Defining the term “quality of life” is not as easy a task as it would seem at first glance. In fact, what constitutes a good quality of life has occupied philosophers since Plato and Aristotle, and countless definitions of a good quality of life have been proposed without reaching a consensus.
Nevertheless, it seems possible to find some elements where most scholars agree. First of all, as “quality of life” is used to evaluate the overall well being of individuals and societies, it should not be confused with the concept of “standard of living” or income per capita. Although most studies on the quality of life indeed do take into account indicators of economic success such as income per capita, wealth and employment, they also go beyond those measures to include the environment, physical and mental health, education, leisure time, infrastructure and safety. Also often included are concepts such as freedom, human rights, human flourishing, social belonging and happiness.
There have been numerous attempts to construct non-monetary indexes of social and economic well being by combining a variety of different factors that are thought to influence quality of life. The main problem in these measures is selection bias and arbitrariness both in the factors that are chosen to assess quality of life and in assigning weights to different indicators to come up with a single synthetic measure. The very fact that quality of life is related to many intangible components makes it difficult to measure. Even so, in past decades many studies and indexes have been developed.
Some indexes focus on simple, subjective life-satisfaction surveys, while others try to de-emphasize as much as possible the subjective measures of quality of life on the individual level and focus more on “objective” measures. And still other indexes put together several subjective and objective indicators to determine the “livability” of cities, regions or countries.
The economic well being of a country has traditionally been viewed through the lens of the gross domestic product (GDP). However, there is a growing understanding that purely economic data does not necessarily give a true picture of the health of a country – even its economic health. Indeed, in the United States, the “State of the USA” project is working toward a “Key National Indicator System” that would develop measures of the economic health of the country that go beyond looking at purely economic data, including - among its possibly several hundred data points - indicators on education, energy, the environment, crime and justice, safety and security, housing, governance, infrastructure, civic and cultural life and demographics. In addition, a commission, headed by Professors Joseph E. Stiglitz, Amartya Sen and Jean-Paul Fitoussi, was established by president Nicolas Sarkozy of France to consider alternatives to gross domestic product (GDP) that would take into account measures of the health of a country that look deeper than the well-established indicator’s purely economic measures.
One of the most widely known studies of quality of living that compares the “livability” of cities around the world is released each year by Mercer. The composite index ranks 221 cities worldwide, taking into account 39 factors in 10 categories. Mercer evaluates local living conditions in 420 cities, using the data to rank 221 cities worldwide. Living conditions are analyzed according to 39 factors, grouped in 10 categories: • Political and social environment (political stability, crime, law enforcement, etc.)
• Economic environment (currency exchange regulations, banking services)
• Socio-cultural environment (censorship, limitations on personal freedom, etc.)
• Medical and health considerations (medical services and supplies, infectious diseases, sewage, waste disposal, air pollution, etc.)
• Schools and education (availability and standards of schools)
• Public services and transportation (electricity, water, public transport, traffic congestion, etc.)
• Recreation (restaurants, theaters, cinemas, sports and leisure, etc.)
• Consumer goods (availability of food/daily consumption items, cars, etc.)
• Housing (housing, household appliances, furniture, maintenance services, etc.)
• Natural environment (climate, record of natural disasters) The quality of living rankings are based on a point-scoring index; cities are ranked against New York as the base city with an index score of 100.
In the most recent survey, using data collected between September and November 2009, Europe remains at the top of the list, as it was in the 2009 survey, with the top three cities in the world remaining unchanged: Vienna, Zurich and Geneva. Four other European cities make it into the top 10: Dusseldorf, Frankfurt and Munich in Germany, and Bern in Switzerland. The lowest-ranking Western European cities are Leipzig, Germany, (64) and Athens, Greece, (75). In Eastern Europe, the highest-ranking city is Prague in the Czech Republic at 70, Budapest, Hungary, at 73 and Ljubljana, Slovenia, at 77. The lowest-ranked city in Eastern Europe is Tbilisi in Georgia, which ranked close to the bottom, at 217.
The top cities in North America are all in Canada, with Vancouver retaining its number 4 spot (tied with Auckland, New Zealand), followed by Ottawa (14), Toronto (16), Montreal (21) and Calgary (28). The top U.S. city, Honolulu, comes in at number 31, followed by San Francisco (32) and Boston (37). Chicago and Washington are tied at 45, and New York City is ranked 49. The lowest-ranked city in North America is Atlanta, Georgia (69), in the United States.  Sources
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