Pink Glasses for Short-Sighted People

Rankings are a curious reading. Especially those that show the most desirable places to live and work. Positive rankings make optimists dream and pessimists buy a one-way ticket.

For years, the first place in a number of rankings of the best places to live has always been taken by... Vienna. The Austrian capital was at the top of the 2019 Economist Intelligence Unit list because of its culture and environment, education, infrastructure, healthcare – among 140 cities, surveyed by the Global Liveability Index. Vienna is the best city to live in the world for a tenth consecutive year according to the Mercer international consultancy, too, and Europe continues to be the continent with

the best quality of life

The ranking created by the online company for moving home and office, Movinga, placed Helsinki first as a city that offers optimal conditions for young families on a global scale, due to its generous paid maternity leave, high-quality education and excellent healthcare. Sofia is ranked 139th among 150 cities across the globe.

Switzerland is the country that attracts the most world talents according to data from The Global Talent Competitiveness Index 2020. It is compiled by Adecco Group, INSEAD International Business School and Google, and measures the ability to attract, retain, train and educate qualified specialists. The index estimates

a wide range of policies and practices

with an impact on human capital and a contribution to productivity and prosperity.

For years we have been following the rankings of the best places to live and work. During this time, optimists were hoping that our cities will also go up in the ranking; many pessimists decided that they can’t wait, while realists continued trying to make a positive change. In Sofia, however, things are getting more complicated with kindergarten and school places, the city is overcrowded with cars, every inch of land is turning into dwellings and offices, and parking lots are made by exception. There are more and more days when people cannot breathe in the capital, as well as in many other cities in Bulgaria, just because someone is burning garbage. Smaller settlements, on the other hand, are flooded by a

wave of depopulation

If the cities were managed by optimists who believe that the inevitable will be postponed, it will surely come much sooner than the pessimists expect. Are we going to allow the events to just happen or are we going to manage the development in a way, so that one problem or another doesn’t force us to focus our attention on it? The water crisis in Pernik will remind us for a long time what happens when the inevitable takes place after all. There is hardly any doubt as to what is needed for the normal existence of a city, even if it’s not the city that is the best place to live according to the rankings.

Pessimists think that the worst has come, while the optimists are convinced that it is still far. If we only look through pink glasses, we will soon turn pessimistic. So, let’s not read the rankings just as a curious reading, they are just a guide. Change must be managed in such a way that we can turn Bulgarian cities into attractive places to live, not into a desert.