The best cities to live in for quality of life, salary and rent

From crime rates to the cost of living, there’s a lot of factors at play when ranking the best places to live. While you may feel confident there’s nowhere quite like your home, new data has shed light on the top cities to live in.

When it comes to quality of life there is one clear winner, according to Deutsche Bank’s research institute, and it may not be what you think – hint: it isn’t New York, Los Angeles, or London.

To work out what the best cities in the world are, Deutsche Bank focused on the 69 cities that matter most to global financial markets and ranked them by over 20 different criteria including the cost of living, average rent, safety, healthcare, and even the cost of going on a cheap date.

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American cities have become much more expensive lately, compared to ten years ago when they were consistently a bit of a bargain relative to their peers.

Meanwhile, cities in India remain cheap when compared to their international peers, despite the country being on track to become the world’s third-largest economy by the end of the decade.

So what is the best city in the world, and does your home make it on the list?

The best city in the world for quality of life

The best city in the world for maximising your quality of life is Luxembourg.

The city ranks highly in terms of safety, healthcare, cost of living, property prices as a proportion of incomes, commute times, pollution and climate, and the purchasing power of your money.

Luxembourg is only home to around 680,000 people, making it quite small when compared to the huge metropolises of New York (8.5 million), London (9.8 million), and Tokyo (14.2 million).

Meanwhile, the second-best city in the world for quality of life is Copenhagen in Denmark, followed closely by Amsterdam in the Netherlands.

A list of the ten best cities in the world for quality of life can be found below.

Source: Deutsche Bank Research Institute, 24 June. Some columns have been omitted for brevity.

Some notable cities that didn’t make it into the top ten include New York and London, which both fared badly in the quality of life index, both ranking 50th out of 69.

The best city in the world for monthly salaries

If holistic quality of life measurements don’t convince you, then ranking the best cities in the world in terms of monthly salary after tax may be able to persuade you more.

Perhaps unsurprisingly considering the size of its banking sector and its low taxes, the best city in the world for monthly salaries after tax is Geneva in Switzerland where the average worker nets $7,984 (currently £5,863) every month.

The second-best city is Zurich, also in Switzerland, where the average worker will take home the slightly lower figure of $7,788 (£5,719) a month.

San Francisco in the United States takes third place. Here, the average take home pay is $7,092 (£5,207), 138% higher than the average in New York City.

A full list of cities ranked by how much money average workers will take home at the end of the month in dollars is found below.

Source: Deutsche Bank Research Institute, 24 June

The best cities in the world for disposable income

While high salaries after tax may look good on paper, they can quickly diminish in real terms when you consider that some of the cities where people earn the most have sky-high rents.

When looking at the amount of disposable income that a two-person household who live in a three-bedroom apartment will have after rent, Geneva, Zurich, San Francisco, and Luxembourg remain in the top four.

However, many of America’s cities fall down the list due to high costs of rent. New York City drops to 41st place as the average two-person household is left with just $1,868 (£1,371) after rent.

London doesn’t fare that well either. A two-person household living in the UK capital are, on average, left with just $2,389 (£1,754) a month after rent, ranking 37th overall.

A full list of the ten best cities for disposable income can be found below.

Source: Deutsche Bank Research Institute, 24 June

The cheapest cities to rent an apartment

The cost of rent varies widely across the world, and there are some cities where you can pay as little as 5% of what you would pay if you lived in New York.

The cheapest city to rent in is Cairo, Egypt, where it costs just $412 (£302) a month for a three-bedroom apartment in the city centre.

Meanwhile, the second and third cheapest cities to rent in the world are Delhi, India where a similar flat will cost $588 (£431) a month, and Bogota, Colombia where it costs $815 (£598) a month.

A list of the cheapest cities to rent in can be found below.

Source: Deutsche Bank Research Institute, 24 June

The soaring cost of renting in New York is well-documented, with the city being the most expensive in the world to rent in by a sizable margin.

The monthly rent for a three-bedroom apartment in the city centre will set you back a staggering $8,388 (£6,159) – an increase of 70% over the last 13 years.

The second most expensive city to rent in the world is Singapore, where it costs $6,216 (£4,564) a month for a three-bedroom apartment in the city centre, while the third most expensive city is Boston at $6,091 (£4,472) a month.

Just below Boston is London, where the cost of renting a three-bedroom apartment in the centre costs $5,560 (£4,082), up by 41% in the last five years.

A list of the most expensive cities to rent in can be found below.

Source: Deutsche Bank Research Institute, 24 June

The cheapest cities to buy an apartment

Finding the money to buy a property can be difficult in certain cities, as some have a severe shortage in housing, meaning the price of a home is sky-high.

However, affording a place to live can be much easier in other cities.

For example, an apartment in the city centre of Cairo, Egypt only costs an average of $825 (£605) per square meter, making it the cheapest city to buy an apartment in the world.

Cairo is closely followed by Johannesburg, South Africa where an apartment in the city centre costs $1,013 (£743) per square meter, and Bogota, Colombia where it costs $1,781 (£1,307) per square meter.

A full list of the cheapest cities to buy an apartment can be found below.

Source: Deutsche Bank Research Institute, 24 June

On the other end of the scale, the most expensive city in the world to buy an apartment in the city centre is Hong Kong, China where you will have to spend an eye-watering $25,946 (£19,051) per square meter.

This is closely followed by Zurich, Switzerland ($23,938 or £17,576) and Singapore ($22,955 or £16,855).

London also fares quite badly for affordability in the city centre, where a flat costs around $20,953 (£15,387) per square meter. New York’s prices are similarly high, costing around $18,532 (£13,607) per square meter.

A list of the ten most expensive cities in the world can be found below.

Source: Deutsche Bank Research Institute, 24 June