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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?

#841

Post by wprapido »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #801
wprapido wrote: post #786

Osijek, Croatia. University city. Thriving tech hub. Close to 4 major international airports (Budapest, Zagreb, Belgrade, Timisoara). Low rents. Low cost of living. Decent food. Very walkable. English is widely spoken. There are many other cities all over Central and Eastern Europe like this. Other options are Novi Sad in Serbia, Szeged in Hungary, Brno in Czech Republic (the major tech hub), Timisoara in Romania (sa…

Osijek seems a bit small for a tech hub with a population of just over 100,000

The university is a gamechanger. Osijek also doesn't feel provincial at all. Mind you, I'm a big city kid, still I love it here.

http://softwarecity.hr/clanovi/

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

#842

Post by cuspycode »

hycaria wrote: post #583
galfarragem wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Universities in Portugal are not that great nor renowned. I disagree. Universities are not the problem. General school is. As a rule of thumb, public universities are better than private ones and the opposite on general school.

At least in my domain (veterinary, idk about medicine but if the same, that's frightening), they have seemingly no selection and numerous universities are offering the degree (even much more than smaller countries). So their degree is shit (no time for practice, only theoretical and you'll learn more once in the job), there are too many of them anyways and they can't find jobs. Also can't think of any portugese scien…

> Also can't think of any portugese scientist, or portugese based lab renowned for anything in biology or computer science.

Fernando Pereira comes to mind: he made significant contributions to the early development of logic programming (e.g. C-Prolog) and natural language processing, as well as other AI research.

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

#843

Post by hood_syntax »

Technetium wrote: post #816
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…

If you think you're going to have a good time living in the Carolinas, then I genuinely hope that you don't plan on being black or gay outside of a major city. There is a ton of bigotry and racism still present there, and the politicians in charge are happy to see it continue.

There is, but this recommendation is specific to the triangle area: the rural trends just don't apply.

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

#844

Post by myroon5 »

thrwthrw wrote: post #822
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…

How is the tech scene around Penn?

Penn is in Philadelphia, not Pittsburgh

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

#845

Post by mindcrime »

idoescompooters wrote: post #831
mindcrime wrote: post #809

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agreed. The Triangle hits a good "sweet spot" in terms of cost of living, business/career opportunity, culture, food, entertainment, etc. And we're conveniently located about 2-3 hours from beaches (depending on which beach you want to hit), or about 3.5-5 hours from mountains (depending, again, on exactly where you want to go). One thing I really like about this area is that for a moderately sized urban area…

I'd say the XC mtbing is pretty limited. There's only one good trail system.

Interesting. I'd say we have an embarrassment of riches in terms of XC trails, between Lake Crabtree, New Light, Beaver Dam, Harris Lake, Little River Regional Park, Legend, Carolina North Forest, Briar Chapel, San-Lee, the RTP trails, and all the various "bandit" trails near RDU (especially Sludge, 286, and Rocky Road). And you can arguably count Angler's Ridge up in Danville since you can pop up there in a little over an hour from parts of the Triangle. And I'm not even considering some of the newer trails that I've never ridden, like Wendell Falls or Forest Ridge.

I guess it depends on what you are looking for though. For my tastes, I love parking off of Reedy Creek Road behind LCCP, and being able to ride Crabtree (fast, "flow" trails), 286 (slightly more technical than the crab), Rocky Road (very technical and challenging), Sludge (technical in spots), and then go grind out some training miles on the gravel roads in Umstead.

That said, I'm sure there are places with even more variety. But I've never suffered from a shortage of places to ride here. :-)

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

#846

Post by me551ah »

sandGorgon wrote: post #370
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…

This, except New Delhi. Bigger roads, much better infrastructure/subway system. We actually have close to 7-8 world class universities in the city (IITD, AIIMS, NSIT, DCE, IIITD, etc). Rentals are also cheaper.

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, laundry and cooking cost ~150$/month. Drivers cost around 300 . You really don't have to do chores

Great food - Everything is app based anyway, so you can get good quality pasta/salad home delivered to your place at 3AM for less than 10 dollars.

Activities - you get go karting, mystery rooms, great dining places in both delhi in gurgaon, also an f1 track which has track days where you can drive your own car on the buddha circuit for cheap!

Good Roads - Unlike some cities in India, the NCR region is connected by highways since it's made up of multiple states. Though if you have got friends in another part of town, it can mean a commute of upto 70 kms. It has a population of 24 million.

Great quality weed - weed is virtually legal and will set you back by ~10$/quarter and concentrates for ~70$/q. Lots of microbreweries in gurgaon too.

Cons

Pollution - It can get a bit bad in winter, but you can install airpurifiers in your car and home to offset most of the effects.

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

#847

Post by mindcrime »

kccqzy wrote: post #835
mindcrime wrote: post #809

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agreed. The Triangle hits a good "sweet spot" in terms of cost of living, business/career opportunity, culture, food, entertainment, etc. And we're conveniently located about 2-3 hours from beaches (depending on which beach you want to hit), or about 3.5-5 hours from mountains (depending, again, on exactly where you want to go). One thing I really like about this area is that for a moderately sized urban area…

> And we're conveniently located about 2-3 hours from beaches (depending on which beach you want to hit), or about 3.5-5 hours from mountains (depending, again, on exactly where you want to go). This sentence really makes me rethink how much time some people routinely spend on the road. I live in Santa Monica where's it's minutes away from beaches and about half an hour away from mountains. If I just want to go there…

Sure, all things being equal, being closer would be better. I grew up about 6 minutes from the beach, so I can totally relate to what you mean. But there's still a pretty big difference between being close enough that you can wake up in the morning, decide to jump in your car and go to the beach (or the mountains), and make an impromptu day trip of it, vs. being somewhere where you have to fly or drive overnight to get to the beach/mountains.

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

#849

Post by erikig »

pieterhg wrote: post #541

Hi, I made a site to do just this called https://nomadlist.com . Click OPEN FILTERS and click cheap living cost ( I have collected 1,000+ of the biggest cities and am adding another 1,500 now. Let me know what you think! - Pieter

Thanks for sharing this, I really like the site a lot. I was impressed by the variety of search criteria. How do you reliably gather such disparate pieces of information?

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

#850

Post by fauigerzigerk »

niccolop wrote: post #694
nik736 wrote: post #625

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd argue it's better than Portugal. Why is it better?

For work we find the technology community more diverse and deeper. Also for internationals choosing to move to somewhere attractive Spain offers a great balance of lifestyle and work. I would argue Lisbon is sort of the exception in Portugal; and even then it is a bit limited with no real domestic scene more people seeking low cost or nearshoring.

We were considering moving the company to Spain after Brexit but the reputation of the Spanish tax office as extremely bureaucratic and unfair is a huge deterrent.

Purportedly they can fine you tens of thousands of euros for tiny honest mistakes even if you don't owe one cent of tax (Modelo 720).

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