>>but if you can't afford the housing, then what difference does it make what kind of recreation and public transportation they have?

Actually I agree with you: even the nicest cities need cleaners and other low-wage workers. Certainly the English-speaking cities grapple with the need for affordable housing while European cities often have such good public transport or are so compact that workers can get to and from reasonably-priced homes more easily.

IMHO you have another good point: the Mercer study looks at desirability for expats and others coming in, who probably do have more $ than Joe Stay-at-Home. There may be an inbuilt bias that you need to have ready $ to benefit from these comparisons while the poor, as always, have little concept of exiting the village into which they are born.

If you want a laugh, find the recent Deutsche Bank ratings that called Wellington, NZ the top city in the world. We locals find it funny that this comparison praises Wellington's temperate climate when Wellington is notorious for ferocious wind much of the year, creating a great spectacle when aircraft try to land- e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z9ts9qbJhM This sort of strangeness does undermine the concept of city ratings by distant observers.

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