I returned to my home country and home town for the first time after 7 years and the place is barely recognizable.
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It is more crowded than ever. I hardly saw a traffic jam in the past, but now the main streets are consistently clogged between 4 and 5 pm, and every single car park is full during the day.
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There is no free parking anymore anywhere. Everywhere I used to park previously there are now parking meters.
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Many of the shops I used to frequent are either gone or relocated far outside the city, and they are replaced by yet another Chanel boutique or some cookie cutter tourist trap.
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The all-inclusive unlimited public transport ticket I used to have is being discontinued, and the city’s public transport monopoly now charges based on distance travelled, meaning that cost of public transport doubles for most regular commuters.
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We also had a chocolate factory nearby that used to do public tours, to which I was looking forward to, but turns out they don’t do that anymore because of “public health concerns”.
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There used to be exactly one homeless guy in our city, whom everybody knew by name, now there is one at every corner, and there are organized groups of beggars from a different country
I’ve been in North America, Europe and South Asia this year and I can’t shake the feeling that quality of life is gradually deteriorating everywhere.
Please tell me I am wrong. Where have you been lately where things overall are actually getting better rather than worse?
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It depends on what you think of as QoL. The population of the planet has approximately doubled in the past 50 years, so if QoL requires stable population density then not many places are going to meet that requirement.
But when I was a kid the neighbors didn’t have indoor plumbing, and that was just normal back then. I think ~1940 was the point in the US where about half the houses in the US had an indoor bathroom with hot and cold running water. In the 1950s, almost nobody had air conditioning and now it is almost universal in warm climates. Since the mid 1980s, the infant mortality rate in the US has halved. Although the murder rate is higher now than a decade ago, it’s lower than it was in the 1990s.
Just gotta note that it’s actually good that your town is charging for parking, now that car traffic has exploded.
Who knew?
You double the cost of living in 2 years, while not offering any more pay, and peoples’ quality of life is halved.
A few countries have shown significant improvements in their Human Development Index (HDI) values which tend to correlate with QoL. You’ll notice most of them are in Asia (1990 vs 2021):
- China: Increased from a score of 0.484 to 0.768.
- Dominican Republic: Improved from 0.577 to 0.767.
- Vietnam: Rose from 0.482 to 0.703.
- Nepal: Increased from 0.399 to 0.602.
- Cambodia: Improved from 0.378 to 0.593.
I’m originally German, spent >10y in London and recently moved to Napoli, Italy (they have a great tax break for people who want to move here).
While it’s not true for Italy more broadly, Naples seems to be on the upswing. It’s at least to some degree due to increasing number of tourists. However, it’s worth noting the starting point is naturally lower than in northern Italy (where I think things are getting worse)I went to Napoli a few months ago and while the pizza was divine, the streets and sanitation were awful, it reminded me of when I visited India.
What drove you out of Germany if I can ask?
I think might like Napoli. I can also live and work in EU so it may be a real option. Can you elaborate on the tax break?
It’s explained here - https://taxing.it/tax-break-to-attract-human-capital-to-italy/ - 90% of income is tax free if you move to Italy from abroad (70% in northern Italy). Word of warning, they’re currently contemplating reducing the %. Right now max. income tax you can pay is 4.5% (45% on the 10% that is taxable). Western part of Napoli is great plus you have Amalfi Coast + Capri/Ischia etc right there. Weather and food also amazing.
Sounds great. Thanks!
Antarctica is getting warmer.
Hoping they get good internet now
Seems like the QoL where you are has increased? More people can afford cars (parking and public transport issues are downstream from this), people can afford to shop at upscale stores, and rents have increased enough for there to be a homeless problem meaning the area is highly desirable to live in now.
Maybe QoL hasn’t increased for you in particular, though.
Only places where the QOL wasn’t great to begin with lol
Thailand or Vietnam
This is true.
Scroll through the feed of this sub, and subs like r/IWantOut or even r/AmerExit and see how many of the posters are looking for better QoL. Even more so people who post looking for higher QoL along with lower CoL.
