Well- do we mean higher life? I will be willing to accept primative life surviving harsh conditions but if we mean complex life, and civilization then yes our galaxy has a habitable zone. I recently read a very convincing paper that said that even out where we are the mean time between "sterilizing" cosmic events that are capable of eliminating all higher life forms should be about 200 million years... We have gotten very lucky(?)

(BTW the events considered "sterilizing" are supernovae and binary neutron star collisions (Gamma ray bursters))

Nearer the core such events are far more common. So it looks like we are lucky. The odds would be stacked up even worse against a slime mold living nearer the galactic center...

My 2 cents, (1 cent after tax)
-Robert