And by nicer, I also take into account that you have a decent job (maybe less well-paid than in the largest city, but also not a huge downgrade). Also, things like housing affordability, safety, etc.
For example, in the Netherlands, the Randstad can be considered as one large city (it is a collection of many municipalities and 4 large cities, all with similar issues), and the Eindhoven metro area (plus Geldrop, Helmond, Veldhoven, Best etc) can be 2nd largest.
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Yes, in Poland Kraków is much better that Warszawa.
Depends massively.
If you are in the top 10% of earners then London is nicer.
If you are in the bottom 90% then Manchester is nicer.
I think that it’s pretty much the same as living in Helsinki as the second largest city Espoo is kind of a suburb of Helsinki without a developed center of its own.
No, Debrecen is a Minecraft village in a flat map. Salaries are much worse, but housing is just as expensive as in Budapest.
Well that’s a very subjective question.
I live in Berlin (so i’m biased) and Hamburg is the second largest city in Germany. In many points i have to admit it’s better than Berlin, and i really like Hamburg but overall i personally prefer living in Berlin (i wouldn’t mind living in Hamburg though). Imho quality of live in Hamburg and Berlin is pretty similar.
Housing prices are higher in Hamburg than in Berlin, despite being a considerably smaller city. But afaik salaries are also higher in Hamburg.
Edit to correct myself: apparently rent is now higher in Berlin (now 2. highest in Germany) than in Hamburg (6. place). When i researched appartments in Hamburg a few years ago, Hamburg was way more expensive than Berlin.
Plovdiv is much smaller than Sofia, but it still has much of the stuff you are looking for… Maybe job opportunities are fewer and the public transport is probably as disfunctional as everywhere in Bulgaria. What it lacks is a good connection with the North of the Country.
Birmingham is… nowhere near as nice as London, but it’s not as expensive
Ah, sensitive topic here. Kraków has traditionally had a perceived rivalry with Warsaw, as it has been a previous capital and is the second largest city.
Honestly though, speaking as a Warsaw person, Kraków is indeed a nice place to live, with mean salaries surpassing that of Warsaw lately, while property prices are lower. There’s also much more historical vibe, more landmarks, much more touristy, as the city hasn’t been wiped out during WW2 like Warsaw.
Commute times are much shorter and it’s closer to some nature attractions, like the Tatra mountains or some national parks. Warsaw surroundings are pretty dull in comparison. It’s closer to the sea or the lake region though.
Kraków has a smog and air pollution problem, however it’s gotten better lately. It’s also a major cultural center, while Warsaw is the main political/business one. Warsaw definitely has a more big city vibe in comparison.
In the eyes of stereotypical Kraków people Warsaw is just a soulless, huge city with no history and lesser culture, acting superior etc. There’s also a slight conservative/liberal political divide, with Kraków region being traditionally more conservative and Warsaw being more progressive.
To each their own.
Depends on how you look at it. Birmingham is probably more affordable than London for most, but London offers a lot more in terms of culture, jobs, and variety of things to do/see, as well as transport links to literally everywhere both in Britain and abroad. And London already has all the advantages that Birmingham has, like a diverse and young population.
Also public transport system is better.
It’s not comparable, at all. Vienna is a city of two million, more than twice as many inhabitants as all other provincial capitals combined; the metropolitan area is home to a third of the country’s whole population. Graz barely even reaches 300k inhabitants. It’s a fun little university town with a laid-back mediterranean vibe, and I guess that’s nice if that’s what you’re into and big city life stresses you out. It’s definitely the best / nicest option out of the provincial capitals.
I’m not going to get involved in any Amsterdam Rotterdam rivalry, sorry. Both have good and bad parts.
Well Cork is the real capital of Ireland. And you don’t spend as long stuck in traffic. And pints are cheaper.
The second largest city in Italy (Milan) has actually higher salaries than the largest one (Rome), while also being a little more expensive
I guess it has to do with how arbitrary the definition of where a city ends is…
Barcelona and Madrid are quite similar in size, price and a lot of other things, so I wouldn’t say so.
Yes. Hamburg is a lot nicer (and richer) than Berlin
It’s better to live in Szeged than in Budapest but Szeged is only the third.
Esch-sur-Alzette is a very different kind of city than the capital, it is way cheaper, has more working class people of Italian/Portuguese origin, while Luxembourg City is just a financial hub. I would honestly prefer to live in Esch, but not by that much.
In Portugal everything is at the same level: shitshow
It’s Split and its only advantages over Zagreb are that it’s a picturesque place next to the sea and it has a Mediterranean climate.
