Next month (June), “Monocle” magazine, the glossy chronicler of culture and design, will publish its latest annual “liveability index”. Ranking the world’s cities in this way has become a rather popular activity in recent years. Similar lists are produced by the management consultancy Mercer, the Economist Intelligence Unit and others. Largely, though, they cater for corporations looking to decide what they should pay in living and other allowances to personnel located around the world. As such, they tend to favour smaller cities that suit families. For example, the latest EIU list is topped by the same 10 cities as took the top spots the previous year (albeit with a couple of place swaps) and seven of the 10 are in Canada and Australia, countries where – as the report points out – population densities are well below those in much of the United States and Europe.