Who tops our liveable leaderboard? Monocle’s annual Quality of Life Survey puts the world’s best cities through their paces and profiles the urban centres on the up. We also get set for summer by gardening in Hiroshima, dining in Marseille and dancing in Mexico City. Plus: how Bratislava’s bass-playing, architect mayor is helping the city to find its groove.

‘When I received an invitation from the American Academy in Berlin to spend a few months in the German capital, I knew it would be my last chance to at last make Berlin Living Rooms. The Berlin of 2014 was a far cry from the divided and battered Berlin of the 1960s and 1970s I had known. It was now a glorious city where all the young people of the world wanted to move and where many famous artists had chosen to work. The Berliner Luft was still contagious. I embarked on my voyeuristic journey with the gusto and curiosity of a new visitor’.

—Dominique Nabokov