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Ask HN: What sucks about where you live?

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Re: Ask HN: What sucks about where you live?

#21

Post by sid6376 »

grenoire wrote: post #5

Amsterdam is altogether great alongside the Netherlands, but its ever-increasing popularity among tourists is making it less and less bearable to live it. It's overly crowded and the housing market is facing serious troubles due to certain overly-liberal government policies and amount of expats coming in for newfound startups. Still 10/10 though!

Completely agree and aforementioned expat here.

My only nitpick is the quality of career opportunities though I see a lot of new companies coming through like Message Bird, DAZN.

Any other promising opportunities that you are aware of?

Re: Ask HN: What sucks about where you live?

#22

Post by alistairSH »

I'm outside Washington DC (Reston, VA)... 1. Housing costs (not quite NYC or SF levels, but still high)

2. Traffic (pretty terrible, some areas rank worse than part of notoriously bad cities like NYC).

3. Weather - really a double-edged sword. We get 4 seasons, which is nice. But, summer can be pretty miserable (very humid). And winter is cold, but not cold enough for lots of snow (lots of icy mix instead).

But, really, we're an hour from the mountains, three hours from the beach, and employment is pretty good. So, I can't really complain.

Re: Ask HN: What sucks about where you live?

#23

Post by gaspoweredcat »

Stoke UK:

Public transport: shockingly bad, both expensive and time consuming, our city is 5 towns, all of which link through one meaning any journey requires 2 buses and usually an hour or more all to travel around 4 miles. there is no tube/tram or other option

Jobs: there just arent any

General life: most major stores have given up on the city, the high streets are becoming increasingly filled with empty shops that serve the sole purpose of housing the staggering number of monkey dust addicts living in the doorways

this city is dying and at this point there is little that could be done to save it, we are the Detroit of the UK, once the centre of industry in the UK, manufacturing was revolutionised here, the place was so important its the only place in the UK that is a city without a cathedral (generally a city has to have a cathedral to be considered a city but it was given special status due to its industrial significance)

Re: Ask HN: What sucks about where you live?

#24

Post by lbj »

Denmark: - 56% personal tax rate, 22.5% corporate, always increasing

- Low/negative growth

- Massive lack of talent/quality education

- Free healthcare = Long waiting lists = Losing family members for totally curable diseases

- Everything is overly regulated, lawyer bills piling up

- Traffic in Copenhagen is a nightmare

- The hightaxes means high wages = expensive products (+42% EU average)

- Government fees on everything. My electricity bill: Usage: 800kr, after taxes 4.500kr. Gas, Usage 10L @ 5DKK/L = after Taxes 100kr. Cars are 150% taxed, car at 100k = 250k selling price, etc etc. Fun fact: We have a tax on air if, and only if, you blow it into ice cream.

Re: Ask HN: What sucks about where you live?

#26

Post by baran1 »

instaheat wrote: post #8

Dallas/Ft. Worth Since DFW is so spread out, many suburbs don't have public transportation or limited transportation. I cannot take a bus door to door to my office. I would have to drive to a "park and ride" location to begin my commute. There are no bus stops/lines near my home. I suppose this would be a welcome change for someone living in NYC. Everywhere takes 15-30 minutes to get to. We don't measure distance in…

I can help:

Dallas is a city of suburbs, sprawl, and strip malls. Looking for an artisan? That'll be 30 minutes driving please. Driving everywhere means people don't have places to walk. And when you do walk, you're walking amongst dangerous, loud, and smoggy traffic.

There's a race for larger and larger homes in Dallas. Those homes take more energy to cool and heat as the seasons shift, and the larger footprint means the sprawl accelerates.

What do people do with the larger homes? They get lonely in them.

Re: Ask HN: What sucks about where you live?

#27

Post by snarf21 »

gnulinux wrote: post #19

Boston, MA People drive extremely bad. Like when I say bad, I'm not talking about US-level bad. It's universally bad bad. I grew up in Istanbul, Turkey and people drive there better. As a reference, I lived half a decade in the Bay Area, and compared to Bostonites, people there are driving experts. But what's so bad about people's driving? They're fast all the fucking time, even in streets they're supposed to go 20,…

Interesting, I did not have those issues when I lived in Boston. I wonder if it is more of an area by area thing.

Re: Ask HN: What sucks about where you live?

#28

Post by axaxs »

Louisville, KY

- Entertainment - not much to do. There isn't a 'young urban professional' vibe that many cities have. No pro sports teams, etc.

- Jobs. Healthcare is the biggest employer, there's not a lot in tech. What does exist is mainly in the Windows world, which is not helpful for a linux guy. Lastly, the wages aren't good. I'm lucky to work remotely for a coastal company, but realize I'm a hostage of sorts as I won't be able to find similar work nearby.

- Weather. There's not much of a spring or fall anymore. It seems to go from freezing to scorching and back.

- Allergies. We are consistently ranked in the top 3 for allergies, and mine are terrible.

All in all, housing is cheap, people are nice, and there's some charm to the city. That said, I plan to finally leave next year for somewhere with better weather and job prospects.

Re: Ask HN: What sucks about where you live?

#29

Post by AlwaysRock »

Chicago (specifically Printers Row/South Loop):

1. Homes - Many apartment buildings are 75-100 years old which comes with a whole slew of issues - Buying a condo or apartment in the city is difficult due to Illinois taxes and the states shit financial situation

2. Outdoors - Chicago has a fantastic lake front and some public parks that are nice but there is little to no, "outdoory" things to do in the city or even near by outside the city. The state is flat so there's no elevation hiking to do. There's no real forests. It's prairie land. Frustrating if you like the out doors

- It's easy to get into a routine that is comfortable in Chicago and they have that be drastically altered when the weather changes. This happens in a lot of cities but Chicago it can change your whole life due to the cold and things being less walk able when it's freezing outside.

3. The Cubs - Chicagoians love sports. Cubs fans tend to be the worst of the fans in the city. If you happen to forget the cubs are playing and have to go through Wriggly on a game day you're in for a bad time. Need to use the red line on game day? Good luck.

Other than that Chicago is incredible. More people should move here. If it wasnt for the lack of mountains I'd probably never leave. Can someone tell me what sucks about Denver before I pack up and move?

Re: Ask HN: What sucks about where you live?

#30

Post by poulsbohemian »

progfix wrote: post #20

Vienna, Austria There is hardly anything that really bothers me, the streets and walkways are sometimes dirty and of course everything is kinda crowded all the time, but hey, that's a property every city has.

I was last in Vienna about twenty years ago. It struck me as the cleanest, most orderly, and perhaps most beautiful city I'd ever seen. Public transportation was excellent, costs seemed reasonable. I recall vividly how locals would immediately move to the right automatically when catching the escalators - everyone was polite, courteous, orderly. I've wanted to go back ever since but the opportunity has never arisen.
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