In order, the best first:

Sydney
London
Barcelona
Copenhagen
Melbourne
Stockholm
Beirut
Zurich
São Paulo
Paris
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Brûlé's article appeared in this past weekend's Financial Times, where's he's been doing a weekly column entitled "Fast Lane" for a few months now.

You may recall him in his previous incarnation, as founder of the highly innovative Wallpaper Magazine in 1996.

As such, he's become an avatar of style, hence his being tapped by the FT as their founding Fast Lane columnist.

Basically, he travels around the world first-class, and tells you what's the best of the best.

An aside: I've often wondered if his middle name might be créme.

Always interesting stuff, and extremely well-written. In fact, he's one of the few people I'd let write for bookofjoe without thinking twice about it, or wanting to see it first.

Sometimes, though, I can't imagine what he's thinking.

I mean, Beirut as the seventh-best city in the world to live in?

Perhaps he was in one of the other nine during the rioting there last week over high gasoline prices. Six people were killed and 30 wounded on Thursday when soldiers fired on protesters.

And perhaps he wears a burnoose, so as not to be subject to the risk of being a Western traveler in a Middle Eastern country these days.

And São Paulo? The most populous city in the world, an insane asylum with nearly 15 million inmates and unbreathable air? Thank you, but no.

Zurich still strikes me as a stodgy old place.

The best city in the world to live in is the one I'm living in.

Charlottesville, Virginia, in the U.S. of A.

Charlottesville was rated the #1 city in the U.S. recently. No surprise.

My #2 would be Vancouver, B.C., Canada.

It's like San Francisco, except surrounded by magnificent, snow-capped mountains, water everywhere, and the most gorgeous people I've ever seen - with the possible exception of Stockholm.