The world's greatest city?

Paris should be lime this: Architecture:10. Arts & Culture :10 Buzz:9 Food & Drink: 9 Quality of Life : 8 World Status: 8. Total = 56. ....... Therefore, the winner should be officially PARIS

Like others, I don't understand Time Out's logic when excluding the uglier parts of NYC but not those of London in their comparison. The explanation in the comments doesn't explain why they felt it was fine to make the exception for NYC but not London. I think London and NYC are a draw and which you prefer will depend more on your interests and personality. For example, though often listed as a negative for London, I find the "maze-like" design of London streets more appealing than the bland grid-style found throughout New York. London is also more arguably international at the moment, where as the US' awful and confusing immigration and visa policies have really kept people away, even more so now the economy is bad. From London you can travel easily throughout Europe, from NYC you can visit...Boston, D.C., Toronto, and Montreal.

@Timeout ... Have you been to London recently? I'm an Architect, thus I know what i'm talking about when I talk about Architecture. Just because New York's skyline is tall does not make it modern. London's skyline has evolved beautifully over the past decade and a half. It has modern Architecture which surpasses NY's, it doesn't just have 'neo-classical' architecture. You can skirt around it however you want but at the end of the day, you have included all of London's suburbs but not NY's. Why people like you are allowed to create these lists with no real expertise is beyond me.

New York is a very great city. I can only imagine London and Paris are equally great. I think Chicago should be nowhere remotely near this list. Chicago has some decent food, but quality of life is certainly not higher than NYC. It has dramatically lower standards. The culture great in some areas, and just confused everywhere else. The wave of anti-intellectualism and mediocrity has been stifling the city since 2005. It has space, but terrible transportation. It's more laid back but the women are uptight. Ambition seems against the law and there is a weird agrarian, puritanical uptight demeanor there. not my kind of town, but everyone sees different things in a city.

Let's wash! WASH ME.

lol this is ridiculous, New York Gets a 9 and London a 7 for architecture. New York beats Paris in art and culture (lol). Tokyo with a 4 in quality of life?? It has better weqther, less pollution, much lower crime rate, better infrastructure, cleaner streets, less unemployment, less income inequality, higher life expectancy, and better health care than New York. This list is garbage

1. New York, USA

Architecture: 8
Arts & culture: 7
Buzz: 8
Food & drink: 5
Quality of life: 2
World status: 9
Total/60: 39

HATERS GONNA HATE. New York City is fantastic. If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere!

I feel pretty strongly that weather should have as much clout as any of these other factors, but it's not accounted for at all!

I know that all the rankings aren't perfect. As for the architecture I'd give them both a 9, it depends how you look at it, I mean London as historic buildings with a fare share of modern ones (the ghurkin, for example). One thing that is definitely not right is the food in New York. I admit there are some very good restaurants but some of the food you wouldn't want to know what's happened to it. If it was up to me I'd have London and New York equal, Paris and then Hong Kong.

Im sorry but these scorings are massively flawed. I have lived in London and NYC, and the architecture in London is much greater than NYC's concrete mess. 2nd, It is incredibly unfair to include all of London's rough areas, and not NYC's. You need to either include both, or not include both. What a disappointing and untruthful outcome, London is far greater than NYC, even Paris is greater than NYC.

If you look at everything New Yorkers rate so highly about their city - be it the food, architecture, retail, restaurants, commerce, customer service or just 'the buzz' - then the rule is easily discernible. If it's big, loud and confrontational without an ounce of subtlety, nuance or refinement, then they like it. Very simple.

what happened to Hong Kong?

worlds greatest cit is lomdon

To the Time Out Editors who posted earlier:

I am an American living in New York. I previously lived in London for 5 years and I still visit frequently.

By saying that when people think of New York they really mean Manhattan (below 96th street no less!), but when people think of London, they include Croydon and Dalston and so on, you are clearly demonstrating that this study was conducted from an English perspective.

Just as any Englishman talking about New York is really referring to Manhattan, any person from OUTSIDE the UK talking about London is really just referring to the West End, the City, Westminster, and other VERY central locations. Croydon etc. are the London equivalents of, oh, say, 110th St. Very close to the centre of the city, but certainly not what comes to mind first. Either include AT LEAST all of Manhattan, if not parts of Brooklyn and Queens as well, in your ratings, or get rid of the areas of London you included that only an Englishman would think of when discussing London.

