This ranking does explain a lot of my gut feel on this debate though.  Our experience in Europe was London for 6+ years.  Horribly expensive with a rotten climate (and we were there for the property bust so our housing was fairly cheap compared to now).  I'm a decade out of date as well.  The highest American city is LA.  I'll make an assumption that SF (where we left for London) would be roughly the same on purchasing power.  So my bias is based on leaving a highly ranked, highly livable city with a good climate for one without those attractions.

Given my personal failings with languages, most of the rest really aren't options not to mention that getting residency might be difficult for any American just showing up and asking to be let in (since like a complete fuckwit I gave up UK perm residency to simplify paperwork...)

you are the media you consume.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brisbane

This photo I took from Q 1 the highest building on Gold Coast and they say it's world's tallest residential building .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q1_%28building%29

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind...Albert Einstein

In collegge, many years ago, I was a geography major.  My senior project was a historical geography of Paris.  We were in a "Radical" Geography class which put a great deal of emphasis on economic issues and gave at least a nod to the Marxist analysis.

The title of my project was taken from the old WWI doughboy song, "How Ya Gonna Keep Em Down On The Farm After They've Seen Paree?"

The only city that I envy people who live there.  I like my little spot in the Sonoma Hills bordering Napa County, and its nice to be close to San Francisco, but...

"I said, 'Wait a minute, Chester, You know I'm a peaceful man...'" Robbie Robertson

I know someone who knows someone...

Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides

As far as I'm concerned (family with 3 kids), my job is a LOT better paid in Paris than what I'd get in London, if you take into account rent (for an equivalent place in an equivalent neighborhood), schools and taxes. The pay is higher in absolute terms in London, but lower in practice for families. If you want to live in London, you have to live really, really far from the center unless you have really, really high income (i.e. the kind where you get hundred of thousands or more in bonuses or own your own company)

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

I would not know how to tell a difference between a nucelar and a H bomb.. je e jeje

A pleasure

I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude

the first few days my batteries are filled with good country juice, and nothing boters me, it's all good and fascinating...

then after a few days it's like the protective sheath melts away ubder the constant abrasion of noise and pollution, not to mention how affected people tend to be...all image.

it's fun to see what's 'cool' then suddenly you get it that it's life and death to these folks, their identity is validated only in this way, narcissism.

oi loiks it funky...and real.

the other thing about cities is how exhausting it is even to travel to see a good show or whatever, that i'm already flagging before i get there, whereas in the country i have the energy to walk for miles...

highly tweaked nervous system i guess, enervation leads to chronic fatigue, lassitude and eventual exhaustion from depleted ki.

time to get back to the fresh air before depression kicks in...

i'll maybe try city life again once the combustion engine and the smoggy factories ahve given way to something better...

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty

Would you elaborate on that?  Is it economic, political?  The rental market in big cities here is so limited and expensive that requires local legislation to open it up, so I have a hard time thinking of good reasons.

Our knowledge has surpassed our wisdom. -Charu Saxena.

I agree it is rather good, though I think there is a main deficiency: the subway network is underdeveloped (but that's no wonder given the city finances).

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

LA is horribly, horribly spread out.  In properly serviced middle-class areas it would be theoretically possible to do basic grocery shopping by bicycle, as there is a good density of supermarkets (there are almost no non-supermarket food stores of note in most of the greater Southern California region).  But the package sizing is such that it's really inconvenient to carry the stuff home, because the assumption has been for the past forty years or so that EVERYONE has a car, and EVERYONE does their shopping by car.  Again, it can be done, and many people do it -- but it's hard, and one is constantly made aware of how much harder everything is without a car.

Of course, you are right that gas prices are cheaper and ownership and regulation costs are lower in the US - but in many places, I wonder how much this is balanced out by the fact by structurally-mandated increases in driving time.  I suppose it's a good question.

In LA, there are patches of rent-controlled units in some places, like Santa Monica, but for the most part the entire region is an open market.  For houses, there are usually no protections for renters at all.  My parents were forced to move on short notice three times, when our landlord decided to sell the property to new owners who intended to live there.  There are also all the subsidies the government offers to homeowners, in the form of tax breaks and whatnot for interest payments.  I don't know enough about the issue to say for sure, but I cannot help but think that structural differences make a simple dollar comparison across countries very, very complicated.