Okay, but that's unfairly ( to police States ) correlating lack of economic development with with increased State power. A more realistic comparison is: would you rather live in London, or Hong Kong ( or even better, Singapore )? ( terrorism is rare in HK, which is basically a police state protectorate of China, and SG is almost certainly a police state ).

You could just as easily say Paris v Warsaw, or Berlin v Shanghai.

TL;DR - comparison with NK is unfair since NK is very hostile to all foreigners and has few attractive economic reasons to live there, it doesn't offer much to potential expats / migrants. But Warsaw or China or HK, or SG have strong policies that seem to have stifled terrorism ( for now ). The fear of "police state == (NK or Burma)" is overblown. You can have strong policies and still have many attractive qualities.

Sorry, I feel the above isn't very clear, but it's the best I could do right now. Thanks

I'd take Sweden over Singapore anytime.

I mean, I like Singapore, but I'm not a fan of having one party that runs everything, the draconian drug laws and wide application of the death penalty. It's also worth pointing out that large numbers of the wealthy have left HK (and been replaced by transplants from China) and a similar trend has been happening in SG for decades