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Ask HN: Do you like the country/city you're living in?

6 points by fabiospampinato ↗ HN
I'm an almost 25yo self-taught developer and deciding where I want to live is becoming an important decision to make for me.

Ideally I'd like to live in a country/city that ticks all these boxes:

- Either the local language is English or people are generally very good at English

- Bureaucracy isn't a mess and most things can be done online

- People are generally tech-savvy

- There's a good startup culture

- The city is at the forefront of technology advancement, especially software-wise

- Public transport is good enough that I don't need a car

- Public healthcare probably won't kill me or make me go bankrupt if I get a tumor

- Renting prices aren't crazy high

Do you have any places to recommend?

Are you happy with where you're living? Which of these boxes does the country/city tick?

5 comments

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byoung2
I live in Los Angeles and the first 5 boxes sounded like that is what you were describing. But public transportation is lacking so you need a car pretty much. Public healthcare I'm not sure anywhere in the US has that...you just buy insurance. And Los Angeles has the highest rent vs salary ratio in the country. But we have the best weather in the country so that makes it worth it for many people.
fabiospampinato
So do you like living in LA and in the USA in general? :)

From what I read online it seems that even with an health insurance the situation is far from good, but I guess that depends on how much one is willing to spend for the insurance? I'll have to document myself more about this.

Public transportation is pretty important too for me, perhaps this is/will-be less of a problem with uber/lyft and the advent of autonomous driving though.

byoung2
I like living in LA. The weather is what I like best. I would be miserable anywhere it rains or snows. I like the freedom of driving so public transportation isn't an issue for me. Neither is rent or health insurance...I own a house and my wife is a nurse (we get platinum insurance through her hospital).
fabiospampinato
OP here, I'll add my experience living in Catania, a city in the south of Italy:

- Almost everyone over 35 doesn't know English at all, and even younger folks are pretty lacking in this regard.

- Bureaucracy is definitely a mess. Even if sometimes there's a website for something it's the sort of website optimized for IE6, if you know what I mean.

- I can't speak for all Italians of course, but I don't think most of the people I've interacted with are particularly interested in tech. A friend of mine recently decided to learn programming and people reacted to it as if he decided to stay unemployed for life or something.

- The situation regarding startups of course varies from city to city, we actually have a startup incubator in my city, they claim something like a 90% success rate of their startups... Also I'm not aware of any even remotely big tech company that started here.

- Catania is definitely at the forefront of something, perhaps organized crime, but not technology.

- Public transportation is ok-ish.

- Public healthcare is not perfect but still way better than what you'll find in the USA for instance.

- Renting prices are pretty low.

Overall I don't think it's worth living here, the missed opportunities greatly overcome the low rents and the good weather.

cimmanom
NYC. Ticks off all but the last two. But salaries are more than high enough to make up for the high rent - especially if you’re willing to make some compromises about living by an urban rather than a suburban standard.

I love it here. There’s a great tech scene and tons of career opportunity without the pathological monoculture of SV.

You most definitely don’t need a car, though if our current elected officials have anything to say about it, 5 years from now the subways will stop working entirely and the city will come to a standstill because there is quite literally not enough road space for everyone to travel by car.

That last bit (plus, yes, the insane US approach to health care) is why I’m looking into getting out of the city; but in the meantime it’s a surprisingly good place to build a career and save a bit of money.