into account here and you just go and enjoy as a welcomed guest I think there's something to that uh culture in the environment and listen no doubt I mean there's you know some of these countries particularly like in South Asia central Asia the environment is not great there's plenty of places with good environment uh there's plenty of places that have you know that solved education you can solve that for yourself I mean by the way now the US is not in the none of the cities are in the top 10 but many cities have top tier scores does anybody think the United States which has some of the worst education scores in the Western World does anybody really think they're leading in education Canada I'm not so sure infrastructure uh I think the roads are better in a lot of the places that I live in upand cominging Emerging Markets than they are where I was born in Cleveland Ohio I just do now Cleveland's not the most livable but I mean are you telling me I remember I remember driving to Los Angeles many many years ago on that I 10 Freeway the minute you'd leave Arizona and cross into California you felt like you had a flat tire because the roads were just so terrible there's the list of the top 10 and the bottom 10 and I wanted to share this with you because again what we talk about here at Nomad capitalist is you want to have a residence permit or permits in other countries when stuff goes bad you want to have citizenship as a backup plan for your freedom and for money grabs by your government that's the plan B the plan a ideally you get to if not now at some point is you're going to move at least for a good chunk of the year to some other place or places and so I'm a big believer in uh qualitative data we published The Nomad passport index every year we published other indices over the years that rank everything from passports to beaches uh so I'm a big fan of qualitative data the question is what is this data the Economist uses a lot of things like how good is the the Metro System I'm not saying you have to drive your car everywhere I live in places in City centers where I often walk to where I want to go and you know what if you got a car I mean what's so bad about that why are we ranking if you have a a high income why are we determining what's the most livable place based on whether there's a tram that goes by the front of your house so are these top tier cities really the best if you earn a million dollars a year you're going to pay close to half of that in these places could you get better health care better culture better education living somewhere else and could you find places that had you know relatively equal stability and infrastructure the idea that only these most liable places which again are very Western are stable I just happen to find uh a little bit silly do you really think if you look back over the last number of years I mean look at what's happening in the United States there's shootings it's terrible what's happening like almost every day someone's being shot you look at what's happened more violence in some of these Western countries I mean Australia totally lost the plot uh in recent years and you pay them a fortune for that privilege you're not getting great educa I mean some of these Western countries the education is better than others but could you not replicate that if you weren't a million dollars a year could you not take $500,000 a year pay for all your own health care privately anywhere I mean even in these places but of course they're not going to give you your half a million dollars back could you not get great Healthcare in many places in the world listen in in in Cameroon you probably couldn't you got me there but even in a place like Cambodia let's just go to like one of the the more Frontier markets in Asia forget qualm po Singapore Bangkok uh the Asian cities the ones that are kind of creeping up the rankings versus Europe uh even in Cambodia since I've been going 10 years ago the quality of healthc care is amazing when I first went like yeah I was a little bit afraid but I I'm young but okay if something happens I'm a little bit freaked out uh now I'm not freaked out and so the number of places where you have to be freaked out with bad stability bad infrastructure bad health care they're shrinking the one part of the world that just has not gone up that much is Latin America they uh have according to the economist struggled and I maybe agree with more of their rankings there although I do like uh spending some time in Latin America if you have a high income or if you have a high net worth some of these countries even have wealth taxes in Europe not many left but a few you think you could create that for yourself somewhere else and so the question is why are you following a ranking system why are you following a system of thinking that's designed for people who aren't like you this is not class Warfare this is not saying to look down on people this is to say we all do things for our own reasons almost every single client we've ever had who comes from Mexico asked about moving to Canada the they all came came during or after the Trump Administration so the US was off their list but Canada I said do you like cold weather no uh do you like high taxes no do you like a more Progressive uh education system no we're more conservative well this isn't match any of your criteria but that's become the name brand for them many different countries have their name brand many people in Central America for example the name brand is we want to go to the US they want more economic opportunities but at a certain point you cross over from hey I'm having a real hard time finding a job to pay and there's violence in my country I'm going to go to the US that's not the ringing endorsement of your country you think it is same in any country in Europe people are moving there and so you can get a lot of the stuff that they're talking about anywhere especially if you have some money and if you are successful then you have different needs one of the few areas where I think the mushy middle can work to your advantage is in terms of these livable cities lists if you're successful um even some of the places that I like uh on the list I like the smaller towns in Switzerland I think Ireland is a standout uh in Europe in terms of just um ease of dealing with the government and terms of you know tax friendliness I would take smaller towns in uh Switzerland I'd take Dublin over a lot of these places and I think that if you have a very high income you probably would as well but they are kind of in The Middle on these lists I'm not a big fan of the mushy middle but here considering the stuff they put at the top of the ranking can be replicated I think that these scores are needlessly focused on expensive Western countries and so what's interesting is that the global average Lifestyle score plummeted in 2020 my life didn't if you were living in these these best places do you know many clients we had from Canada I can't even leave the country that's how treated you I was traveling around the world I had a pretty good life 2020 2021 cuz I was Diversified had places in different countries and I just followed the progression of how the world was going at the time my livability score didn't plummet and it's in part because I wasn't relying on these places that weren't very livable I mean obviously every place went down to the rankings in 2020 Nows thing it's back but being Diversified helped me have more livability and if the same time I didn't get stuck in some country where oh my goodness I didn't plan on being here six months of the year but now I owe a fortune in taxes these things all matter now uh noad capitalist live is our annual event uh we are going to be hosting it for the second time in koal and po put me to the test that is the GL Premier Gathering of Global Citizens we've got more than three dozen speakers and experts talking about everything from the best places to live from Real World experience talking about the latest tax reduction strategy IES asset protection strategies the best second passports to get stuff we don't always necessarily talk about on YouTube or our podcast we've got a whole slew of people coming in who are Frontier markets investment experts who have real world on the ground experience if you're looking for how to invest in these places that are coming up but you wouldn't live in come to qualm poor maybe you get a medical procedure and that will certainly pay for your entire trip and for your ticket go to to one of the places that I call home that is in that mushy middle and see if you couldn't have a highly livable life there and even if you don't like it which I think you will you'll have four days with us at Nomad capitalist life my team's coming I'm speaking we've got Nigel Fise we've got the CEO of Air Asia we've got more capitalists than ever before telling you how you can thrive in a global world that's something worth seeing it and while you're doing it come and check out KL Malaysia and anywhere else in Asia that you want to and I think that you'll see the reason Asia scores are rising and the reason why I've chosen to focus the places I live as a successful person not in the top 10

Channel: Nomad Capitalist

Views: 81,198

Keywords: nomad capitalist, Livability, Nomad Capitalist, Global Citizenship, World Travel, City Rankings, Economist, Top Cities, Quality Of Life, Nomadic Lifestyle, Global Nomad, Freedom, Wealth Optimization, Expatriate Life, International Living, Digital Nomad Life, Travel Inspiration, Explore The World, Nomad Life, Kuala Lumpur Event, Nomad Capitalist Live

Id: 4-FIMxK-AkM

Length: 17min 13sec (1033 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 02 2024