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

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

#371

Post by magicbuzz »

askmike wrote: post #262
the_clarence wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s better than a lot of places though. If you want an english friendly country in Asia it’s going to be expensive (hk, singapore, tokyo, etc.)

While in Tokyo I was not impressed with my ability to communicate in English. If you don't learn Japanese your options are very limited IMO.

Agreed. For a long termer, you need to make a 5-6 month full time investment in learning the language. From then on, being immersed means you’re gradually improving and your options and understanding of the everyday expands considerably.

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

#372

Post by blocked_again »

anonlilcoward wrote: post #214

Bangalore,India: Rent price : 200$/month for a 1000sqft apartment. Bangalore is often called the silicon valley of India, filled with software professionals. Majority of the city's inhabitants are migrants from other parts of the country and almost everyone communicates in English. The living expenses for a couple is not more than 600-700$/month including rent for a decent lifestyle. The city has a good pub culture a…

The only good thing about Banglore is that it has a very big tech community. But the wages are really low compared to the west. Traffic is just terrible. Sometimes it may take you 1 2 hours even to cover 1 KM. Its overpopulated and has too much pollution. Night life is nowehere close compared to SFO and so is the intellectual community. Again nothing to justify to move all over from SFO.

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

#373

Post by baxtr »

Kovah wrote: post #168

There are some smaller German cities like Göttingen which have - in my opinion - a high intellectual atmosphere because they are so called university-cities: lot's of students and academics in a rather small city. And, in comparison with big cities like Berlin or Munich, the rents are much cheaper: from what I know you pay 2/3 to half of the price for the same amount of space. Example: a flat with 55-60 qm is about 6…

True. Another great example: Heidelberg.

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

#375

Post by archi42 »

tetrazine wrote: post #242
Kovah wrote: post #168

There are some smaller German cities like Göttingen which have - in my opinion - a high intellectual atmosphere because they are so called university-cities: lot's of students and academics in a rather small city. And, in comparison with big cities like Berlin or Munich, the rents are much cheaper: from what I know you pay 2/3 to half of the price for the same amount of space. Example: a flat with 55-60 qm is about 6…

This is true. Lots of other mentions of Germany in this thread with good points. The downsides to Germany that Americans and Canadians (and to a lesser extent British) might perceive: - Constant store closures. Almost all Sundays and numerous holidays, almost all stores, including groceries, are closed. Don't forget to get milk or you have to trek to the central train station. - Very bad international food. Even in m…

I'm sure I'm drying my stuff in a dryer. If necessary even in summer (though trying to avoid it when it's warm enough). Also, my employer has AC in all offices ;) Public smoking depends on the region; where I live it's prohibited for most bars and clubs (at least indoors).

Not saying you're making stuff up, just pointing out you might be a little bit exaggerating ;)

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

#376

Post by sanedigital »

alt_f4 wrote: post #161
siquick wrote: post #90

Barcelona - one of the best all-around cities in the world (climate/culture/architecture/world proximity/quality of living/beach/mountains) and a growing tech scene. Very easy to pick up development work here for a local company, you won't be required to know Spanish/Catalan for a job. The only downsides are that the pay is relatively low (€43k average for SE) and it can be quite difficult to find a place to live wit…

Barcelona is not one of the best all-around cities for sure. 1) climate -- not moderate, only good if you enjoy extremely hot summers 2) culture -- obscured by the tourism industry in the city. Pretty much all restaurants try to rip you off, public parks charge entry for certain areas, everything culture-related is aimed and priced for tourists. 3) architecture -- nice, but not really exceptional. buildings really ti…

There's no way you've spent more than a week total in the city if these are the conclusions you've come to. Barcelona, like all large cities, has its drawbacks, but they're not the ones you've listed.

1. Climate is far better than most large US cities, and moderate. July highs of 86F are hardly "extremely hot".

2. Absolutely not true for 95% fo the city. Maybe get out of Gotic next time?

3. I don't even know how to respond to this point. Most cities have dense centers. Few have buildings like the Palau de la Música Catalana, the Sagrada Familia, or the Cathedral.

