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

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521–530 of 1001 posts

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

#521

Depending on your ability to work remotely, I would make the "case" that you should consider Portugal . Lisbon and Porto are super popular with ["digital nomad"] remote workers who work for international companies so earn in USD but spend [much less] in Euros for a superb lifestyle. There's a reason @paddycosgrave moved Web Summit to Lisbon. It's one of the cheapest cities in Europe and [unlike Barcelona] everyone sp…

> There's a reason @paddycosgrave moved Web Summit to Lisbon. Because the tax payers are paying €110m for it? http://www.thejournal.ie/lisbon-web-summit-new-ten-year-deal...

If it pays off by helping make Lisbon a strong European tech scene, which it looks like it could do, it's not necessarily a bad deal for the taxpayers of Portugal.

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

#522
post #358

Vienna, Austria. It has been ranked the most liveable city in the world for some years in a row. Cost of living is low compared to the European average; you can rent a medium-sized apartment for 600-700€/month. Everyone speaks English. Co-workers from Spain never bothered with German, because they can get anything done in English. Viennas public transport system is cheap (30€/month) and excellent. You can get anywher…

As a Italian who came to Vienna to study and started to work his 4th year (besides university) I can confirm those points.

The city is also quite clean, as there are a lot (but still reasonable) amount of trash bins.

Also you have a lot of parks, public "beaches" on the Danube and it's side channels (those which aren't used by ships) and the big Danube island in the middle, where you can escape from the city into nature quickly.

There are also a lot of nice woods and hiking trails around Vienna. I'm also owning a mountainbike, because I can cycle to a forest/nature reserve, with a lot of really cool (down hill) trails, at the city's border in half an hour from my workplace.

I'm from a small town from the alps, and will move back there because I'm not a city person and just love my hometown - but Vienna is the one (bigger) city I could imagine living in, if I had to (considering cities >1 million people and offering at least a metro and university).

> Education and healthcare are free

It comes naturally with a price, i.e., you probably have a bit more tax then in US I'd guess, but the benefits are really great, and even if I wouldn't need it now (no health problems, no real social/money) I don't have a problem paying those taxes. Also, at the end of the month I have >2/3 of my salary left over for leisure/saving/investing/... so I really cannot complain.

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

#523
post #490

Depending on your ability to work remotely, I would make the "case" that you should consider Portugal . Lisbon and Porto are super popular with ["digital nomad"] remote workers who work for international companies so earn in USD but spend [much less] in Euros for a superb lifestyle. There's a reason @paddycosgrave moved Web Summit to Lisbon. It's one of the cheapest cities in Europe and [unlike Barcelona] everyone sp…

I have had my eye on Portugal for a number of years, but there are a few things that seem less than ideal. * Cost of living for a good quality of life still being relatively high or rising, especially in Lisbon and other tourist/expat areas. And a second tier city in Portugal is much less of a clear choice since that is comparable to a lot more places. * The tax system being very complicated. One can always argue abo…

While earthquakes are a worldwide risk, not all risks are equal. Anyone pondering living in Lisbon should become familiar with the history of the city and the seismic events which affected it - i.e., that the city was pretty much totally annihilated in 1755 by a large quake and tsunami. That threat is still there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1755_Lisbon_earthquake

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

#524
post #68

The answer here is places that are COLD. For any type of city, the one in a colder place is cheaper. Minneapolis might be a good choice, or Chicago if you want a bigger atmosphere. You’ll have to put in elbow grease to create an intellectual milieu but it is there.

But, then I'd have to be cold. What kind of crazy math is that? I really don't like being cold.

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

#525

As far as Europe is concerned, you'd be mad to choose anything West or North. As for the guy saying Porto is one of the cheapest cities in Europe… WHAT?! It's €15 for a 'Francesinha', and this food is garbage anyway. There are much nicer places to go in Portugal where the prices and quality aren't ruined by tourism.

     It's €15 for a 'Francesinha', and this food is garbage anyway.

If you consider it garbage, don't buy it. You absolutely do not have to pay €15 for a Francesinha in Porto, and there's a huge array of other options. Of course if you go to the most touristy places you'll end up paying touristy prices, but if you really think that this is the case throughout the entire city then you can't have looked around much.

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

#526
post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's a reason @paddycosgrave moved Web Summit to Lisbon. Because the tax payers are paying €110m for it? http://www.thejournal.ie/lisbon-web-summit-new-ten-year-deal...

Exactly, the same reason some hyperloop stuff is probably going to get done in southern Spain. Europe is only good for short vacations and subsidies. Except maybe London. If they finally escape from the EUSSR

Lmao. Spoken as someone who doesn't understand healthcare, education or basic social services.

Eu dominates the US for quality of life and standard of living.

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

#527
Croatia. I'm biased because I'm an expat croat but it's actually a good option.

It's central in Europe, you could replace Croatia with Slovenia if you wanted.

It's still relatively cheap compared to the rest of the EU.

There's a budding IT field and if you stick to the major cities you'll even find a sub-culture of makers and hackers.

