Among the best cities in the world

There’s a perceived emptiness about the UN World’s Happiest Report, which in March once again included Denmark in its top five, according to many of its critics.

Too much of it, they contend, is based on how happy the survey participants feel, but not enough about what their communities do to meet their expectations.

But a new report from the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), which ranks Copenhagen as the world’s fifth best city where people are happy to live (down one place from the last report in 2021), cannot be accused of being lightweight.

In total, ‘Cities of Choice: Are People Happy Where They Live?’ asked 50,000 people in 81 cities questions about 150 economic, social and political metrics and indicators. It seeks to provide “important insights into the factors that drive people’s choices about where to live”.

Not only does it rank Copenhagen as one of the best cities to live in the world, but it paints an optimistic view of its future, portraying it as a dynamic capital with few flaws – particularly when compared to other western European metropolises.

Top Five Contender

Spread across five main categories – Economic Opportunities, Quality of Life, Social Capital, Interactions with Authorities, and Speed of Change – and 26 sub-dimensions, it leaves nothing untouched.

If you love Copenhagen because you’re an avid cyclist, or in love with Dogme 95 films, or a die-hard fan of the side that lit up the 1986 World Cup, it will all be somehow calibrated into the final score.

And the Danish capital isn’t just among the top five cities, it’s the very best place to live if the thought of living in a metropolis of Tokyo proportions, or even European standards, is daunting.

In the category of ‘Middleweight Cities’, it heads a top five followed by Vienna, Amsterdam, Warsaw and Stockholm.

Only world-leading pair London and New York in the ‘Megacenter’ division (ahead of Shanghai, Beijing and Los Angeles among cities with a 10 million+ population) and ‘Cruiser Weight’ pairing Washington DC and Singapore (ahead of San Francisco, Guangzhou and Madrid among cities with a population of 3-10 million) could surpass Copenhagen’s score.

Consistent Copenhagen

It is particularly in the Quality of Life and Social Capital categories that Copenhagen shines, ranking in the top 20 percent for each.

Indeed, Interactions with Authorities is the only category in which it doesn’t make the top 40 percent.

As far as the smaller metrics are