Brussels…
Yeah everything is better then brussels.
Brussels and Antwerp both have their advantages and disadvantages.
Brussels is about twice as big as Antwerp and it hosts some very important international institutions (EU & NATO). Antwerp on the other hand has the second largest port in Europe.
Wages are generally higher in Brussels because most head offices, government administrations and the aforementioned institutions are situated there. Antwerp does have high wages in the petrochemical sector.
Brussels is more expensive than Antwerp when it comes to real estate, but the difference is not that large.
Brussels has more crime than Antwerp, but both cities suffer equally when it comes to drug related crime.
Brussels is officially bilingual in French and Dutch, though French dominates in most instances. English is also on the rise because of the EU et al. and many more immigrant languages are spoken here. In Antwerp, only Dutch is officially used, but also here diversity is increasing quickly.
Brussels has very decent public transport, with a metro system and many tram lines. Antwerp only has tram lines and the network is not as dense. Cycling infrastructure is better in Antwerp though.
Brussels’ city centre is generally dirtier and the areas around the main train stations are especially worrisome.
I dont think this is the case in Denmark but of course it depends on what you mean by nice.
Although housing in Aarhus is certainly more affordable than in Copenhagen I would say that this corresponds nicely with how much more attractive Copenhagen is to live in. Copenhagen is the only real city in Denmark with more than four times as many citizens as Aarhus.
Safety is the same, which is to say both are so safe that it is not a concern.
There isnt much difference, except that all of our cities arent very large. So if you’re looking for amenities that need a million or more people to support it, you’ll only find it in the largest one or two.
Airports come to mind. Zurich (the largest) has a major airport with many long haul flights all over the world. Geneva (the second largest) has a significantly smaller airport. Number 3, Basel, has a short-haul only aiport. All other cities have none at all.
But as far as incomes, job opportunities etc go, it doesnt matter much. Each city has its own industries, as switzerland is very decentralised. Plus the country is really small, so you can live almost halfway across the country from a city (maybe quarter way) and still benefit from the job opportunities there, because its really just an hour away.
Zurich has finance, tech and academia. Geneva has international organisations, diplomacy, watches and also some finance. Basel has pharma. Bern has the federal government. Lausanne also has some significant academia and (nearby) Nestlé. And so on and so forth.
Cork isn’t as nice as dublin. It’s a bit cheaper and the county of Cork is amazing for tourism but we are a very centralised country and dublin is the only real cosmopolitan location
I’m Romanian and Bucharester. I’ve recently seen Cluj and is one of the most depressing, expensive and worst city from the whole universe. Zero arrogance from me, Timisoara (also in Transyvania) is magnificent. But Cluj has zero value, just sad buldings, sad people, crazy prices, no personality. Constanta, Iasi,Timisoara do have a personality. Cluj = looks like a place to commit suicide.
The question would cause heated arguments among swedes, but IMO, yes.
Gothenburg is (generally) more seen as relaxed and laid back than Stockholm.
Stockholm and Stockholmers tends to act like Stockholm is a metropolis, and everything outside it is rural hellhole with inbred smalltown mentality, while Stockholm is sooo much above that.
Gothenburg feels more like it’s a large town rather than a city, and aren’t as much acting like something it obviously isn’t.
^(Although some politicians in Gothenburg *do* also repeatedly spend a lot of money on useless crap “to put the city on the map”, like a ridiculous Ferris wheel no one wants, or things like that.)
I’ve always perceived Stockholmers to be more focused of “status” than people from Gothenburg is.
More focus on having the right clothes, a nice worktitle, right address, hanging out in the right places, mingling with the right peoples, following the latest trends, etc.
That behavior and mentality absolutely exists to some extent in *any* city, everywhere, but it’s more prevalent in Stockholm than elsewhere else in Sweden.
That said, there are of course nice and chill people in (or from) Stockholm too.
It’s just that many people with that mentality also tend to move there and gather there.
It’s almost impossible to get a sensible answer to a question like this in Ireland. Cork’s arguably nicer in some respects, particularly in terms of what’s around it in terms of access to very spectacular coastal areas, and the city itself is quite pleasant, but it’s considerably smaller than Dublin.
Cork people will tell you it’s utterly fantastic, and Dublin people will tell you the same about Dublin and they’ll both tell you the other place is a ‘kip’ and so on. So, basically you’ll just get a load of interregional rivalry painting the other city as some kind of nightmarish hellscape or a small, rundown country town, neither of which is accurate for either city.
The main point in Ireland is the country’s vastly too centralised can’t quite get its head around the idea that there are other urban areas and it’s not just “Dublin” and “Down the Country”.