Personally, based on these areas, I would give them both an 8. It´s apples and oranges really.

how about Rome? Arts&Culture got a 7...and NY's 10 ! Food&Drink 6!!! are you kiddin me?
There MUST be a mistake.. although i love new york, i think this can't be considered a valid criterion of valutation

how about Rome? Arts&Culture got a 7...and NY's 10 ! Food&Drink 6!!! are you kiddin me?
There MUST be a mistake.. although i love new york, i think this can't be considered a valid criterion of valutation

Surely Las Vegas, Nevada must be somewhere in the top twenty most famous cities. It's featured in many movies and millions visit every year.

@ Marcel. Cages? Really? I take it your not from NYC. What about Central Park, Van Cortland Park, Prospect Park, I could name hundreds. NYC. NYC is far from small. The New York CIty Metropolitan area is actually twice the size of Londons.

I dont agree with this poll. How is Croydon included in the London poll and only Manhatton is used for NYC. Even then I am not sure what all the fuss is about. The place crowded and small. I must have missed the point. I dont see what quality of life you get in New York either. There is no where to play sport except in cages.

I've just come back from New York and agree that it truely has a buzz like no where else. Not sure about the architecture and food and drink however. The food is about as bad as it could be and wouldn't describe it as a beautiful place. I think London is a little hard done by

Visited the top 3 .....and some of the others .
For sheer beauty , cleanliness , romance ....it has to be Paris

New york was great ....but could nt live there

London ....the place is just buzzing ....whereas Paris is ornate and organised and well kept .....London is busier ,more bohemian ....the centre of the universe ( being English iam biased )

Your survey wasn't really valid as you left out a lot of key cities in every continent, such as Montreal, Fez, Stockholm, Geneva, Bern, Alexandria, etc etc. Also, the question on Tel Aviv also had the name of an Australian city in it. For the survey to be valid, you need to be much more inclusive. Also, you left out part of the top 10 list; more proofreading needed. As all such opinions are subjective anyway, these improvements are necessary.

I live in London and totally love it, and I have been to nearly all the other top 10 cities and pretty much agree with your rankings, except for Rome. Totally overrated. I don't understand why people like it. London looks after its historic places far better. The Colosseum is the biggest let down, I found Vietnam's tourist attractions run better. Rome's public transport is terrible, even compared to Sydney.
How about replace Rome with Hong Kong..

I love London and New York. But the comment by the Time Out editor on 23 February is utter nonsense. New York doesn't include the Bronx, but London includes Croydon?! That makes no sense whatsoever. Sort it out, Time Out.

I've been to both London and New York, they are both absolutely fantastic. I love London for its class and was surprised that it lost out to NYC in terms of architecture. I agree with all the other rankings however, NYC is something special and it is quite young in comparison to London. In terms of size and sheer energy, New York has the edge.

Judging New York from a distance it for sure deserves its architecture ranking, but being on the ground in Manhattan, a sky scraper is just a sky scraper, boring, big and blocking the view and the fresh air from circulating in the unbearably hot New York summers. London/Paris/Melbourne/San Francisco even LA are better for architecture generally then NYC and I live here.

Standard Of Living is difficult to judge because the scales of different cities, bigger cities always fall down because of pollution and congestion, but I would far prefer to live in exciting cities like London/New York than boring Vancouver which always seems to win the 'best standard of living' award. Try staying happy in the constant rain!

What´s World status?, Why Barcelona=4 and Estambul=7 ?, Why Paris<Londres?...

wtf is this. nyc quaility of life is 6 and paris and berlin is 7, the same rank as chicago (seriously WTF). paris is ranked as having the #1 quality of life and berlin #2.
ALSO....where is amsterdam.

Tokyo is the greatest city in the world.
It is great for rich and poor because it has very low crime rates, air pollution is low, and its public areas are both clean and safe for everyone.

The education system has many detractors but the city's literacy rate is almost 100%, and this is the basic foundation of Tokyo's world renowned service. Your bellcap, waitress, gas station attendant and store clerk are all literate and able to do many basic things like making change without a calculator. And you don't have to tip for this service. Like the city's safety, good service is free. Examples of service levels include specifying when you want the delivery truck to bring your package. Repairmen will be prompt and you can usually see them outside waiting until the time you specified for them to be there. How does that sound for quality of life?

Tokyo's transportation system is excellent and it continues to improve. There are more railroads and train stations in Tokyo than any other city. There is more than a million kilometers of road in Tokyo, with almost no potholes. It is the largest metropolis in the world with almost 36 million people. It is therefore a fact that more people have determined that Tokyo is the city of choice more than anywhere else. Tokyo is so big that you would need to combine Sao Paolo and New York to make a bigger city than Tokyo.

