Lived in Vienna for 8 years, now in Berlin for the past 3. Vienna the city is great but I'd definitely say the biggest downside are the Viennese (I know this is ironically the most Viennese thing I could say).

Basically everywhere in the German speaking world it's considered kinda weird to talk to strangers and people are quite...Shy, I guess? It's always the thing I appreciate most on visits to Canada, the US or the UK, just how talkative and nice people are.

This applies more to Austrians than to (north) Germans, and the Viennese are additionaly also grumpy and complain about everything, despite living in one of the cities with fewest things to complain about.

Also personally felt a lot less accepting of foreigners than Berlin. I far more often felt like a curious attraction and "obviously" you're not really Austrian if you're not ethnically Austrian, even if you speak German and have lived in Vienna your whole life.

> I far more often felt like a curious attraction and "obviously" you're not really Austrian if you're not ethnically Austrian, even if you speak German and have lived in Vienna your whole life.

Once you master the Austrian 'Schmäh' everything is good :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiener_Schmäh

>and "obviously" you're not really Austrian if you're not ethnically Austrian, even if you speak German and have lived in Vienna your whole life.

Ouch. That's pretty bad, especially for... you know... Austria.

Just to offer another point of view here: What you say is true but IMHO things have been improving on the "culture" side over the last 2-3 years especially.

I too like to think it did, a lot of it has to do with foreigners coming in and working alongside Austrians in offices. In tech, some companies have even English as their internal language (in Germany more common).

this is good: http://www.economist.com/news/christmas-specials/21712044-ci... (always wondered what is the reason so many great minds have put their thoughts to paper (all during roughly the same time) in Vienna. The place was a breeding ground for both the most crazy and the most genius ideas.

What specifically happened in the last 2-3 years?

Eurovision-2015?

Why not Budapest then? Still fairly central, much cheaper, nice spas and amenities, closer to eastern Europe, and IMO the food is better

Much worse infrastructure, if you care about such things. Probably not as good a place to raise children (especially with the politics of the recent decade or so).

I have to disagree. I know people who passed over good job offers overseas in order to remain in Budapest and raise their children. Good schools, affordable housing, a cheap & heavily utilized public transport system, respect for history and culture, forest/nature a max. half hour from anywhere in the city, and ironically, the recent politics have resulted in a safer climate compared to other cities in Europe.

But these were supposedly Hungarians, rather than foreigners choosing to move to Budapest? My point about politics was unfaovrable climate for foreigners.

Specifically about schools- how would your child feel being the only Jew/Black/Muslim/Asian/etc in class?

Yes, but any new arrivals would benefit from the same advantages as long as they were willing to learn Hungarian and behave in a fashion compatible with Christian/secular cultural values.

I think Hungarians are quite a bit more world-savvy these days. Chances are your child wouldn't be the only minority in their class, and even if they were, it wouldn't raise many eyebrows.

From an external perspective, the primary disadvantages of Budapest/Hungary are the small size of its domestic market (~10M people), a language seen as difficult to learn, and the occasional decrepitude that we in the West aren't accustomed to seeing, such as cracked sidewalks, missing cobblestones and crumbling plaster.

Are you talking from experience? From anecdotal evidence of several acquaintants Budapest is not as progressive as you describe, especially to non-whites.

Yes, I am speaking from experience. Budapest is not as multicultural as London, Paris or Berlin (make of that what you will), but it is nowhere near as ethnically or culturally homogenous as Japan or China.

Budapest is essentially a run-down version of Vienna.

You can see they are quite similar, but it's also obvious that Soviet Block happened to one of them.

Good luck learning Hungarian, though :P