There might be better options out there but I had to mention it since I'm from there.

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

#528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+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.…

Before I entered this thread, I was already thinking about spending a couple months from late Jan to late March in Edinburgh. Could you expand on the weather and the Brexit warning you mentioned? Thanks!

No problem.

The unpredicatable nature of weather in Scotland means that if it looks bright and sunny in the morning, you still need to leave your house with a jacket because you cannot guarantee that it won't rain heavily later in the day. Depending on when you take lunch or arrive at work, some people will be drenched, some will enjoy clear skies and sunshine. This isn't necessarily like this every day, but prepare for variability.

The dry air in the winter can make dry your skin, so moisturise well. It can also get windy.

That said, it's fairly temperate. The weather usually goes as low as minus single digit celsius, and as high as sub-30 celsius. And compared to other locations in Scotland it rains a lot less.

https://www.climatedata.eu/climate.php?loc=ukxx0052&lang=en

With regard to Brexit, it's hard to know where to begin so I'll recap and potentially editorialise.

The Conservative party (popular right wing political party), which is currently ruling as a minority government, has historically been split on the subject of integration with Europe. One side likes banks, free trade, free movement and big business and doesn't mind a bit of bureaucracy (pro Europe); the other likes deregulation, sovereignty, controlled immigration, "brass plaques", and small/medium business (anti Europe). This argument led to a polarising vote to the populace about whether we should leave the European Union or not.

Joining the European Union, which the UK did in the 1970s, was initially about centralising trade agreements. Now though it has a common currency (though the UK retains its own independent currency), legislates and regulates on many varied aspects of life and business, and takes huge membership fees and pays out lots of grants. Some see this as a good system even if reform is needed, some absolutely hate this with a passion.

The public vote polarised the country greatly and ended 52%/48% in favour of leaving the EU. Even if the result was conclusive the fact it's within a rounding error, the winning side committed electoral fraud and made lots of promises which they instantly backed down from, and there's evidence of Russian intereference, so there's a lot of bad feeling from both sides as many can't accept the result as final.

The key take away is that the UK has had 2 years to negotiate leaving but being in the EU affects so many aspects of life, that almost nothing has been decided and there remain so many grey areas. The worry now is that no deal will be reached and leaving the EU without a deal creates massive legal uncertainty in almost every industry conceivable, and means all trade between UK and the rest of the world (currently done via EU trade agreements) will instantly get WTO tariffs - in effect putting instantaneous costly barriers to all goods and services.

At present we're hoping politicians will become sensible and sort something out that doesn't plunge the country into financial ruin, but it's the uncertainty that's the problem at the moment.

Add to this, many in Scotland wish to be independent (another similarly polarising issue) and feel their wishes regarding Brexit are being ignored by the UK government (Scotland in comparison to the rest of the UK wanted to decisively remain in the European Union 62%/38%).

So in conclusion: (a) there's a lot of uncertainty about the UK leaving the European Union in spring next year and what this will do to the smooth running of the country (b) if the UK does leave in a crash and burn style, that may lead to renewed calls for Scotland to become independent and who knows what that will look like. Caveat emptor.

(and for full transparency of my personal bias: I'm pro European, anti Conservative party, pro Scottish independence, and was on the 100,000+ march for a 2nd independence referendum at the weekend)

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

#529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes Portugal is a good choice now, I moved here 1 year ago from UK because of various factors, Brexit, tax, quality of life etc also because I believe it will be a great location to recruit IT talent to. I live in Cascais which is a bit expensive, (still much cheaper than San Francisco of course) but has wonderful quality of life for family, Capital city amenities next to beach. Great infrastructure, motorways, ultra…

"Dividends are Tax free from the UK for 10 years" - can you share any more info on this?

Search for Portugal non-habitual residence scheme

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

#530
I'm a full-time freelancer/remote worker. In late 2016, I made the decision to move to Pittsburgh, partly persuaded Paul Graham's talk about how Pittsburgh could become a startup hub. (PG grew up in Monroeville, 10 miles east of Pittsburgh.)

Transcript: http://www.paulgraham.com/pgh.html Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpfdtgW6_oI

I feel really good about the decision, CMU feels like a peer of Stanford and MIT but living here is substantially cheaper than living in Cambridge or Palo Alto. (I pay ~$750 for a 1-bedroom apartment that's ~1.5 mile from CMU campus.) The legacy of Randy Pausch's Building Virtual Worlds was also a draw for me personally, as I work in game development and was coming of age when Randy Pausch's delivered his famous Last Lecture (if you had asked me in 2008 who my personal heroes were, Randy Pausch would be the first name out of my mouth). Going to gamedev meetups has kind of allowed me to insert myself into the CMU alumni network post hoc. Very green (lots of beautiful neighborhoods), hip enough for my tastes, and the intellectual climate is everything I had hoped it would be.

If you want to live in a city where companies like Google, Uber, Amazon, and Apple have offices, Pittsburgh may be your cheapest option.

Some discussion of Pittsburgh's (tech) climate on this article from last year: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14832249

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