> Thanks for that perspective. I wish there was more of a focus on people trying to improve their own countries versus running to another country, but I can understand why people would choose that option.
Most of the time the improvements are coming from the top. So what usually happens - and we observe it over the course of history - countries reach peak, then decline and decline until they collapse or fall, and then again rise by using some external means (finding cheap resources etc). Every time you need the government that actually does things (forces/gives morale boost to the people) - or a revolution. Any other time it will be endless bureaucracy in democratic societies (nothing is getting done or takes too much time) or nepotism and corruption (with authoritarian flavor) in less democratic societies.
> People will say they are trying to get away from the bad practices in their country and that they want to improve, however in practice it doesn't seem 100% true
It is not true for sure. Especially with many people coming at once or forming their own small communities. When you are alone - you are forced to adapt. But when you are not alone you can keep your own culture and traditions without changes, while having benefits of a developed society.
I see it all the time - if you are used to throw away trash outside of trash box in your home country, then by coming here you will continue doing that sooner or later with more people from your countries coming here. Same with public transportation - in my country in order to travel from one region to another region, we used to have a train once per day. Per day. Here you get trains once every 10-15 minutes. So even if the public transportation will decline (fall apart, more delays and cancellations) I will feel ok (and a lot of people will feel ok) because I am used to such conditions and with bigger populations coming from the same culture and gaining rights to vote and so on - nobody will care about such things because we are just used to have it worse.
Or another example - in my country we are used to have fully crowded buses, coming every 30 minutes. Here if they cancelled a couple of buses and it would start arriving crowded, I would feel "at home" and it would not be a shock me and I would less likely to care about that because I simply used to it in my home country. It would be a minor issue for me. And you can imagine that with more people coming with the same mentality, it will just degrade the quality of living.
That's why adaptation and supporting the habits, rules and laws of your new country is important - because you came here due to them. You wanted to live in that "clean and nice country". Don't bring your bad habits with you.