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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?

#931

Post by kpennell »

czbond wrote: post #872
kpennell wrote: post #775

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lived in Boulder from September 2014-July 2015. I lived in Denver for 7 months after that and then moved to Oakland, California after that. Boulder is the most frustrating and disappointing place I’ve lived. I tried so many different things to make friends, date, build community, or simply have a good night out but just couldn’t make it work there. For a place with such a good reputation around the western US, it w…

I agree here. Dallas,TX transplant to Denver. Boulder seems to be where you get either: college students, families with some money, and pretty introverted "doing my own thing with my own small group" older singles. On the flipside, there is nothing intellectual about Denver..... great people, love the outdoors, but having intellectual conversations not involving Broncos or Rockies doesn't happen.

Yeah, agreed. I heard Colorado summarized as a place where people prioritize their outsides vs. their insides.

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

#932

Post by fipple »

SwellJoe wrote: post #923
fipple wrote: post #720

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I guess I'm a fuckup, because I really like nice weather.

Obviously the logic doesn’t work that way, but you absolutely do not see people showing up late to meetings and canceling plans last minute in Minneapolis or Boston the way they do in Los Angeles or Atlanta.

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

#933

Post by SwellJoe »

tropdrop wrote: post #893
SwellJoe wrote: post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Chicago, the last affordable big city in the United States" I love Chicago, and would consider living there were it not for the harsh winters. But, Dallas and Houston would like a word about being the last affordable big city in the US. I'd wager they're more affordable than Chicago, actually. Then again, if your definition of "big city" includes mass transit worth speaking of and corridors where you can live afford…

I am sure Dallas and Houston are great places to be, but my own prerequisite for "big city life" is the ability to live comfortably without a car (and because the poster is from the Bay Area, I assumed they had something similar in mind). This doesn't just mean public transit, either, but high density architecture to eliminate the amount of time I need to spend traveling for groceries/food/coffee/social activities (s…

I think the Bay Area outside of SF is only barely qualified for a carless lifestyle, and most of it is not "big city". I lived for three years in Mountain View with only a bike, but still had to rent a car now and then. There's the Caltrain corridor (which I lived on), but if you get out into the suburbs of San Jose, Sunnyvale, etc. you pretty much need a car.

Chicago is better in that regard, but Houston and Dallas both have a train (and some buses), like much of the Bay Area, which also has a train (and some buses)...you can live on that line and live without a car most of the time, if everything works out (like your commute also happens to be on that line). But, most people in those cities have a car, as is true of much of the Bay area. And, it's probably not useful to treat "Bay Area" as a singular city. There's really only one big city in the Bay Area that works for this argument, so someone accustomed to the Bay Area life could very well have a car.

Cars suck, of course, and every great city should stop relying on them. But, the necessity of a car is not the only factor in what makes a big city great, even though it's important.

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

#934

Post by howwwwl »

mehrdada wrote: post #73

Davis, California is quite a bit cheaper and close enough to the Bay Area

I agree with you on this one, I lived in Davis in 2016 for a few months. The University brings a lot of young people to the area, there is a decent restaurant and bar scene, lots of people bicycle here, the weather is sunny and mostly dry. If you want to go to SF for an excursion, you can ride the Amtrak train from downtown Davis to Berkeley for very small tech company during my time there. But I imagine if you dig a bit you can find fellow techies. Also my impression for living there for 6 months was that Davis really felt like a "little San Francisco". The prevailing vibe is liberal and intellectual. Food is affordable, plentiful and fresh as Davis is largely an Agricultural community. It is a quiet community and feels very safe -- the kind of place where pretty young ladies feel safe to walk/cycle home at 1am after they have been drinking.

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

#935

Post by bzbzbz124 »

lixtra wrote: post #6

I lived a year in Vilnius and after the usual struggle to get connected found the startup community there quite thriving. Still, most of my friends where expats. You can live comfortably on 1300 EUR/month. (Average salary is 1000 EUR, but probably a bit higher in Vilnius). To evaluate visit first in winter because it’s the worst time.

With regards to salary, try bigger companies. 2500 EUR/month net for a decent mid-level engineer is the lower bound of what you can get if you shop a little.

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

#936

Post by bogomipz »

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…

>"Portugal is very welcoming to US citizens, you won't have any "visa issues" the way you will in many of the [superficially] "cheaper" Asian countries"

Could you elaborate on this? Are there options that exist that Non-Portuguese tech workers can look into? Something like a freelance visa or a start up visa? Do such things exist? Cheers

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

#937

Post by arisAlexis »

eclat wrote: post #817
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…

Yeah, as a Portuguese person living in Lisbon and having worked in the tech scene here, I can say avoid Portugal if you're looking for a SV type scene. The level of anything going on around here is far lower. Sure the weather is the best I've ever experienced on earth, the food is great, and the cost of living is low. But on the other hand you have an ecosystem that is nothing to write home about, culturally it's goo…

It happens a lot that foreigners find places awesome where locals find the opposite even given two quite similar persons.

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

#938

Post by SwellJoe »

wglb wrote: post #890
SwellJoe wrote: post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Chicago, the last affordable big city in the United States" I love Chicago, and would consider living there were it not for the harsh winters. But, Dallas and Houston would like a word about being the last affordable big city in the US. I'd wager they're more affordable than Chicago, actually. Then again, if your definition of "big city" includes mass transit worth speaking of and corridors where you can live afford…

Despite what 'tptacek and others might say about winters, I don't find them bad at all. There have, in fact, been one or two that are outright frauds, with 72 degrees on Christmas Day. And the lowest temperature is only -29F. (Full disclosure--I grew up in Montana on the prairie, with more wind than Chicago, so my perspective might be unusual.)

I grew up in the south. -29F sounds like hell on earth. I get seasonal depression, there's no way I'd put myself through a winter like that to save a little money on rent. Though, again, there are major southern cities with lower cost of living than Chicago, so it's like not even saving money, despite the possibility of living without a car. Since I work from home, my car/commute costs are negligible, and I drive a 10+ year old vehicle that's fully paid for.

I'm not saying Chicago isn't a great city for some folks. It is, but it's not the city for me, though I love to visit and when a conference is happening there I'm more likely to want to go.

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

#940

Post by SpecialistEMT »

kgabis wrote: post #431
flavor8 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd have to be quite apolitical to consider a move to Poland right now.

If you ignore weekly nazi rallies and all the book burning it's not such a bad place./s Seriously though, Poland is one of the safest place to live in right now, especially if you're a foreigner. Media's portrayal of current political situation in Poland is HUGELY exaggerated.

First sentence but unironically and it's getting worse.
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