>I spent 8 years living in Vienna followed by 10 years in Berlin (a bit further below in the rating) and I don't feel my quality of life is at all lower here (I much prefer living in Berlin)Obviously. People and individuals value completely different things for their personal quality of life than whatever variables, weights and values The Economist uses to calculate their scores.
Their formula constantly puts Vienna at the top, a city which also comes out at the top of the least friendly cities for expats surveys, which is an important metric for many expats.
I don't give a damn how livable a city is on paper in some random statistic, and especially if the computed livability is disproportionately biased towards the locals and against the foreigners (FPÖ, the far right party in Austria founded by Nazis, keeps getting 22% to 32% votes lately, and since it's disproportionately difficult to become a citizen to vote them out, compared to all other EU countries, so you'll be stuck in "taxation without representation" limbo, working to fund the coffers of a country where nearly a third of citizens hate your kind)
My point is, livability means far more for most people than whatever The Economist measures, and I'm tired their trope keeps being regurgitated every year everywhere like it's some ground truth on livability. It's not. Livability means so much more, that The Economist doesn't talk about.