Ask HN: Cheap places to live with a good intellectual atmosphere?

I have never been hijacked, robot or otherwise. The worst that happened to me was getting mugged in a dark alley around 7pm in Cape Town. Rely shouldn't have been walking around that neighbourhood well-dressed.

In general I leave my laptop in the trunk and ladies leave their bags there too. The most common form of traffic light theft is "smash and grab" which is entirely mitigated by getting the right kind of windows and not leaving your stuff on the seat/where it's visible.

In ZA 80% of the crime is committed against poor people, which really sucks but which realistically means that only 20% of the crime stats actually would apply to the affluent/expats. Ultimately you need to be a little more vigilant and aware, but not much more than you would be in any major city.

Pay is of course lower than in the Bay area.

Culture wise it's sometimes hard to make friends with the Dutch. It depends on how you spend your spare time. Playing a sport, going to parties, going to group lessons in a gym, etc. is essential to make Dutch friends later in life.

https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou...

Lots of stuff here to do and see, there are many expats all over the city. English speaking is low among Hungarians (¬20%), but in the inner city you won't have a problem with it.

I'd try a couple of cities for a few weeks then decide, Prague is also very beautiful, but as others suggested Berlin rocks too.

University of Chicago pulls a robust intellectual community (81 Nobel Laureates), but there is also a deep intellectual history around the arts and music that transcends the work of the university - something that I'm not sure I can say for a place like Cambridge.

The Art Institute has many of the paintings you might have seen in middle school history books, which is telling in of itself - and while everyone remembers Chicago's jazz, few know that it also invented house music (and a variety of other genres). It's home to many a political movement. It has unparalleled and extremely diverse architecture. The tech scene is doing great - and if any place will upset racial diversity in tech, it will certainly be this city.

People feel like they have a general sense of good will towards their neighbors, without losing the quick pace only a big city will offer you.

Most importantly and to your point - there is a respect for intellectual exchange no matter the discipline - Tech? Economics? Art? Policy? Medicine? Michelin-starred cuisine? I can't think of a field that you can't pursue with confidence in Chicago.

A completely trivial aside - one of the biggest complaints I hear from expats of the Bay Area is a lack of great Mexican food in Boston/Europe/etc. Thanks to a neighborhood called "Little Mexico" (which really does feel like being transported to the Mission), Chicago may be the furthest east you can go while still being able to find authentic Mexican food.