Life in the Spanish city that banned cars

Re:Life in the Spanish city that banned cars by dang on Tuesday September 18, 2018 @02:02PM (#18017637)

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18014466 and marked it off-topic.

(There was nothing wrong with this comment, but the discussion it led to is extremely well trodden.)

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Re:Life in the Spanish city that banned cars by xxpor on Tuesday September 18, 2018 @10:16AM (#18015494)

It's hard to justify when you could potentially be looking at a 50% pay cut. That's the only reason I haven't moved myself.

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Re:Life in the Spanish city that banned cars by lexs on Tuesday September 18, 2018 @10:38AM (#18015685)

Do you actually get anything out of that 50% more pay? Thinking about higher rent, healthcare etc.

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Re:Life in the Spanish city that banned cars by mywittyname on Tuesday September 18, 2018 @01:25PM (#18017250)

Absolutely. Only a few cities in the USA are expensive on an international level. The cost of living in most regions of the USA is so incredibly low that a decent programmer has a shot of having a paid off house & car, no student loans, and $100k or so retirement account by the age of 30 (assuming graduating college @22).

Where I live, the median house price is about $170k USD (avg rent is just under $900/mo) and the median software engineer salary is just under $100k USD.

Plus, taxes in the USA can be pretty low.

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Re:Life in the Spanish city that banned cars by symlinkk on Tuesday September 18, 2018 @02:19PM (#18017778)

Where do you live?

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Re:Life in the Spanish city that banned cars by mywittyname on Tuesday September 18, 2018 @05:49PM (#18019476)

Ohio

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Re:Life in the Spanish city that banned cars by drstewart on Tuesday September 18, 2018 @01:22PM (#18017218)

The rent is higher in the US? Have you seen rent prices in London, Amsterdam, or Dublin?

Health care is included in any well paying tech job.

Please list out the other "etc" that makes up for $100,000+ difference.

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Re:Life in the Spanish city that banned cars by azamatms on Tuesday September 18, 2018 @10:19AM (#18015526)

I think what stops most people is the 50% paycut compared to US salaries

I'd move to Berlin in a heartbeat if it weren't for that

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Re:Life in the Spanish city that banned cars by Avalaxy on Tuesday September 18, 2018 @10:24AM (#18015580)

It's not a fair comparison though. Yes, the salary is lower, but you can free or almost free healthcare, you get many vacation days, you get vacation money (at least in the netherlands), you get paid time off when sick, more job stability, unemployment benefits, etc.

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Re:Life in the Spanish city that banned cars by ryanwaggoner on Tuesday September 18, 2018 @10:47AM (#18015774)

The healthcare argument isn't really that compelling, because most white-collar professionals in the USA have pretty good health insurance through their work. The extra time off is excellent, but you can put a dollar value on it and it doesn't come close to adding up to the paycut. You also pay higher taxes, and the cost for other goods and services (food for example) is often higher.

Disposable income for a senior developer in a major market in the US is likely to be much higher than their counterpart in the EU.

There may be other harder-to-measure cultural or quality-of-life reasons that make the tradeoff worth it, but I don't think "free healthcare" and a few weeks off comes close to making the case quantitatively.

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Re:Life in the Spanish city that banned cars by skh on Tuesday September 18, 2018 @11:15AM (#18015982)

It goes beyond these things. You get a quality of life enhancement by being in a more community centric environment. Less pressure overall. No one wonders if there is something wrong with you when you take 3 weeks off in a row. Being able to walk to the bakery, grocery store, and having better access to quality food. The fruit in the U.S. is quite bland compared to what you get in Europe. Having people out and about makes a place worth living in. The focus on the financial aspect is a very American trait. The overall quality of life is just better in Europe. Being able to take a train to a nice destination is great. Being able to walk from one village to the next is awesome. Going to a lake that isn’t fenced off due to private property obscuring access to the shore is wonderful.

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Re:Life in the Spanish city that banned cars by timc3 on Tuesday September 18, 2018 @11:42AM (#18016206)

Also when I go to the U.S. it’s kind of shocking to see how many people could do with good healthcare but are obviously not able to get it. I want everyone around me to be healthy not just my immediate friends and family.

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Re:Life in the Spanish city that banned cars by renlo on Tuesday September 18, 2018 @01:32PM (#18017340)

The US is huge. Just to add a slight counterpoint, where I live I too can get great produce and visit natural areas that aren’t fenced off (California). Walkability depends on the city as well. The other points you make are valid though.

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Re:Life in the Spanish city that banned cars by chomp on Tuesday September 18, 2018 @10:38AM (#18015694)

Yeah but I get 6+ weeks paid time off, plus 6 weeks paternity leave, and triple the pay of a comparable position in the EU, at the cost of worse healthcare. At this point in my life I'm mostly healthy, so the risk of staying in the US outweighs the benefits of moving to the EU.

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Re:Life in the Spanish city that banned cars by timc3 on Tuesday September 18, 2018 @11:38AM (#18016166)

6 weeks paternity is not very much. 6 months is better but we get 480 days in Sweden. Our children don’t need metal detectors or security fences at school, it’s a given that you take time off if your kids are sick and that the state finances it. University education is affordable for everyone. If you are raising kids 3x the pay sounds awesome until you factor everything in, then to me it doesn’t sound enough.

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Re:Life in the Spanish city that banned cars by rootusrootus on Tuesday September 18, 2018 @01:55PM (#18017565)

You really think metal detectors and security fences are a common thing at schools in the U.S.? Maybe in some really sketchy areas of inner cities, I guess

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Re:Life in the Spanish city that banned cars by ryanwaggoner on Tuesday September 18, 2018 @10:43AM (#18015744)

Unless your health insurance is truly awful, or your local health system is unusually bad, you also probably have as good or better healthcare than you would in the EU.

