Pls believe me , there is REALLY no better place to live ( and retire ) ….. then my HOME-COUNTRY ………. A U S T R I A !

This year we started a Twitter account http://twitter.com/MercerQOL dedicated to the latest quality of living results. They go live the week of May 24 2010. Become part of the conversation. Thank you

have a good day for each and every one
know thai self
try to understand each other
love people

Evidence this recent article that talks about a major livability component in the top cities that is not measured by the Mercer survey. There are several European cities in the top 10 that would never survive my “insularity” index.

You make a great point, but I think I may have given the impression that I was criticizing expats in general when I was actually trying to take aim at the Mercer ratings and the way they judge quality of life. I was trying to explain that the Mercer ratings encourage a way of judging place based on corporate, capitalist criteria, and based on a vision of quality of life that is very much in keeping with this sort of corporate ethic. They base all of the ratings off of New York – a major center of U.S consumer culture.

I see the point of the Mercer ratings, and I understand that they target a particular audience, but I think that the kind of goals they represent – livable cities which all conform to this greater corporate vision of quality life – are somewhat sad and boring.

As for expat culture– I definitely didn’t do a good enough job of clarifying that I don’t think all expats, or all expats that live in these cities, or all expats that follow the Mercer ratings are “corporatized automatons.” I’m an expat and many of my closest friends are expats, so that’d be hypocritical right from the start. When I said “an expat culture that demands imported French wines…” etc, I didn’t mean the expat culture overall, but rather a particular segment of that culture that searches to implant whatever definition of home they have on the place they’ve moved.

And while I see your point that many expats are seeking out community, I think there are just as many expats who seek to create little bubbles in the places they live, shopping in foreign grocery stores, going out to restaurants with familiar food with other foreigners, etc. I’m not sure these people are fearful of being overseas, nor do I think they’re looking for a local community. I’ve seen this in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico–the most spectacular example of expats living in gated communities totally isolated from the locals and shopping at foreign supermarkets. It’s there in China, too– there is a really pronounced expat neighborhood and there are plenty of people that never leave it and spend their time complaining about these Chinese realities that seem to creep into their expat world (poverty, people sleeping in the streets, crime, different ways of talking/negotiating, spitting, etc.) Don’t get me wrong– I’m not against complaining in a particular place (see my comments on this article: http://thetravelersnotebook.com/how-to/how-to-avoid-being-an-ugly-american-tourist/) but I think shutting oneself off from a place and expecting it to conform to these sort of internationalized standards of “quality of life” is rather depressing.

Thanks for keeping me on my toes, Eva!