I'd strike Portland and Baltimore off of that list and replace them maybe with Seattle and D.C.?

The greater Portland area ain't bad, but downtown Portland kind of blows. The food scene is okay, but it's hard to get just normal good greasy spoon food without having to find out more than you want to know about the meal. Seattle is nicer is almost every way and has more to do and a far better tech scene.

Baltimore is a hell hole and I wouldn't miss it if it sunk into the ocean tomorrow. I grew up not far from it and avoid it like the plague. It's one of the saddest U.S. cities outside of Detroit. I'd say the same about D.C., but it's improved tremendously in the last 20 years and is actually not a bad city these days. It's not as nice as modern NYC, but it's getting there.

Having done lots of global travel, including to Australia. I'd say the bits of Australia that I've been to (NSW) were "fine". It feels very "American" in lots of ways, but different -- like an episode of Sliders. Public transportation was even worse than the lousy standards of the U.S., if that's believable, and everything from real estate to food was terribly overpriced. But it had a nice feel to the place, people were friendly enough and there's a better fitness culture than in the States if that's important -- it's not to me. The big spaces between the cities were full of the same kind of redneck you find in the big spaces between cities anywhere and only appeal to people who like farming and dust. As an American I could see moving to Australia for a couple years maybe.

Europe has nice bits and "meh" parts as well...even in Western Europe. Growing up in one of the most cultural diverse places in the world, the lack of cultural variety in lots of areas in continental Europe is kind of boring. Unless you count Kebabs and Chinese takeout as culture. London can service this if you need but it's about the only really strongly diverse multi-cultural city in Europe that's on the scale of the typical American city. The racial segregation in most of Europe makes Chicago look like a well integrated city. Europe offers good health insurance, and excellent local food (even if the variety isn't very good). But you also get high taxes, a difficult labor environment and in general an anti-risk anti-entrepreneurial environment.

The Middle East is well...it is what it is. A couple nice cities in a very difficult socio-economic environment with one industry. Depending on how you count it (European or Central Asia), lots of Turkey is actually pretty nice.

I count Russia as its own thing. Cities are pretty new like Asia, industry is highly focused like the Middle East, people can be very friendly once you get to know them, and then everybody's miserable anyways.

TBH These days I'd rather live in one of the newer Asian mega cities: Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing, Hong Kong, Singapore etc. Nicer places to live, better quality of life, more to do, and everything's newer so it's in better shape. Public transport is out of this world, and food is generally plentiful and cheap. People are fine as well in most places. Crime is also low and medical care is stupid cheap even if it's not universal. Most of Asia is also highly entrepreneurial with nearly everybody trying to start a business of some sort.

U.S. is big, varied, cities are generally metropolitan, lots of different industries to work in. The countryside drops down the socio-economic ladder very quickly. Pockets of extreme religiosity can be annoying but are easy to avoid. But it's medium-high entrepreneurial tendencies and high risk acceptance and well regulated banking system make doing business reasonably pain free. Health care costs are absurd, sometimes even with insurance. Food is of a high variety, even if much of it is second rate. Local American cuisine is generally contemptible, but pockets of traditional american greatness exist in the food world. Clothes and goods are cheap and plentiful and of unimaginable variety. In most of the country real estate prices vary considerably within short distances. Public transport outside of a few cities is almost third world.

Regarding the overpriced-ness of Australia, for a long time our dollar was worth around 2/3rds of the US dollar (at one point in the past 20 years it was down to 50c), and pricing made more sense in comparison, with imported things being generally more expensive due to remoteness. Then we had a mining boom and our dollar increased in value to a peak of around US$1.12. Of course, your local prices don't fluctuate to match the exchange rate, because it doesn't work that way. So for a local, that bus ticket has always been the same price, but it doubled in cost for tourists. The Aussie dollar is now on the way down again. Real estate is ridiculously expensive though - most expensive in the world in relative-to-average-income terms.

Apparently, the volatility of the $A combined with the general stability of the economy makes it the 5th-most traded currency in the world (US$, Euro, Yen, GB pound, then $A... the middle order might be a bit mixed up)

re: overpricedness

I think it has something to do with the better labor laws (for low-end workers) which push up prices on commodity items. I don't remember any country outside of maybe bits of Northern Europe and Switzerland where I paid more for local food. I've even been on some pretty remote islands and not paid that much, exchange rate adjusted or not. I remember the first time I paid $22 for breakfast and $5 for a smallish, very lackluster, meat pie I knew I was in for a huge hit on my wallet. I know someplace have isolated foreign or exotic foods that are expensive (the famous $11 Japanese hotdogs for example), but even in Tokyo you can find plentiful meals for under $10.

I hit a decent steak house in Canberra (Australia has great beef BTW), and was very happy it was paid for by a local. I think the tab was well over $50 a head for a steak and a couple sides.

It may have been a particularly weird time to go or something (2007), but it left an indelible impression on me.

Don't get me wrong, I'd still readily return, Australia is a lovely country for the most part.

