If you could live anywhere…

Where’s the best place to live? The answers vary, but every year Australian news sources pay attention to survey results and generally report that Sydney and Melbourne get high ratings among the world’s cities.

This year, Sydney was named “world’s best city” by a group called Anhold City Brands Index, just topping London, Paris, Rome, New York, and, in sixth place, Melbourne.

While researching my book on Australia last year, I found a report from a British firm called the Economic Intelligence Unit that put Melbourne at the top of its list of “most livable cities,” behind only Vancouver and Vienna.

That group put Perth, Adelaide, and Sydney in the top 10 and Brisbane at 11th.

This year’s report from a company that advises on pay levels for expatriates puts Australian cities high in its list of 215 cities, but not at the top.

Mercer’s Worldwide Quality of Living Survey for 2008 has Sydney at 9th, Melbourne at 17th, Perth at 21st, Adelaide at 29th, and Brisbane at 34th.

Considering political and economic stability, human rights and personal freedoms, public transportation and traffic problems, climate, pollution, crime rates, health standards, costs of consumer staples and other matters, Mercer puts Zurich at the top, with Vienna and Geneva tied for second.

In the Mercer results Paris is 32nd, San Francisco is 29th, and Honolulu is 28th, all slightly ahead of Brisbane, but who could care? The high temperature on this sunny winter day in Brrrrisbane is going to approach 80 degrees Fahrenheit.

The degree of interest shown here in the annual announcements of city rankings must have something to do with the fact that most of Australia’s major cities always show up near the top.

Rivalries such as the one between the two largest Aussie cities, Sydney and Melbourne, also spur interest. But there’s a wider rivalry in which Australia is coming in second this year — the one with New Zealand.

Auckland tops Sydney at 5th and Wellington is way ahead of Melbourne at 12th.

So why, then, has New Zealand just surpassed England as the largest source of immigrants to Australia?

Wait… I think I know what the average Australian would say: No worries.