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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?

#491

Post by nsomaru »

King-Aaron wrote: post #154
whitef0x wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How bad is the crime? I've talked to a few who've lived there but they always tell me the crime forced them to move out. Do hijackings at robots still happen often?

> How bad is the crime? From experience (several yrs ago), you keep a gun in your lap when you drive the car. All the time.

Yeah way to escalate a smash and grab into a homicide! Getting a new phone is always cheaper than dealing with the dead guy pooling blood next to your car.

I’m a South African and out of all my friends and family only one carries a gun and never in his lap.

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

#492

Post by elyobo »

nelsonic wrote: post #297
pandemic_region wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Italian heritage.

exactly ! but seriously, it's just a [bad] habit ... thanks for pointing it out. hope it did not detract from my message.

I find it hard to read, because I find myself mentally pausing and stressing those words in my head and there are a lot of them! Also the square brackets and the quotes around words that don't seem to warrant them - I'm not sure what you mean by them and so I'm not certain whether I'm getting the same message that you're intending to convey.

If I can just ignore them it seems to read better but it's hard work to do so, but maybe that's just me :)

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

#493

Post by JepZ »

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…

> [...] no language barrier because so many people here speak English.

I wonder how you came up with that one. From my experience (I am German myself), Germans are not good at English. It is not so bad within the large cities but in the countryside, good luck. Just take any of the Scandinavian countries and you will find that they have a higher percentage of people speaking English.

Living in Germany without learning German is a hard challenge. However, speaking German with an American accent is sometimes considered cool ;-)

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

#494

Post by growlist »

dejv wrote: post #460

I spent my 20s traveling around the world, working and living from many places. My favorites are (skiping cities already in this thread): - Brighton, UK: awesome music scene, lot of activities, chill atmosfere. Good connection to London ( - Brno, Czech Republic: my hometown and place where I decided to settle down after years of traveling. University city, great place for gastronomy, bar scene and coffee. Very cheap:…

I live near Brighton and am moving away soon: house prices in Sussex pretty much anywhere with decent transport links are insane (the house I'm buying in the West Country would be more than double the price over here, around £1m!!), pollution is bad, there is drugs and crime, loads of the shops are just overpriced crap for idiot hipsters, and it's always crowded with tourists. It's such a shame because Sussex is lovely.

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

#495

Post by markdown »

garyclarke27 wrote: post #482
nelsonic wrote: post #229

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…

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…

> no Amazon

Really? I live in a developing country middle of the Pacific Ocean and I regularly buy from Amazon with no issues. How come Portugal doesn't have Amazon?

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

#496

Post by alphakappa »

YorkshireSeason wrote: post #472

81 Nobel Laureates This is misleading, because it falsely counts winners of the "The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences Prize in Economic Sciences" as a Nobel price. Alfred Nobel did not donate a price for economics. The Sveriges Riksbank (= bank of the swedish empire) created this price (against the explicit wishes of the Nobel foundation [1]) in order to 'cash' in on the reputation of Nobel price. This is…

Seems to be a technical distinction without a difference though. Same amount of money, announced at the same time, awarded at the same ceremony, and just as prestigious. Sure, it’s an expansion of the original prize, but that shouldn’t take away from the fact that for anyone in the world, the awardee is for all practical purposes a Nobel prize winner.

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

#497

Post by ciguy »

batuhanicoz wrote: post #468
rb666 wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahaa Istanbul a good intellectual atmosphere? A country run by a lying, corrupt, refuge-bombing despot. Why on EARTH would you invite anyone over.

Disclaimer: I am Turkish and I live in Istanbul. Well, you could say that the United States is run by a similar person. That does mean all of the U.S. is like that? Istanbul does have a good intellectual atmosphere. Izmir too. I'm not going to say it's all fine over here, but it's perfect for a digital nomad. Istanbul, especially places like Besiktas and Kadikoy are perfect.

I lived for a few months in Istanbul and can confirm this. I was surprised by the quality of engineering talent in Istanbul though they are getting hit by brain drain hard these days.

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

#498

Post by elyobo »

amm wrote: 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…

> It has been ranked the most liveable city in the world for some years in a row.

Melbourne would beg to differ; there were headlines when we lost the first place position a few months ago after quite a few years at the top.

Not proposing Melbourne as an alternative though, while it's a nice place to live it's far from cheap.

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

#499

Post by sergioj97 »

nelsonic wrote: post #402
santialbo wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and [unlike Barcelona] everyone speaks English Do you have any stats proving that? Just asked a portuguese friend living in Barcelona and said that is a quite bold statement.

Stats would be nice, I agree. I have searched but haven't found anything concrete ... the best data available is: https://www.ef.edu.pt/epi/regions/europe/portugal in lieu of stats, I'll give you the logic [facts] instead: English as a Second Language (lessons) begins in the 5th grade in Portugal. It's compulsory for all people and generally high quality. see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Portugal Stude…

Isn't English compulsory almost everywhere throughout the EU? I live in Madrid and it definitely is here in Spain.

It's true, however, that the fact that every TV show is completely dubbed makes it harder for us to develop our speaking (our listening doesn't seem to be so affected for some reason).

When you finish college you're only supposed to have a B2 English level. I don't know about it, but I wouldn't be surprised to know it's a fairly low standard for a European country.

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

#500

Post by nik736 »

mhjas wrote: post #490
nelsonic wrote: post #229

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…

I agree with you regarding the cost of living but the tax system is similar to a lot of other countries within the EU.
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