Ask HN: Cheap places to live with a good intellectual atmosphere? • Hacker News Board

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

#711

Post by me551ah » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 1:50 PM UTC

blocked_again wrote: post #577

me551ah wrote: post #567

You can also consider NCR , India. It's the national captial region which includes Delhi, Gurgaon and Noida. Pros. Internet - 1 Gbps internet at ~20$ a month Lots of great colleges - IIT D, JNU, AIIMS, DCE Housing - You can get a 2500ft 3BHK high rise condo in gurgaon for ~800$/month. With that you'll get a jacuzzi, modular kitchen, round the clock security, pool , gym etc. Labour is cheap - Maids which do cleaning,…

Please don't. Delhi and NCR is overpopulated and is one of the most polluted cities in the world. The weather is just terrible. Very unsafe cities. Also one of the worst cities in India for women. And you would not be making anywhere close to what you make in SFO. There are good Universities when compared to other Indian universities but I don't think nobody calls Delhi an Intellectual city. Has nothing to justify mo…

Woah, so much hate for Delhi !

I personally like the weathers in Delhi , there is a good variety of seasons in Delhi. Winters are my favourite part of Delhi weather. Some people like changing seasons and some people like a particular weather.

The safety aspect is a bit blown out of proportion tbh. Statistically Delhi doesn't fare any worse than any modern city. United States has above 5x the number of reported rapes compared to India even though it has a much lesser population.

Well OP was looking for something out of SFO, salaries in europe are pretty much comparable to what you'd get in top tier companies in India. SFO is hard to beat even within the US itself. But the high cost of living in SFO means that you can easily save more while working in India while leading a compareable(if not better) life.

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

#712

Post by theandrewbailey » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 1:52 PM UTC

pc86 wrote: post #665

dsiegel2275 wrote: post #655

This is easy. Pittsburgh. Consistently ranked as a top city in the US, and world, to live in, in no small part due to the comparatively cheap cost of home prices, rent, and living in general. For example, there are nice neighborhoods in the city where one can buy a three bedroom, 2000sq foot house for With Carnegie Mellon University here, the 'intellectual' and more specifically the tech scene is thriving. I work for…

Pittsburgh is great. I live in a city you've never heard of and pay $1125/mo for a one bedroom apartment. A good friend of mine lives in Pittsburgh and pays $1200/mo for a 5 bedroom house (rental) in an unpopular but safe and growing neighborhood of Pittsburgh proper. The cost of living is insanely low and Pennsylvania is a low tax state (flat 3.2% person income tax), which compared to California can equal a few hund…

> Public transit sucks.

There is a light rail/trolley line from downtown into the South Hills area. It's great if you live next to it or can get to a park & ride. I hit it on the weekends to bike the trails along the rivers downtown. I haven't used the buses much, but the few times I've needed them, they weren't bad.

The thing that makes Pittsburgh traffic bad is the topography. Outside of downtown, nothing is a grid, and you'll likely have to go through a tunnel. Not only are they narrow (2 lanes in each direction), everyone seems to practically stop for them.

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

#713

Post by mannykannot » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 1:52 PM UTC

nelsonic wrote: post #607

madeofpalk wrote: post #423

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...

€110m is an absolute bargain for the value that it has generated. Any public official who was involved in making that decision/deal and facilitating the influx of talent/ideas/energy/capital deserves a medal! Lisbon is buzzing now more than ever, thanks in no small part to Web Summit. It was good before, now it's incredible . Say what you want about Web Summit (that's a whole other rant!) it is unquestionably "net po…

It does indeed appear to have been a very smart choice for Lisbon, but that does not address the question of whether this was the main reason for the location selection.

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

#714

Post by pc86 » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 1:54 PM UTC

CiPHPerCoder wrote: post #700

pc86 wrote: post #665

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pittsburgh is great. I live in a city you've never heard of and pay $1125/mo for a one bedroom apartment. A good friend of mine lives in Pittsburgh and pays $1200/mo for a 5 bedroom house (rental) in an unpopular but safe and growing neighborhood of Pittsburgh proper. The cost of living is insanely low and Pennsylvania is a low tax state (flat 3.2% person income tax), which compared to California can equal a few hund…

> Nobody lives downtown because there are no supporting services downtown like grocery stores or anything like that. You 110% need a car to live there. Is this by design? Or is there an opportunity for grocery stores, etc. to address a city planning deficit?

