What do you really want out of a city? And what can you do without? With the environment top of the agenda in mayors’ offices around the world, Monocle looks beyond the recycling bins and congestion charges to see what makes for a liveable city. Tolerance, punctual transit, plenty of sunshine and the ability to get a drink in the wee hours all count for something.

After much tyre-kicking, data-sifting and deliberation, Munich emerged as Monocle’s most liveable city in the world. A winning combination of investment in infrastructure, high-quality housing, low crime, liberal politics, strong media and general feeling of Gemütlichkeit make it a city that should inspire others.

There’s no shame coming second, particularly when phase two of your new metro is about to go live, your airport is a joy, you can bike safely through the city and you have so many stunning residents.

In Zürich, small and perfectly formed has turned out to be both a blessing and a curse.

Integrated transport, breathtaking technology, great service and the best bars make this our top big city.

Vienna is back at the heart of Europe – its well-connected airline helped put it in fifth place.

The fastest flying times from Europe to Asia’s hubs make Helsinki more than Nokia-town.

The city has some environmental issues and an antiquated transport system. But then there’s the beach…

An eye for detail, good street style and strong public services make this a pleasant place to build a nest.

The city has the luxury of sitting on Asia’s doorstep. This is great news but it needs to put it to use.

Red tape and poor infrastructure are counterbalanced by cultural vibrancy and a 24-hour lifestyle.

They may not have come top in Monocle’s chart but the cities ranked 11 to 20 are still all great places to live. They didn’t make the first 10 because some lacked a real metropolitan buzz, while others failed to deliver on sustainability, health or civic ambition.

France's blogging love affair, plus a green oasis in Spain and our Q&A with the Mayor of Berlin.

Summer is cancelled again in Beirut and pirates ahoy off Africa.

Japan's courtroom junkies and China takes a hike to save the planet (and its reputation).

An unusual cast of candidates prepare for the Australian election.

The ups and downs of the Caribbean, plus life on the farm in downtown Detroit.

In May, for the first time in human history, the world’s population was more urban than rural. But how can we deliver quality of life to our urban environments? Here, five leading thinkers give their answers. First, the novelist Jonathan Raban looks at why security risks threaten the city’s traditional great promise: the chance of anonymity. Also taking part in the debate are urban strategist Charles Landry, architect Ole Scheeren, director of the Serpentine Gallery Julia Peyton-Jones and architecture professor William Menking.

She was once forced out of government for living it up at the Ritz. Now, as mayor of Copenhagen, Ritt Bjerregaard wants everyone to enjoy the good life. She’s busy pioneering ‘Copenhagenism’, an attempt to promote sustainability, family life and a booming economy. But can you really have your kanelhorn and eat it, too?

The Colorado towns of Boulder and Fort Collins provide the perfect breeding ground for entrepreneurs who want to tap into the great outdoors and up-and-coming trends. With the Rocky Mountains outside their offices, it’s little wonder web developers and organic enthusiasts constantly feel like scaling new peaks.

Why it's good to fall asleep on Wall Street, plus Greenland's aviation capital.

Since 2000 the Masters Series Hamburg has been held at the Rothenbaum Tennis Centre in Hamburg. Besides Hamburg, the Masters Series travels to Cincinnati, Paris, Indian Wells, Madrid, Miami, Rome, Monte Carlo and Montréal. Carlos Moya and Roger Federer are pictured here playing in May’s semi-final (Federer won the series).

Tram and urban light-rail projects are booming as cities turn their backs on car culture. Bombardier is the global leader in the field and provides stock to such places as Stockholm, Geneva and Brussels. We met its president, Walter Grawenhoff, to discover the future of urban travel.

If you can’t secure a job as an urban planner by day you can always become an ornamental fish hobbyist by night and engineer a perfect underwater world. At the heart of the €10bn international trade in ornamental fish is the Aquarama trade fair in Singapore – “the ornamental fish capital of the world”.

Yes, they can look pretty, but Diana Balmori’s landscaping projects can also change cities, make people happier and healthier and battle climate change. A pioneer of the green roofs movement, she helped build New York’s first green apartment building. But her plans don’t stop there.

Everyone loves an urban village but few cities know quite how to get the mix of retail, services and residents right. London recently decided to grass over Trafalgar Square temporarily to celebrate its urban villages while onlookers wondered what it had to do with their increasingly dull local high street. *Monocle* has taken inspiration from its favourite neighbourhoods to engineer the perfect precinct.

Thanks to its world-famous museum, Bilbao has become a cultural mecca in just 10 years. But has the Guggenheim improved the lives of the locals or just entertained art-loving tourists? We make an in-depth audit.

Soda Books, Munich.

Jazz Messengers, Barcelona.

Trim tomes for your travels, Sónar sounds and our pick of Monocle music for the summer.

João Moreira Salles is the publisher of Piauí, a new monthly magazine in Brazil. With his brother and business partner Walter, he is half of the well-regarded Salles brothers film-making team. Monocle visited João in Piauí’s Rio offices.

With the stunning architecture of its Frank Gehry-designed performing arts centre and a star-studded roster of visiting talent, Bard College in Upstate New York is less like an academic institution, more like this summer’s hottest arts ticket in the US.

It’s not necessarily the billion-euro development, star-architect-designed gallery or shiny new ferris wheel that makes locals feel good about their town. Monocle believes that the measure of a city is more about everyday wonders – pavements, well-designed schools, punctual transport – rather than one-off, grand projets. Here’s our list of the top 25 urban elements that make the city.

Danish creations, Taiwanese homes and Italian words of wisdom.

Reclaiming the tote, looking killer in Kilgour and why its good to have a lot of Acne this summer.

From New York to Istanbul, cities are investing in street furniture that expresses their heritage and makes them look like well thought out brands. The clever bit? Thanks to companies such as Wall in Germany, they can have their loos, kiosks and bus shelters for free.

Everything you need to keep your trainers box fresh and your coffee brewing brilliantly.

We give you clear directions on what to buy for a very grand tour.

Patrizio Cappelli left his family’s chemist business in 1995 to found his eponymous tie-making enterprise. Since then, a discerning clientele has flocked from as far as Japan to his Naples atelier, in search of his seven-fold and self-tipping neckwear.

Leave the summer hordes behind in favour of a toothsome flat-hunting tour around Greece’s ruin-strewn capital. Kolonaki and Psiri, two very different neighbourhoods, offer up some smart urban boltholes and investment opportunities in a city that boasts an abundance of island escapes just an hour or two away by boat.

As mayor of Curitiba in Brazil, Jaime Lerner turned heads with his forward-thinking schemes. He took the kids off the streets by paying them to clean them up and had fishermen angling for rubbish so they could work off-season. He still lives in the city, working as an architect and urban planner.

Not everyone is welcome on the beach in Italy this summer. The Russians are discovering that the locals, while partial to their cash, find them too gauche for words. A new Cold-Shoulder War has broken out.

In search of a new architect to do something with that plot of land in northern Vermont? Keen on a new tonic to give you a little tingle when you stride to work? Want to find a place to peel off the layers for an early evening splash? Wondering how to perfect your pour for a Melbourne-grade flat white? Dreaming of a vehicle that will whisk you from Seattle to Berlin in a couple of hours? Monocle’s editors in Tokyo, Zürich, New York and London have come up with our first annual list of products and places that are guaranteed to deliver a superior standard of living.

He’s one of the world’s greatest product designers, but Marc Newson’s career is really taking off with the news just announced that he is designing a space plane for Eads Astrium. Planned to be ready for 2011, it will raise the stakes in the new space race.