I'll grant you that I'm comparing living in London to living in the US generally, which is a little unfair. I've also lived in Nottingham (also great public transport) and Cambridge (pretty poor public transport) and have managed most of the time without needing to drive. My point is more that "bigger cars" is not inherently a valuable prospect compared to "good public transport". After a few online searches the average PHP salary in London is supposedly £55-60k, which is comparable to the supposed $70-80k average for the US. As another commenter mentioned, weapon-based murders are far lower in the UK than the US. I grant you we don't have legislation to protect hate speech, but we do have the right to silence when being questioned by police: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_silence_in_England_an... .