Assignment: Criteria for Evaluating Cities

This paper should be a minimum of 900 words - approximately three double-spaced pages.

This assignment is intended to help you think about the criteria that can be used to measure the quality of life of cities. There are many organizations (for example, government organizations, community-based organizations, magazines) that conduct annual surveys of the quality of life of cities in the United States and the world. They typically rank the top 5 or 10 cities based on a particular set of criteria.

Find three or four surveys that rank the quality of life of cities in the U.S. and/or the world and assess these surveys. Specifically:

1. What is the name of the organization conducting the survey?
2. What are the top three cities ranked by each survey?
3. Discuss the criteria they use?
4. Are the criteria similar or different?
5. Are do the same cities appear in the top three for each survey?
6. What do you think about the criteria? Do you agree or disagree?
7. How do you think Los Angeles should rank and why?