Friday Jan 8, 2010

New Zealand is the fifth-best country to live in, according to an index run by magazine International Living.

That's up four places from ninth last year, when the magazine described the country as an Antipodean outpost, "stunning" but with "drawbacks" such as being 12 hours from the United States and the difficulty with immigrating here.

The American index is pitched at those who are retiring or want to migrate. It ranks 194 countries which offer the best quality of life, considering cost of living, culture and leisure, economy, environment, freedom, health, infrastructure, safety and risk, and climate.

This year, the survey raved about "pristine landscapes", the Auckland waterfront and Southern Alps - calling Godzone the type of place younger migrants could relocate to and raise a family. Positive, too, it said, are rebounding property prices.

The magazine then cut and pasted from Immigration New Zealand's website other reasons why the country deserves to be in the top 10.

"In many ways it's not what we have that's important to our quality of life - it's what we don't have. We don't have high crime rates, our police don't carry guns and instances of corruption are virtually unheard of. We don't have abject poverty or hunger and we don't have the pollution, congestion, health issues and cramped city living that we see elsewhere."

Australia improved from fifth overall in 2009 to second, on the back of the way its economy weathered the global financial crisis.

Despite "it's tiresome bureaucracy and high taxes", France, for the fifth year running, was ranked first. Outweighing those factors were the world's best health-care system.
Staff writers also waxed lyrical about the difficulties of measuring a country's "heart and soul".

"But it's impossible to enumerate the joy of lingering for hours over dinner and a bottle of red wine in a Parisian brasserie. Or strolling beside the Seine on a spring morning, poking through the book vendors' wares. Or buying buttery croissants in bohemian Montmartre...

TOP TEN

1. France
2. Australia
3. Switzerland
4. Germany
5. New Zealand
6. Luxembourg
7. United States
8. Belgium
9. Canada
10. Italy

DON'T GET A LOOK IN:

The sinking:

• 123. Tuvalu
• 107. Kiribati

At war, insurgencies:

• 190. Afghanistan
• 170. Iraq
• 178. Pakistan

Dead last:

• Somalia

(Source  NZ Herald Yvonne Tahana)