The secrets of the world's happiest cities

Two bodyguards trotted behind Enrique Peñalosa, their pistols jostling in holsters. There was nothing remarkable about that, given his profession – and his locale. Peñalosa was a politician on yet another campaign, and this was Bogotá, a city with a reputation for kidnapping and assassination. A few years earlier, this ride would have been a radical and – in the opinion of many Bogotáns – suicidal act. I first saw the Mayor of Happiness work his rhetorical magic back in the spring of 2006. Peñalosa insisted that, like most cities, Bogotá had been left deeply wounded by the 20th century's dual urban legacy: first, the city had been gradually reoriented around cars. He threw out the ambitious highway expansion plan and instead poured his budget into hundreds of miles of cycle paths; a vast new chain of parks and pedestrian plazas; and the city's first rapid transit system (the TransMilenio), using buses instead of trains. But for a moment I forgot my questions.

UK a great place to live and work, says OECD | Business Hampstead Heath in the summer. The average British household was only 'modestly' affected by the financial crisis, the OECD says. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images The UK has come in ahead of Germany, the United States and Japan as the best place to live and work, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, although inequality has risen faster in Britain than in other countries since the outbreak of the financial crisis. The Paris-based thinktank has measured wellbeing in 34 industrialised nations, weighing up factors including incomes, education, housing and security. It says the UK ranks above the OECD country average on measures such as environmental quality, personal security, jobs and earnings and housing. Nonetheless, that performance puts the UK alongside Switzerland, Australia, Nordic European countries, Canada and New Zealand in a clutch of highest-performing countries on the OECD's Better Life Index.

urban green space & wellbeing