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Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.

He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.

In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.

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Mercer Consulting has announced its annual rating of world cities with best and worst quality of living. The ranking didn't change significantly over the last 12 months. Some small European cities, plus larger urban areas in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, top the ranking as usual. The U.S. cities come after the 28th position (Honolulu). Third World cities usually are at the bottom of the list. The rankings are based on a point scoring index, with the best city, Zurich, scoring 108 and the worst, Baghdad, scoring 13. Cities are compared to New York as a point of reference, with an index of 100 points. The quality-of-living survey covers 215 cities from around the world. The index is composite, putting an accent on issues as internal stability, crime, and effectiveness of law enforcement.

The ranking isn't interesting in itself; more interesting are some typical critical reactions coming from around the world. Mercer Consulting claims that the index represents universally accepted values as constitutive of the quality of life. This means that people generally will rate higher living in cities rated higher, and vice versa. Here the discussion starts. According to many posters, geographically and linguistically too diverse to be attributed to a single source, the current rating does apply well to retired people, but is off the target to young persons. The accent on security issues is good, but this isn't the only way to measure the quality of living.

According to this alternative view, what matters for the quality of living as well is the feeling of real choice. In that sense, a city with diverse landscape, allowing for different sport activities at the same time, golfing, yachting, skiing, will offer better quality of life. In a similar vein, a city with plenty of opportunities of alternative lifestyles will be better off in terms of quality of life. Inversely, a city with good security but no real choice will satisfy only certain needs for certain people. Unless we assume that the police state is an ideal we must move towards, these critics say, the quality of living should be taken much larger, including other issues, such as those already mentioned.

My humble opinion, in this respect, is that these critiques may serve as a good starting point for significant improvement in the quality of living index. People aren't the same, and aren't the same during their lifespan, so they may cherish different activities and values, without necessarily ignoring others. In this respect, putting issues as internal stability, crime, and effectiveness of law enforcement at the center of the index is necessary, but not sufficient. Security is neither the only factor that matters toward the quality of life, nor the factor that determines all the other relevant factors.