Vancouver is number three, but what does it mean?

Vancouver is one of the best cities in the world.

Citizens of our green Pacific Rim urban paradise already knew that. But a recent survey from Mercer Human Resource Consulting put us at number three in the world, just ahead of Auckland and Dusseldorf.

Discreet Swiss bankers surreptitiously maintained their nation's lock on the two top spots, with Zurich and Geneva taking their respective (and traditional) places at number one and two.

While it's nice to see yet another survey place us where we think we should be, you have to question the methodology that ranks the New World's famous coastal metropolis of New York below what amounts to a large-ish town nestled in the Alps.

In full disclosure, I've never actually visited either place, but unless my perspective is completely off, some of the cities listed in the survey just aren't comparable. Counting up scores on pre-determined variables like climate, crime and infrastructure seems like a fair way to do it, but it leaves out the possibility that a city can be far more than the sum of its parts.