$22 for a breakfast puts you in a fairly well-to-do area. As a comparison, I work in the Melbourne CBD and buy lunch every day from a variety of places for around $10-12, though none of these are trendy cafes. One thing to remember when comparing bought food between the countries is that the US price is usually stated as being before tax and tip, which generally adds 25%. In my experience, bought meals were roughly the same price in the two places (I don't eat fancy though) with the US being a touch cheaper, however the US meals were more substantial. Food you make yourself, bought from a supermarket, was considerably cheaper in the US. Real estate here is ridiculously expensive though; the most expensive in the world compared to average annual salary. It's something like tripled in value over the past 15 years, and that bubble shows no sign of bursting soon.

My steak experience in the US was in Fort Stockton in Texas. A $14 steak came out, so lonely and small that it literally slid right across the plate when it was placed before me. Fort Stockton isn't doing Texas any favours for their steak reputation :)

In 2007, Australia was at the start of it's mining boom's plateau - this was when the dollar started peaking with parity with the $US, and yes, things would have been overpriced for a tourist. Curiously, during the GFC, the assumption was that Australia's economy would crumble and our dollar dropped to US60c. It made no sense, because our economy did alright while the US economy crumbled significantly. It's just a reminder that currency values are set by the gut feelings of a bunch of suits in the city, not by concrete measures.

It's a great place to live, but I have trouble recommending it as a place to visit - pretty much all the nations which produce sizeable quantities of tourists have access to the things Australia provides to tourists, but closer and cheaper. I'm not the guy the tourism board wants to hire...

I think your analysis sounds about right then. I remember walking around area (Potts Point in Sydney) and not finding any sort of reasonable breakfast that wasn't insanely priced. I think I broke out laughing at one place that was offering a special of two pieces of toast, an egg and a cup of coffee for ~$15.

We do have good steaks in the U.S., sorry about your Texas steak experience! I'd expect to pay $15 on the low end for an "ok" steak to $35 on the high end and then $3-9 for sides. Add in some beer or wine and you can hit a pretty price per head in the States. But if you just want to hit a roadhouse and get a steak an potato and a beer, I'd expect to do it for under $30.

And if you work for an multinational, even in Asia you can even get your five weeks of vacation a year. (I do.)

>The Middle East is well...it is what it is. A couple nice cities in a very difficult socio-economic environment with one industry. Depending on how you count it (European or Central Asia), lots of Turkey is actually pretty nice.

Oy, what about Israel ;-)?

Ha! I'd probably add it to the few nice cities, and strike it from the singular industry list. But the rest still applies I suppose...particularly the difficult socio-economic environment.

In some ways I'd say Israel is like a very compressed and magnified U.S., huge military industrial complex, lots of immigrants, racial and ethnic segregation issues, big hi-tech industry, intense religious conservative red neck types...it's just all in an area the size of West Virginia.

I understand what you're saying, but I don't know how you can say that with a straight face.

I don't think living a life that "isn't so bad" is good enough for the caliber of people that visit HN. And the fact that your country has "sane" and presumably "insane" political areas is creepy :(

I'm an American. There are some ways in which I like living here.

Would I come here if I were a Swede? Hell no, except for a $300k+ job in banking or the Valley, and only then knowing that I could get on a plane and leave if I got sick. (You can get 100-200k in the EU; at the 300k level, the jobs start getting rarer in the EU relative to the US, which is why Wall Street gets a surprising amount of French, German, and Italian talent-- if probably not as much as The City.)

If you look at the country in totality and taking into account its full history and what it has overcome, and how rapidly it can change itself when needed, the US is a great country. I don't mean to imply that I think it's better than others (I wouldn't begin to be competent in that comparison) and its history is all kinds of fucked up (genocide of native people, slavery, internment of Japanese-Americans) but there's a lot to be proud of, too.

Would I live here if I were born European? Barring an unusually good job offer that couldn't be found elsewhere, no. And any patriotic pride I might be inclined to have as an American (and I don't have much, because this country is full of assholes, too) I would just as much have if I were born elsewhere. Patriotic pride is a weird thing. I'm from rural PA and it makes me smile every time I meet a successful person with a '717' area code, and I definitely take pride in my rivers and mountains (hills by West Coast standards) but I know there's no rational reason for it; people from central PA aren't superior to people from anywhere else in any way.

I don't get all the apologies in this thread. The US is a great country! Has its warts, but I've lived in Europe, and I've been to Australia, and I wouldn't live anywhere else.

It's the maverick, can-do entrepreneurial spirit that's more prevalent among Americans and the rich cultural diversity that comes with being a melting pot that I love about this country. Outside of a few bad spots in a few cities, it's one of the safest places in the world to live.

Yeah, our history is kinda fucked up, but whose isn't? Bad people do bad things. Name one country in the world that doesn't have fucked up moments in their history.

I just don't understand all the pessimism and self-hate that Americans seem to have lately.

It's because of the cancer I like to call the US government, not to mention corporate media which make a profit obfuscating the process of national theft. Everyone is angry but few know why.

I'm replying to digisign -

I would argue that it's the media that's stirring that anger up and the fact that partisan hacks turn every small thing into an OUTRAGE more than everything truly being outrageous.

Thats what I mean by "obfuscating...", i.e. distracting.

Europe, and hell, the rest of world, have similar sane and insane political areas if I might remind you. Lots of the politics, especially the race/culture/nationalism politics, in Europe shock most Americans.