It's just a heavily commercial area. Parking is expensive compared to the cost of living (~$400-500/mo for a garage downtown with no access restrictions which will probably be close to or maybe more than half your rent) and that coupled with the lack of services just makes it very hard to make the case for moving downtown. Even if the services came in, you would still absolutely need a vehicle to survive so when you compare downtown to a 30-45 minute rush hour commute it's a hard sell for sure.

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

#715

Post by aiouy » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 1:54 PM UTC

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #547

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…

Any recommendations on companies that do exciting things and treat people well in Montreal?

Shakepay is hiring a full stack dev in Montreal: https://medium.com/shakepay/shakepay-is-hiring-a-3rd-full-st...

Happy to chat about what it's like to live in Montreal if anyone's curious.

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

#716

Post by assblaster » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 1:55 PM UTC

dtornabene wrote: post #621

assblaster wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chicago is a terrible option: Major parts of the city are off limits to white people due to threats from gangs on racial basis, but also random violence from crowds of "youths" who troll around nicer areas of the city looking for victims. Insane traffic, but if you want public transportation, you can look forward to dirty buses and subways, and again, threats of violence directed at you. Miserable long winters. High…

So, in case this doesn't get completely flagged, which it should, its also dead wrong. I lived in Chicago for years, family from Chicago, so I've been coming there literally since I was born. The cost of living is low, and the idea that "major parts of the city are off limits to white people" is exactly as absurd and racist as it sounds. I worked on the south side, and am painfully white. I biked and walked around th…

Here's a few anecdotes:

My wife and I on multiple occasions on the red line, or in the South Loop, River North, or museum campus, during the daytime no less, have suffered probably two dozen verbal attacks purely on the basis of race. My most memorable attack was: "die, you white ass cracka ass mf* piece of s*!"

I've been everywhere between Hyde Park and Wilmette, and lakefront to Oak Park, and the racial tension is real. Viewing Chicago through blue colored glasses does a great disservice to a city that has struggled with unbelievable racism for the last 70 years.

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

#717

Post by pbhjpbhj » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 1:55 PM UTC

baby wrote: post #674

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…

As someone who travels a lot, I really couldn't see anything I liked in Vienna. Not sure what people see in this city.

Unless you say what you were looking for then your comment is just "I don't like it", which is not helpful.

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

#718

Post by jpgvm » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 1:55 PM UTC

elyobo wrote: post #498

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.

It is comparatively cheap compared to SF, London, NYC and Sydney though...

Everything is relative. Personally I find it a very affordable place to live for a number of reasons:

1. I don't need a car (~$10kAUD+ a year) because transport is sufficient. 2. Queen Vic and South Melbourne markets are very accessible which make buying fresh ingredients for home cooking very affordable. 3. Entertainment is cheap, tons of cheap live music acts, art exhibitions, markets, etc. 4. Public transport is cheap (~$20/month, more if you don't live in CBD though) 5. AUD is declining against USD, by mid-2019 it's likely to be around 0.65 USD so if you make USD it's great. 6. Rent is relatively affordable. ~$1600AUD/month get you a 1 bed place in the CBD.

Those are just the money factors. As I said, it's not "cheap" but it's "relatively affordable" meaning that you can buy an awesome life here with a bit more money than traditionally cheap places but achieve a better $/Quality of Life metric.

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

#719

Post by sunir » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 1:55 PM UTC

Ann Arbor, Michigan. Small town feel. Top universities.

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

#720

Post by fipple » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 1:56 PM UTC

SwellJoe wrote: post #524

fipple wrote: 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.

Yeah, that’s why the cold places are cheaper. The benefit is that a certain kind of person stays out of there. The best way to describe it is people who don’t have their shit together. In a place where not dressing for the weather can be a fatal mistake, there isn’t room for fuckups.