The problem with US healthcare is the cost, not the quality. If you can afford it, you can get some of the best healthcare in the world here.

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Re:Life in the Spanish city that banned cars by ansible on Tuesday September 18, 2018 @03:09PM (#18018206)

That's a decent benefits package... for the USA. But you can do far better in parts of Europe. It depends on where you want that work/life balance.

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Re:Life in the Spanish city that banned cars by hfdgiutdryg on Tuesday September 18, 2018 @11:32AM (#18016123)

I get 6+ weeks paid time off

How did you manage that?

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Re:Life in the Spanish city that banned cars by rootusrootus on Tuesday September 18, 2018 @01:56PM (#18017583)

Make it a condition of employment. Vacation time is negotiable just like salary, and usually much easier to get than actual money.

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Re:Life in the Spanish city that banned cars by overcast on Tuesday September 18, 2018 @10:33AM (#18015649)

Sure, but all you're doing is effectively paying for those yourself with the pay cut. It's not just about paying for day to day things, 50% pay cut is 50% less I get to invest.

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Re:Life in the Spanish city that banned cars by timc3 on Tuesday September 18, 2018 @11:40AM (#18016188)

There is something to be said how amazing it is when everyone around you is also able to get the same health care no matter their income or background.

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Re:Life in the Spanish city that banned cars by rootusrootus on Tuesday September 18, 2018 @02:07PM (#18017678)

I don't meet people very often who don't have access to health care. Most get perfectly adequate coverage through their jobs, and the unemployed and elderly are subsidized by the gov't.

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Re:Life in the Spanish city that banned cars by overcast on Tuesday September 18, 2018 @11:54AM (#18016281)

That is an ideal world, but most are not willing to take a 50% pay cut to do so.

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Re:Life in the Spanish city that banned cars by skh on Tuesday September 18, 2018 @10:50AM (#18015794)

I'm a mathematician and I have done programming professionally but it just doesn’t interest me. My training in pure math got me focused on showing something can be done or that a solution exists. When I think of a software project I think of course it can be done and lose interest.

There are a zillion things that can go wrong in software development and problems arise that require creative solutions. That’s the engineering part I suppose. But I have no interest in it. I’m stuck being a teacher at a community college. It’d be great if my job, in its current form, could be found in Germany or Switzerland but I’m stuck where I’m at.

My wife is a physician and she’s not doing residency over again just to live in Europe.

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Re:Life in the Spanish city that banned cars by donretag on Tuesday September 18, 2018 @10:32AM (#18015640)

I wish that were the case for all of Europe. I am willing to take the pay cut, but there are no real opportunities in southern Europe and if there are, the pay cut tends to be around 75%.

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Re:Life in the Spanish city that banned cars by dvdhnt on Tuesday September 18, 2018 @10:38AM (#18015686)

My wife and I want to move to Europe from the U.S., however, while I do have 5+ years of experience, I haven't finished my degree...

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Re:Life in the Spanish city that banned cars by CalRobert on Tuesday September 18, 2018 @12:22PM (#18016598)

Some things to check out:

* Dutch American Friendship Treaty (self employ in the Netherlands)

* Working Holiday visa Irealnd (one year and have to be within a year of school or in school, but if you get a job that sponsors you can stay)

* Germany. Germany is just supposed to be a relatively easy place to get a visa, comparatively. Be sure to look up blue cards.

* Ancestry. Got any history in a European country? Start looking at grandparents' birth certs

Also, a lot of people have mentioned pay. It's true, pay is lower in Europe - in tech. OTOH in other fields there's less of a disparity, or it's higher here. My wife does not work in tech and makes more here (or did before she decided to stay home with our kid).

In Ireland, at least, a normal dev would make very roughly 60(ish), someone versed in ML, etc. closer to 90, and to get to six figures you'd need te be fairly senior. Jobs posted on http://irishtechcommunity.slack.com/ recently have been everything from 40k (junior) to 150k (senior at FB). It's more common to include ranges in job postings here.

Europe is big though and salaries are MUCH different in Portugal than in, say, Finland.

In some places (Norway), you can just look them up - https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-40669239

I would have recommended Ireland in the past but now, if you're interested, you'd be wise to steer clear of Dublin. Housing has gotten really scarce, but worse than just being expensive it's just really hard to actually _get_ (no surprise given that rent control is bad policy).

If I were looking myself right now the top of my list would be Utrecht, because I love cities where my kid can cycle to school and not die.

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Re:Life in the Spanish city that banned cars by dvdhnt on Tuesday October 02, 2018 @11:01AM (#18122307)

Wow, can't believe I missed this response.

> Dutch American Friendship Treaty (self employ in the Netherlands)

This was my first thought. I was hoping to move abroad for some time before quitting my remote U.S. job.

> Working Holiday visa Irealnd (one year and have to be within a year of school or in school, but if you get a job that sponsors you can stay)

I'm going to check this one out, thank you. I have a few classes I'd like to take, plus the GI bill to pay for finishing my degree (I have a semester left).

> Ancestry. Got any history in a European country? Start looking at grandparents' birth certs.

My wife's mother was born in Italy (well, Sicily), her family migrated to the U.S. when she was just a few years old.

Thank you!

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Re:Life in the Spanish city that banned cars by mywittyname on Tuesday September 18, 2018 @01:40PM (#18017432)

> Ancestry. Got any history in a European country? Start looking at grandparents' birth certs

Unfortunately, this only works for relatively recent migrants. Any documents before 1900 or so are hit-or-miss. I have a very, very unique last name (in the US) and the documents on the country of origin for my ancestors vary between Russia, Prussia, Germania, and Poland depending on who filled out the forms. Then there's the issue of misspellings.

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