Mitchell Toy: Why has Vienna beaten Melbourne to be crowned the world’s most liveable city?

WHY has Vienna — a city mistaken for Venice by backpackers since time immemorial — beaten Melbourne to be crowned the most liveable city in the world? Clearly the system is badly broken, writes Mitchell Toy.

A CITY with plentiful trams, renowned coffee houses and rich culture has been crowned the most liveable city in the world.

But it’s not Melbourne so clearly the system is badly broken.

Vienna, a city mistaken for Venice by student backpackers since time immemorial and the capital of a country mistaken for Australia for just as long, has beaten us.

It has overtaken Melbourne on The Economist’s list of best cities to live in, and now it is our duty to point out how they got it so hopelessly wrong.

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Mozart Schmozart. We have Farnsey.

MUSIC

Vienna might have been home to one or two adequately talented musicians like Beethoven, Mozart and Schubert.

But none of these so-called prodigies ever thought to spice up their scores with bagpipes like our Farnesy.

So who looks silly now?

FOOD AND DRINK

Maybe Viennese coffee houses are lauded as some of the best in the world.

Maybe they claim to have actually invented the coffee filtering process after capturing gear from the Turks during a siege in the 1600s.

But we Melburnians don’t need a chandelier that looks like it’s been nicked from a stage production of Phantom to feel comfortable in a cafe.

And in Vienna they mix Coca Cola and Fanta in the same glass to make a local favourite they call “Spezi”.

Good thing Freud was also from Vienna because that habit needs a lot of work.

As for the food, try going gluten free, keto or paleo in a city that offers only schnitzel, apple strudel, cake, beer and sausages in bread.

Vienna’s former crooked residents, including Trotsky, Hitler and Stalin, have nothing on Melbourne’s gangland war and its popular dramatisation.

HISTORY

Vienna might have been the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which ruled over about 52 million people.

But Melbourne was Australia’s first capital, at a time when we had about 4 million people.

At one point in 1913, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Leon Trotsky and Sigmund Freud all lived in Vienna within a few kilometres of each other.

But we had the gangland war, so there.

TRANSPORT

All right, fine.

Melbourne’s train network is a lethargic mess, whose masters are quick to ban news programs while the station bathrooms often deserve a UN inspection.

Of course, it should be noted that while public transport in Vienna is something you can set your watch to, their history of media censorship makes the Andrews Government look like The Wiggles.

Both cities have nice trams so we’ll call this one a tie.

Vienna’s The Kiss by symbolist painter Gustav Klimt is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, a bit like our stuffed Phar Lap.

MUSEUMS

Among the art held at Vienna’s Österreichische Galerie Belvedere is The Kiss, a somewhat impressive symbolist painting by Gustav Klimt.

The painting would never be sold but some of Klimt’s lesser works have gone for up to $135 million, about as much as two units in Bentleigh.

That’s fine, but has The Kiss ever won a Melbourne Cup and two Cox Plates like Phar Lap, who we stuffed and put in our Museum?

I’m afraid not.

The Naturhistorisches Museum Wien is also considered to be all right, housing 30 million items cataloguing natural history including the world’s largest collection of meteorites.

But that’s nothing compared to Spotswood’s Scienceworks.

Last year’s AFL grand final at the MCG. Picture: Jason Edwards

SPORT

Poor Vienna.

Home to the Ernst Happel Stadion arena, with a capacity of just over 50,000 and deserving of the title ‘The Etihad of Europe’, decent sport matches are thin on the ground.

Meanwhile Melbourne spends no less than 95 per cent of its consciousness on sport.

A Melburnian, even if raised illiterate, could crunch Supercoach stats like a NASA scientist while pretending to work.

Melbourne’s behemoth sports economy is matched only by the loss of productivity it creates in other areas of the economy.

The Vienna Reisenrad Ferris wheel (picture by Jorge Royan) has nothing on our wheel, pictured during its troubles.

ATTRACTIONS

Both Melbourne and Vienna have Ferris wheels; theirs was built in 1897 and has been featured in such movies as The Third Man, Scorpio and The Living Daylights.

Ours was built in 2008 and has probably been unintentionally featured in the background of a lot of great Instagram photos.

Their wheel still works despite being repaired after heavy bombing in WWII.

Our wheel still works despite being repaired after breaking on a hot day.

But ours is twice the size so it’s better, even if it’s twice as hard to get to.

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