Interestingly, Tokyo is quite free. You can smoke and chew gum and litter and you can have a fireplace in your house and barbecue or burn trash, and people do so. But as a resident, you pick up in front of your house or apartment, you care about your neighborhood and you take care of your personal appearance.

Tokyo's appearance is hard to take in. It takes years to develop a picture of it because while the metropolis is vast, much of its space is pretty full. Many visitors are exhausted just by looking at it from the bus. Some of the most beautiful modern buildings are here. And down there on the bottom of the list is the greatest number of Michelin starred restaurants for any city in the world. It helps that those restaurants have access to the best ingredients imported from around the world.

I know that Mercer and some other surveys like to point to Vancouver or some small city in New Zealand as the most livable city in the world. Very nice little cities with a white, English-speaking population to make a white expat feel at home. But if those cities are so great, how about if a couple of million of us decide to go and live there? A couple of million want to come to Tokyo? Make my day. There's plenty of room and we probably will not even notice the change. I love London, I like NY and San Francisco. Paris is a great city for its culture. But none of them come close on any measure of quality to Tokyo, a city trying to meet the standards of the pickiest most pampered customers on Earth.

Oh, so it would be "unfair" for the Bronx to bring New York's ranking down, but entirely fair for Hackney and Croydon to do so for London? If by "unfair" you mean "impossible to skew the numbers adequately to honour our favourite city" then I agree completely.

Besides, when people say "London", they really mean Croydon, Hackney and Elephant & Castle, etc., etc. You shouldn't let Westminster and the West End unfairly push the numbers above the average Croydon-bound tourist expects.

london architecture 7 and new york 9. Surely the other way round. I suppose it depends how you view it. NY is tall and impressive, London has beautiful / historic architecture which dates back many hundreds of years. Istanbul has a much lower standard of living than 6 - 6 is about right for london / NY.

There seems to be a lot of confusion as to why London was awarded with 7 points in Architecture compared to New York's 9. To explain this discrepancy, you need to know how we defined the cities. For New York, we only took Manhattan below 96th St in consideration. We also did not include the other boroughs especially the Bronx because it would be unfair for this ugly district to bring New York's ranking down. Besides, when people say "New York", they really mean Manhattan. On the other hand, when assessing London's architecture, we had to include areas like Elephant & Castle, Hackney, Poplar, Dalston, and even Croydon into consideration. In addition to this, our magazine is about contemporary lifestyle so we put modern architecture above all else. Therefore, we feel that New York's modern architecture trumps that of London's neo-classical and neo-gothic architecture. If you feel we did a disservice, please don't hesitate to contact us. Thank you.

new york is so overated its ok if you like mcdonalds and burgur king,its not a patch on cities like london or paris,only americans could think that,london and paris are magnificent cities,new york is a joke.

This is not about the "nicest place to live" or where you'll be the most pleasant. It is about the GREATEST city. New York architecture changed the entire world five times over, most european cities have not distinguished themselves in this way since Medieval times.

Barca is beautiful and some places like Krakow and Liverpool have great architecture.

Quality of life in istanbul is a 6? Have you ever been there? I would give it a 3 at best!

What a ludicrous poll. New York's architecture gets a 9 and London gets a 7? Talk about a biased opinion. As someone else said, if you think New York's architecture is equal to that of Rome or better than London, you could only be an American magazine peddling it.
<a href="http://www.techedgency.com">web design</a>

It always seems the most famous cities get all the credit, when in fact, some of the world's BEST cities have little to do with size or regional dominance. These lists always have more or less the same results. In my opinion, the more livable, beautiful and cultural cities like Amsterdam, San Francisco and Prague deserve a higher ranking. The intrinsic problem with surveys like this is that you can only rate places you're visited (or lived) - and of course the big name destinations will always have a larger pool of visitors, and therefore, voters.

New York's architecture is absolutely on-par with any of the great European cities. Of course, fanatically arrogant Euros will NEVER be able to admit this fact. Sore losers.

What a ludicrous poll. New York's architecture gets a 9 and London gets a 7? Talk about a biased opinion. As someone else said, if you think New York's architecture is equal to that of Rome or better than London, you could only be an American magazine peddling it.

Right. New York sky scrapers are way better than European buildings. Next you'll be saying that NY buildings are better than anything in Rome. What a load of b/s.