4. High cost of life? Compared to the rest of Spain, sure. Compared to the US? Not particularly. Salaries are low locally but purchasing power is higher.

5. Again, no idea what you're talking about. Most people walk or take the metro everywhere. Average air pollution in Barcelona is lower than most major US cities and many other major European cities as well.

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

#377

Post by iaml »

cosmolev wrote: post #180

Akademgorodok is a part of the Sovetsky District of the city of Novosibirsk, Russia, located 30 km south of the city center. It is the educational and scientific centre of Siberia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akademgorodok

I would highly suggest against moving to Russia, even if you are looking for cheap places.

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

#378

Post by lifebeyondfife »

tixocloud wrote: post #71

Edinburgh could be a good option. If you look hard enough, it is still relatively affordable (especially compared to the Bay Area) and I’ve found very intellectual people to work with. There seems to be a big focus in the U.K. on collaboration between academic and industry and if you’re into data, Edinburgh is home to a The Data Lab, an innovation centre around data. I moved here from North America and have previous…

+1 to Edinburgh, from a biased local.

Most (but far from all) startups in Edinburgh are based in the Codebase building: https://www.thisiscodebase.com/. We also have a couple of unicorns that were started here, Skyscanner and FanDuel; Amazon and Smartsheet also have offices; and Rockstar North is where GTA is developed.

All of the above companies are within 10-20 minutes walk of the Edinburgh Waverley train station. Public transport is awesome mainly because the city is quite small and buses are frequent and cheap.

There are plenty of meetups too - see https://techmeetup.co.uk/ for the biggest general one, which is also live streamed. There are others on security, JavaScript, Go, Machine Learning etc.

If you like hiking/camping/hill walking then Scotland is a great country for you - you have a view of the Pentland hills from the city, and Arthur's Seat in Holyrood park right next to our parliament buildings. You can be in the Cairngorms national park within a few hours by car/train.

Upper end for Senior Engineer take home pay after taxes is around £4,000 pm. You could rent a nice apartment for £1,000 pm, but could get something small and habitable for £600.

Edinburgh is Scotland's most international city, which is a double edged sword as the tackiness of the tourist shops up and down the Royal Mile showcase. But there's lots of great things to do and see, and varied places to eat and drink. The University of Edinburgh is one of the UK's best (I recently walked past Prof Peter Higgs :) and students come here from all over. The Edinburgh Festival is (one of?) the biggest arts festivals in the world and runs for the whole month of August. The Fringe Festival is a world famous testing ground for stand up comics - there's a great Netflix special from Hannibal Buress about his experience of the Edinburgh Fringe.

Big downside to the city is that it doesn't have a tech sector as well developed as, say, London. Also for as stunning and booming as the city is, the weather is pretty bad especially owing to its unpredictability i.e. four seasons in one day. It's drier than most of Scotland but that's not saying much. It's cold and the winters have short days. The flip side is that a sunny summer's day will be one of the most enjoyable of anywhere in the world.

EDIT: and yeah, I echo other warnings about waiting until the Brexit debacle has concluded to see what things are like for the UK

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

#379

Post by sonnyblarney »

blocked_again wrote: post #345
sonnyblarney wrote: post #189

In North America I would vote Montreal. It's 1/2 price of most American cities and 2x funner and cooler than almost any of them. LA and NYC have tons of cool, but they are expensive and doing fun stuff is generally expensive. Not so Montreal. Mtl has way more going on than even SF ever had back in the day, and it's much bigger than Austin, Boulder/Colorado Springs etc. etc.. During the summer, Montreal has an unbelie…

How easy is to get a job in Montreal if I am not from North America and don't have a Visa or PR?

If you are an American it's trivial if you have a technical degree. You get a TN visa at the border and can renew for up to 6 years.
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