Kyiv definitely has better AA defence than Kharkiv, so the choice is obvious.
Brno is way more relaxed than Prague. Brno has about 1 milion smaller population than the capital – 400k. With additional 70k universities students the city has a significant vibe of youth on the streets.
Brno is basically a village on steroids, where you can easily meet a friend when walking on the street. Also when you leave the historical center and pass the inheritance of industrial revolution, you find yourself on a real village-like neighborhood with small row houses, chapel on a little square where the rural feeling is only disturbed by trams on the main road.
Compared bro Prague Brno doesn’t luckily suffer of overturism, so the city center and all the places for leisure are occupied by locals and me as a person living in broader Brno city center can find ale the necessary shops and services within walking distance.
From economical point of view Prague has better salaries and opportunities in international companies, but rents and property prices are significantly higher too. Prague is richer I’m general, but Brno is getting closer to it compared to 15 years back, when I moved in.
Yes, Rotterdam is much nicer than Amsterdam, not sure why you’re breaking it up in areas, the Randstad is NOT one city, there are huge differences in mentality between the cities inside it.
The Corkonians have been remarkably well mannered. Well done.
No.
Not only is Bergen the rainiest city in all of Europe, but it is also full of “Bergensere”.
No, Gothenburg is not much nicer to live in. It has another vibe, it’s smaller and cheaper than Stockholm and there’s a lot of local patriotism and some rivalry.
Personally if I had to move from Stockholm it would be to Malmö: it’s *much* cheaper than stockholm and gothenburg, it’s much smaller (physically, the city is dense enough that you never need a car), and it’s really close to Denmark and Germany. So if you think Stockholm is too big and eats time and money (which I think is fair), Malmö offers something very different.
With that said I know a lot of people who love living in Gothenburg so it’s not like it sucks, but I don’t think it’s the case that people in general prefer living there.
I think so. Tartu is much more peaceful than Tallinn.
The logic for NL is super cherry-picked. Yes the Randstad is one big urban agglomeration, but so rigidly classifying it as one city to put Eindhoven at #2 is a bit silly.
I feel like you either are pushing for favorable comments of Eindhoven or for it to get shat on massively.
To answer the question as it should be Amsterdam is a hell of a lot nicer than Rotterdam. To answer it per OP twisted criteria, *as an Amsterdammer* I’d rather live in Rotterdam or hell even Almere – than Eindhoven, hope that clears it up…
İstanbul: Urban hell
Ankara: Urban hell that lacks anything that redeems Istanbul
İzmir(third city but whatever): genuinely very cool
We only have one city, Helsinki. Other places are towns or rural areas, since they are not populated enough and/or not densely populated.
https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/sustainablecities/how-do-we-define-cities-towns-and-rural-areas
Maribor has some advantages over Ljubljana such as lower housing prices and less traffic jams. Ljubljana has way better job opportunities though because Slovenia is a small and highly centralized country so basically everything important happens in Ljubljana. Both are generally nice cities to live in, safe and clean, but overall I would still choose Ljubljana over Maribor (though admittedly I’m biased because I was born in Ljubljana and have lived there for most of my life).
Oh yeah so so much nicer. If job opportunities were the same our population would double easily.
Scotland’s second-largest city is in fact the capital, Edinburgh. Housing costs are the highest in the country and it houses a lot of the national institutions, obviously. Whether it’s a much nicer place to live than Glasgow is fairly debatable. Climate tends to be drier and colder. People also, as per stereotypes.
It rains a lot in Bergen, but yes. It’s a city full of natural beauty which Oslo lacks, at least when compared to a lot of Norway.
Architecture is a little more in the eye of the beholder, as both Oslo and Bergen have beautiful old buildings alongside more modern or postmodern ones. Parts of Oslo look brutalist and a little run down, so do parts of Bergen.
Oslo has more of everything human, museums, shopping centres, concert arenas etc., but Bergen wants for nothing.
We can debate how unsafe Oslo really is, but perception is that Bergen is safer.
I mean Helsinki and Espoo are literally glued to eachother along with Vantaa and Kauniainen, so they’re fairly equal in my eyes
Absolutely not. Marseille is….. not very welcoming, and that’s an understatement. Granted, the climate is much nicer than in Paris, but Marseille has an awful reputation of being unsafe, dirty, and overall not a very nice city. Salaries are lower than in Paris, and the city is poorer overall (Marseille is close to smaller wealthy cities such as Nice or Cannes).
Edinburgh? Hell yeah. Even with the housing crisis it’s superior in most respects to Glasgow.