All the people across the globe who wanted higher QoL tried to move to the places that were then currently seen as having the highest QoL. That’s highly educated people who felt they wanted something new and what they percieved as better and could get hired abroad, there’s people who went to study and remained, people who migrated as partner of someone studying or working, people with lower or no education but who found citizenship by descent or managed to find some loophole where they could move and work in one of these supposed high QoL places.
In short, loads of people saw “Ohh, high QoL! I want that!” and did whatever they could to move. More moved than there was housing and the infrastructure was not adapted for a suddenly increase in population and so the roads that previously saw 1000 cars per day would now see 3000 or even 5000 cars per day! Subways where hundreds of people commuted now somehow have to find a way to fit in more carts per train or more frequent departures to be able to move the increase in commuters!
If a town is built for 100k-120k people and within a few years it goes up to 200k there will obviously be issues and things will not be as calm and quiet as it used to.
I’ve been seeing posts on Subreddits of people who are very mobile (either work remotely and doing the Digital Nomad thing, or even just people with high education and desirable work experience who can find work in new countries).
So people moved to where there was high QoL because that sounded great, infrastructure and services got strained, housing prices increased and now suddenly it is no longer the place with the best QoL and might be as bad (or worse) as where people moved from. So now people hear about another place with great QoL compared to where they are now and want to move there instead. Or people move back home when things did not turn out as great as they had planned. Rinse and repeat.If a town is built for 100k-120k people and within a few years it goes up to 200k there will obviously be issues and things will not be as calm and quiet as it used to.
I think this is exactly what happened. You’re right. No such thing as a forever comfortable place.
The key must be to find a small livable town before everybody else does and things go downhill, stay for a few years, then look for your next home.
Dubai, Doha, Riyadh, Muscat.
Until the oil money runs out and then it will be a hard fall off a cliff.
Haven’t thought of this corner of the world. Have you lived there? How is everyday life compared to the West?
Speaking for Dubai - Everyday life is pretty good if you have a good-paying job in a good company/work environment. Most services are abundant and cheap which makes life outside of work easier/convenient. Work-life balance is not the best for many, and the job market is extremely competitive. It still has most of the problems you complained about though, overcrowding. Traffic has been a nightmare basically everywhere lately. To be honest, I think most places that are great to live in have this problem, at least to some degree
I see. Thanks for the insight tho!
Eastern Europe? East/ Southeast Asia?
Many years ago there was a book by Kirkpatrick Sale called Human Scale that discussed the ideal size for cities. As a city grows, it becomes an economic hub and provides job opportunities. The new wealth is channeled into investment in infrastructure and education. Above a certain size the town may support the arts, maybe a college and professional sports teams.
But beyond that sweet spot you start seeing more crime and homelessness. Schools and highways are overcrowded because the town has outgrown its infrastructure. The more spread out a city is, the more costly to build enough infrastructure. Things enter a negative cycle where taxes go up, quality of life declines, young people move away or lose hope.
His analysis led him to say the maximum size for a healthy city was something like 100-200,000 if I remember correctly. I’ve lived in cities ranging from under 20,000 to a couple of million, and based on my experience, a college town of somewhere between 15,000 to 150,000 is where I found the best overall quality of life. Bonus points if it’s also the county seat and has the regional medical center, as along with the college those create good middle class jobs and a less narrow-minded population.
These towns exist everywhere but they’re not going to have the same entertainment or cultural resources of a city of a million, and the residents of larger cities will call them boring. But we’re talking about where you want to live, not where you want to go for a weekend getaway. Someplace with less crime and cleaner air.
The only risk with these smaller towns is if their major employer goes under. Then they’re going to necessarily need to find new ways to make money and will go through a bad spell until they do.
So if you’re looking at college towns that are regional medical centers and county seats, make sure they’re on the way back up after reinventing themselves and have a lively feel and optimism about them. It’s a lot of online research, but time well spent on the front end.
