Canberra is the best city in the world because the OECD says so. We’ll see about that

WHAT??? The economic supernerds at the OECD have named an Aussie city the world’s best to live in. You’ll seriously never guess which city.

OPINION

It’s official. Canberra is the best city in the world.

Canberra is not, as you might believe, a desolate wasteland of bleak suburbia punctuated by shiny expensive monuments, fake lakes, porn megastores, snake-riddled grasslands and endless, befuddling roundabouts.

A classic view of Canberra with the comfortable suburbia in the foreground, the bland white buildings in the middle ground and a bunch of empty wasteland in the background. Paradise!

Nope. Canberra is a you beaut Aussie gem, and that’s not Canberra Tourism talking, it’s the folk at the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) who overnight decreed Canberra is the best place in the world to live in terms of the wellbeing of its citizens.

The OECD has long tinkered with ways to measure quality of life beyond dry economic data. Its latest effort, released overnight, was a report which ranks the 362 regions of the OECD’s 34 member nations according to nine measures of wellbeing.

Those measures are: Education, Jobs, Income, Safety, Health, Environment, Civic Engagement, Accessibility to Services and Housing. For the record, Australia came out on top overall. And the top region within Australia was the ACT, which basically means Canberra.

OK, so Canberra does look pretty good on a winter morning. That mountain is Tidbinbilla Mountain, by the way, and it’s about 1600m above sea level. Surprisingly few Canberrans know that. Pic by Gary Ramage.

Andrew Leigh, Federal member for the seat of Fraser which covers the northern half of Canberra, was pretty chuffed to hear this. He’s been singing the city’s praises for years. In a feisty and fiercely parochial speech at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas back in 2010, Leigh argued Canberra was Australia’s best city. Today he tells news.com.au he should have gone further.

“My 2010 speech wasn’t ambitious enough,” he says. “I was merely arguing Canberra is the best city in Australia. I should have been arguing it’s the best city in the world!”

“Life in Canberra is not a race to see who can acquire the most cash,” Leigh says, in a thinly veiled swipe at the Sydney and Melbourne rat race.

“Canberra has a stronger community spirit as measured by objective measures like sports participation, volunteering, donations to charities and (not much) litter.”

“I also love the fact I can be in a city but look up at a hillside,” Leigh adds, possibly while one of Canberra’s lethal magpies swoops him.

Watch out Andrew, that bush capital you love so much could be about to... AAAAAARGH! Picture: Trent Nicholson/YouTube

ACT Chief Minister Katy Gallagher (she’s kind of like your state premier, only nicer) tells news.com.au that Canberra’s gone and gotten itself all sophisticated.

“For me it’s about having the benefits of a large city with the cosmopolitan life without having some of the downsides like congestion or long distances to travel.”

So there’s what Canberra’s elected representatives have to say. Now here are a few words from this reporter, who grew up in Canberra, left, came back briefly as a grown up, then left again in rather a hurry.

Canberra is in many ways an excellent place. Canberra has great nature, as Andrew Leigh rightly points out. The views of the snowy Tidbinbilla and Brindabella Ranges on the city’s western flank on a crisp, winter morning are one of the great joys in Australian urban life. Those who bag Canberra’s weather are wrong. It’s the only Australian city that really has four seasons, each of them enjoyable in their own way.

Further to the Chief Minister’s comments about the cosmopolitan lifestyle, Canberra does indeed have good coffee, excellent Asian food and the rest of it.

But Canberra has its flaws. Here are a few that come to mind.

1. Hypocrites

You have never, ever in your life seen a city with so many greenies who drive solo to work. That’s because they are shocking hypocrites. For the record, when I lived in Canberra in 2004, I caught the bus to work with a blind colleague. If he could do it, so should the rest of Canberra.

2. Bad city planning

Canberra is nearly three quarters the size of New York City. Yet it has just 4 per cent of the population. At some point, more medium density housing around the suburban shopping centres is desperately needed, both for convenience and for that urban vibe. Andrew Leigh readily acknowledges this fact.

This goes for about 40 kilometres from north to south. Not exactly great for the environment or community engagement

3. Fashion issues

This spectacularly unfashionable reporter is the last person in the world to issue fashion advice. But then, Canberra is the last city in the world to heed it. Canberrans are famously dorky in their dress sense. When there’s a sale on at the Kathmandu store in Civic, you can always expect a major riot over the last stylish pink and green fleecy jacket.

As for the local football team... would someone PLEASE tell them that purple and green should NEVER be seen.

4. The traffic lights from hell

Canberra’s traffic lights take forever. Everyone whinges about the roundabouts, often with good reason. But Canberra had roundabouts long before anyone else, so people are more used to them nowadays. The real infrastructure problem where Canberra roads are concerned is the

red lights. They…………………………… take…………………………… forever. Even when there’s not another car in sight.

5. That strange Canberra mentality

This one’s kind of hard to put into words. But there’s this mentality that Canberra people have. Possibly it comes from the sense of entitlement you have in the luxurious job-for-life culture of the federal public service.

Katy Gallagher is unapologetic about that. “The public service is our BHP,” she says. “Canberra is similar to any other city that has grown up around a particular industry. You can’t take it away from the city because that’s why we are here, just like mining is why a mining town is there.”

It’s a fair point, and Gallagher follows it up with the point that 50 per cent of industry in Canberra is now private sector-based. So maybe the mindset is changing a little.

A typically enterprising Canberra private sector business in the delightful Canberra suburb of Fyshwick

6. This thing

The @NatArboretum 's Wide Brown Land sculpture welcoming the 'nearly' full moon. #visitcanberra #humanbrochure pic.twitter.com/fQUXxFs2VD

— michelle taylor (@tienpa) September 8, 2014

If one thing sums up Canberra, it is this giant poo-like sculpture on the hill at Canberra’s gleaming new National Arboretum. An arboretum, for the record, is basically a great big tree garden. The sculpture, on a bare hilltop, features a famous phrase from of Dorothea McKellar’s poem My Country. Point is, anyone staring at the view can tell that Australia is indeed, yep, a wide brown land. They don’t need a giant brown poo to tell them that.

And that, right there, is your emblem for Canberra. Despite being 101 years old, this city is not yet comfortable enough in its own skin to just be there without telling you it’s there. People say Canberra doesn’t have a soul and they’re right. But before you have a soul you need a personality. You need to be comfortable in your own skin and just be you. Canberra’s still working on all that. But it’s slowly getting there.

Canberra turf company Canturf has developed a sense of humour. Now for the rest of the city to catch up.

As for whether Canberra is the best place in the world to live, well, we’ll let you tell us in the comments below.