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?

#731

Post by xchaotic » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 2:06 PM UTC

pzduniak wrote: post #47

msadowski wrote: post #22

If you feel adventurous you can consider moving to Poland. I would recommend Krakow. Most young people will speak English, there are couple of top Universities there (PK and AGH for technical schools, UJ for humanities, medicine and some tech too and UE for economics). The tech scene seems to be constantly growing, with lots of international companies having their offices there. As a senior dev in Poland you can earn…

Avoid working for local companies in Poland unless you like low pay. Just find yourself a nice remote gig (there's plenty of them if you know how to find them) and live like the top .001% of the country or whatever. There's a good reason why being a "digital nomad" is becoming more and more popular. Healthcare starts at ~$130/mo if you manage to not pay for the retirement fund scam (rarely possible), goes up to like…

healthcare + mandatory pension contributions are $130 for the first two years of running the business here. After two years you should get a good feeling of whether you can make the larger $350 payments. IMO with any decent income, the relatively low tax rate 19% makes up for the fixed costs of healthcare. $130 is still peanuts compared to a medical insurance in the USA

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

#732

Post by ydnaclementine » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 2:07 PM UTC

All of these HN articles about Estonia in the past, and not one mention here. I'm interested because of how tech thinking the government seems to be

Maybe the people who are there don't want to tell others so no one else moves there because it's so great

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

#733

Post by def_true_false » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 2:08 PM UTC

antaviana wrote: post #421

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…

One clarification: Gross salaries in Spain are not as gross as in other countries. For example, a salary advertised as EUR 45K in Spain does not include taxes and benefits (mostly unemployment insurance and medical) paid by the company. So a SE with a gross salary of EUR45K directly costs the company employing here some EUR60K (i.e. some USD70). The employee full cost to the company is never konwn to the employee (so…

That's not exclusive to Spain. At least Czechia, Slovakia and (I think) Germany have similar gross not-really-gross salaries.

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

#734

Post by blocked_again » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 2:08 PM UTC

me551ah wrote: post #711

blocked_again wrote: post #577

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Crime rates doent mean anything. Kerala has the highest crime rate in India. It just means people are not afraid to go to police and report the crime. On the other hand Kerala must be one of the safest states to live in India. Delhi is a really dangerous city. Especially for a foreigner. Crime is extremely common in Delhi.

> 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.

Its defintely not comparable. Almost every beginner software engineers in Europe makes $60K easily. How many beginner Software Engineers in India make that? Lol. AFter working for some time in India and moving back in USA he would have peanuts as savings.

> But the high cost of living in SFO means that you can easily save more while working in India while leading a comparable(if not better) life.

I dont think Software Engineers in Delhi have a better quality of life than Engineers in SFO. Thats the reason why people from India do masters in USA and not the opposite. India is nowhere top in quality of life and happiness index.

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

#735

Post by xchaotic » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 2:10 PM UTC

ur-whale wrote: post #278

msadowski wrote: post #22

If you feel adventurous you can consider moving to Poland. I would recommend Krakow. Most young people will speak English, there are couple of top Universities there (PK and AGH for technical schools, UJ for humanities, medicine and some tech too and UE for economics). The tech scene seems to be constantly growing, with lots of international companies having their offices there. As a senior dev in Poland you can earn…

Weather and outdoors aren't great in Krakow. Language is also a pretty big problem: true, some educated youngsters will speak English, but the bulk of the population doesn't speak a word. Would not recommend.

have you actually been around Krakow much? There's climbing spots in the city itself, skiing slopes 1-2 hours away, Tatra mountains 100km away and beautiful Jurrasic valleys to the North-West, lots of green areas in the city and huge forests to the East, perfect for cycling or running. Weather is a mix - some snow in the winter, some lovely sunshine in the 6 warmer months and lots of rain and in-between weather on the bright side it does give you some time to work where you don't mind being indoors and you get to appreciate when it's nice outside.

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

#736

Post by SmellyGeekBoy » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 2:13 PM UTC

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #707

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…

Vienna would be a lot nicer if they didn't still allow smoking in bars and restaurants. "Just don't go to the smoking places." A very large percentage of the adult population in Vienna still smokes tobaccco. When I was there in 2017 it felt like there were no non-smoking places.

Wow, when I saw Vienna mentioned the smoking was the very first thing that came to my mind. Funny to see others have shared the same experience. A real shame as it's such a beautiful place otherwise.

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

#737

Post by rorykoehler » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 2:15 PM UTC

scrollaway wrote: post #412

jonathanstrange wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Lisbon and work as a foreigner at one of Lisbon's universities and can confirm that the living quality in Lisbon is absolutely top. It's a fantastic city. And our bridge is similar to yours - looks smaller but is longer! Caveats: - If you intend to work within Academia, you may occasionally have to deal with fairly incompetent professors. It depends on the research unit and area, but there tends to be a cer…

> Is there any major capital where they don't rise? Athens. I need to leave that country for my own sanity and I'm currently on the lookout for a new one to move to. All this talk about portugal is very tempting :)

I've been very curious about how life is in Greece now. What is the vibe like? Is there any hope amongst the creative youth? Any interesting cultural movements that we generally tend to see emerge in times of hardship?

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

#738

Post by fimdomeio » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 2:15 PM UTC

arountheworld wrote: post #556

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 think there is something missing in your story. My Portuguese friends who fled Portugal to London paint different picture of their lovely country. Maybe there are different rules to foreigners there?

Problem being that they are portuguese. Things look a lot better if you're foreigner, keep work connections to the outside can avoid the new crazy renting laws that make it easier to put people out. For a lot of locals living in the big cities gentrification context is pretty much 2008 crysis part II.

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

#739

Post by theandrewbailey » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 2:16 PM UTC

ianai wrote: post #684

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…

What is the driver of the local economy? Ie most people wind up working at/in _____ . How hard is it to find good doctors and red Chile.

After losing all but 1 steel mill about 40 years ago, it's quite diverse. There is lots of healthcare (UPMC, Highmark), finance (PNC, BNY Mellon) and sports (Steelers, Penguins, Pirates), with plenty of retail and manufacturing. There's a little tech, but it's not big compared to healthcare and finance (check back if we get Amazon HQ2). This list is accurate:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_corporations_in_Pittsb...

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

#740

Post by noahl » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 2:16 PM UTC

cbames89 wrote: post #708

I'd highly recommend the triangle area in North Carolina. In Raleigh, there are a large number of tech companies, RHE, Cisco, IBM, Unreal Engine, just to name a few. It has the second highest % of computer science PhDs, and it's home to NC State, Duke University, and UNC. It's also a cultural hotspot for Blues creativity. Many of the best contemporary blues artists are located here in the triangle. The cost of living…

I moved from Seattle to Chapel Hill about a year ago (also grew up in Durham, a lot longer ago). I second everything cbarnes89 said, and I'd add that there's a small but growing Microsoft office in Morrisville.