When I tell people in New York that I once lived in Columbus Ohio they snort and ask ‘why?’ But your analysis just supports my argument that it’s a pretty nice place to live
a college town of somewhere between 15,000 to 150,000 is where I found the best overall quality of life.
Me too! Ended up moving away for a job but I wish I could find a place like this again.
I am thoroughly uncomfortable in larger cities and the only thing I hate more than driving a car through traffic is the feeling of claustrophobia in an overcrowded bus or metro. Couldn’t care less about “entertainment and cultural resources”, what does this even mean? I value walkability/bikeability, access to nature and quiet time way higher.
Looks like smaller college towns are exactly the sweet spot I am looking for. Thanks for the pointers and the book tip!
The lowest crime city I’ve ever lived in by far is Tokyo, a city of almost 40 million people. It’s even low crime, relative to the rest of Japan, with Tokyo proper having the lowest homicide rate of all prefectures.
The infrastructure is great since the costs can be shared by more people. In fact, even though taxes nationwide are technically roughly equal, taxes in Tokyo are effectively lower, since you can make “donations” to rural/small town areas in exchange for “gifts” and a tax deduction. The government in Tokyo effectively pays you back some of your taxes to buy food/vacations/etc. from the outlying areas.
I don’t think I could live long term in a city smaller than ~5ish million people. I enjoyed my brief time living as a digital nomad in Freiburg im Breisgau and my years as a university student in Ann Arbor (both 300k ish population metro areas), but I’d never be able to stay there for many years. The lack of culture, entertainment, food, etc. options is pretty suffocating.
I completely agree with your sentiment about Tokyo, but I also feel it’s literally the only megapolis on thr planet that’s like that
I don’t think Tokyo is unique or impossible to reproduce though. Osaka, Seoul, Singapore, Hong Kong, are all great cities. I think Tokyo is better, but Tokyo is also bigger, so that’s almost to be expected.
The only infrastructure that is a real pain point for modern rich cities as population increases is transportation, and I don’t think any modern city is actually anywhere near the limit. Trains in Tokyo in 2019 were significantly less crowded than they were in 1990 despite continued population growth, and with telework becoming more common, crowding today is barely a problem at all.
Housing is a big pain point for a lot of cities, but that’s because regulations make it too difficult to build new housing, especially when it replaces existing buildings with something taller. Despite an increase in population and stagnant economy, residential floor space per person in Tokyo is up like 50% since 1990, because people are actually allowed to build more housing to fit all the new people, and then some.
If you commit to building the homes for everyone to live in, and the railways for everyone to get around in, I think modern technology would allow for cities in the much larger than Tokyo pretty comfortably. One of the sad things about population decline in Japan is that I probably won’t get to see a Tokyo with 60 million people.
Maybe I’m pretty jaded with my experience in the SF Bay Area where both problems were very bad, but most of the problems with modern cities can be summarized as entrenched anti-transit and anti-housing interests.
I am sure those cities are great too, although I haven’t been anywhere aside from Osaka (which is basically mini-Tokyo), but they are also nowhere as big as Tokyo, varying from 6 to 10 mil, although obviously that is still a giant city (compared to say Paris, which is just about ~3 mil with suburbs).
I live in Montreal currently, that’s 10 times smaller than Tokyo, but the infrastructure is already crumbling, and it’s not just transportation and housing (which are very problematic, especially the latter), but it’s also hospitals, leisure, goods and services - everything is more expensive and either is unaffordable or unattainable - 5 hospitals in Montreal hit over 200% capacity yesterday, meaning the chance of actually getting medical help in time is close to 0. If it were the size of Tokyo I can’t imagine the mayhem that would be.
Argentina is about to get a whole lot better.
How so? Any particular town you could recommend?
They’ve been experiencing some cost of living issues, but a recent change in leadership is expected to result in a significant reduction in the cost of living pressures for the locals.
A town called Buenos Aires (Spanish for “Good Air”) is quite nice. It has been compared favourably to Paris.
The local food is also excellent.
Hate these posts that people try to make a mystery out of the country they’re speaking about … just name the country. This is silly.