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Ask HN: What's your ideal city in a 100% remote world?

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Re: Ask HN: What's your ideal city in a 100% remote world?

#61

Post by felgueres »

emernic wrote: post #10

Toluca, Mexico. It's extremely cheap, cool/temperate all year, and some of the suburbs (e.g. Metepec) are quite safe. Reasonable proximity to the US (geographically, temporally, and to some extent culturally) would make it a practical option for Americans. It's a profoundly "not hip" city, but as someone who just wants to be left alone in my apartment all day, I consider that a plus. The main downsides are extremely…

You are setting the bar extremely low. Besides nevado de toluca (ridiculously beautiful mountain) there's little to no incentives for this place

Re: Ask HN: What's your ideal city in a 100% remote world?

#62

Post by truetraveller »

rococode wrote: post #21

Tokyo! Pros: - Safe almost everywhere even at night and generally very clean - Infinite amount of things to do, you'll never finish exploring new restaurants (with delicious food) and stores - International events happen there: conferences, concerts, etc. - Very walkable (including the metro), especially around city center - Reasonable housing prices - high, but comparable to cities in the US - Politeness is baked in…

>few people speak any English

Is this true? I would think that at least 50% would be able to speak English. Perhaps even up to 80%. Anyone else with first-hand experience?

Re: Ask HN: What's your ideal city in a 100% remote world?

#63

Post by achillesheels »

binarynate wrote: post #26

I've been thinking about this a lot. My criteria: - Warm winters - Sunny (>200 avg. sunny days) - Good music scene - Good tech scene (for meeting other founders) - Beautiful nature nearby - Reasonable cost of living - In the US Based on these criteria, I think I've landed on Austin, Texas as the best option. Here are other places I considered, though: - California: L.A. or San Francisco would honestly be my top choic…

I've done extensive business travel in Denver, and, being a CA native, I did not find the winter to be that harsh. In fact, because it's up in the mountains, most of the cold and snow melts away by high noon. You're left with sunny skies until the frost returns at night, but it definitely helps with needing to shovel snow I'd imagine :P

Re: Ask HN: What's your ideal city in a 100% remote world?

#64

Post by 1270018080 »

drstewart wrote: post #39
1270018080 wrote: post #15

Small, dense, walkable. Does it exist in America? I don't think so.

Madison Santa Fe Burlington

I've been putting together a list of walkable cities to potentially move to, and Madison and Burlington are on the list.

Most of America is a 1/10, they're 6/10s, which isn't bad. All ranked by my totally arbitrary scale. But what I'm looking for is a 9+/10. Aspen, Colorado is a good example, but I would never be able to buy a house there as they start at $8 mil.

Re: Ask HN: What's your ideal city in a 100% remote world?

#65

Post by mywaifuismeta »

truetraveller wrote: post #62
rococode wrote: post #21

Tokyo! Pros: - Safe almost everywhere even at night and generally very clean - Infinite amount of things to do, you'll never finish exploring new restaurants (with delicious food) and stores - International events happen there: conferences, concerts, etc. - Very walkable (including the metro), especially around city center - Reasonable housing prices - high, but comparable to cities in the US - Politeness is baked in…

>few people speak any English Is this true? I would think that at least 50% would be able to speak English. Perhaps even up to 80%. Anyone else with first-hand experience?

It's true. 50% may know a few words, but probably less than 5% speak good enough English to have a regular conversation about something more complex than the weather. You can definitely live in Tokyo without knowing Japanese and do everything you need to do, but your options, socially and otherwise, are always going to be limited.

Re: Ask HN: What's your ideal city in a 100% remote world?

#66

Post by nostrademons »

tapan_jk wrote: post #27
Mikeb85 wrote: post #14

Somewhere in the middle of nowhere. I currently live in a small town in the mountains. Love the mountain aspect of it. The townspeople are progressive in some ways (they try to be 'woke'), but extremely regressive when it comes to development (NIMBYism on steroids). Housing is a major problem, all the restaurants are shit, nothing gets built pretty much ever, most of the tax burden is on the few businesses there are,…

Off topic but [maybe] relevant... > Somewhere in the middle of nowhere. A part of me too desires this. For a software engineer, what you need most is good network connectivity, which is now possible in many places. The other part of me is convinced that would not be a good move in the long run. If I move away from the city, my kids' education will suffer, my mother (who also lives with me) will lose the social connec…

> It would be nice to have the best of both worlds.

That was supposed to be the idea behind suburbs, but a lot of people think of them as the worst of both worlds now.

Personally I think it's pretty nice to live 30 minutes outside a city but still have enough property for trees and open space, though.

Re: Ask HN: What's your ideal city in a 100% remote world?

#67

Post by syndacks »

binarynate wrote: post #26

I've been thinking about this a lot. My criteria: - Warm winters - Sunny (>200 avg. sunny days) - Good music scene - Good tech scene (for meeting other founders) - Beautiful nature nearby - Reasonable cost of living - In the US Based on these criteria, I think I've landed on Austin, Texas as the best option. Here are other places I considered, though: - California: L.A. or San Francisco would honestly be my top choic…

I'm not sure what kind of music scenes you're looking for, but Miami has one of the best for electronic music in the US, as well as probably latin and reggae.

Re: Ask HN: What's your ideal city in a 100% remote world?

#69

Post by Barrin92 »

slackfan wrote: post #24

If I can work from anywhere in the world, why in all flying hells would I work from a city?

For me personally, quality of life. No need for a car, I love theatre and as a kid I had to commute two hours to get to the next chess club because I lived in the middle of nowhere.

Re: Ask HN: What's your ideal city in a 100% remote world?

#70

Post by Bjorkbat »

Might be the city I'm currently living in: Albuquerque, NM.

It's very inexpensive, and sits at the foothills of the Sandia Mountains and Petroglyph National Park. It's almost always sunny, yet is rarely too hot for outdoor activities. As far as bike infrastructure goes it may just be in the top 10 for US cities. You almost need to go out of your way to not be an outdoorsy person here. It has a decent amount of restaurants, breweries, things to do, but if you're particularly starved for entertainment then there are cheap flights to Austin and Denver. Indeed, what makes Albuquerque really great is that you could use it as a nice place to decompress in-between destinations.

There are some downsides though. Crime is pretty bad, as is the poverty rate, but a lot of places here in the US are struggling with that right now. Truth be told the thing that annoys me the most may be the Gross Receipts Tax. Basically, if you freelance, your services are subject to what's basically a ~7% sales tax, only for services.

But given how inexpensive everything is, and how much I get, I can't really complain too much about the GRT.

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