Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: What's the Best Place To Relocate?
New submitter tsakas writes: "I am an IT researcher from southern Europe looking for a good place to relocate. Markets are pulling the teeth out of the strong European countries by destroying the south. The U.S. is in debt and there is no way of telling how long this can go on. China and India are on the rise. Brazil and Australia are looking good. The question: Which city would you choose to go and start a family if you were to stay there for a) 5, b) 10 and c) 20 years?"
Good weather. Anglophone. Fun people. Healthy culture. Melbourne was just voted the most livable city in the world again. Economy booming because of natural resources being mined out of the ground and sent to China. All you really need to adapt to is driving on the left.
I hear what others say about Scandinavia, and those countries truly have their shit together, but I'd find the long dark winters to be very depressing.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
1st of all: If I would want to start a family I wouldn't plan to go anywhere for less than 20 years. Times are unruly enough as it is. With children you want a good school, a good community and - most important of all - a good wife and her our yours or both families near by. Everything else comes second!
If you want to start a family you should even consider a career change if that is required to provide for the other things mentioned above. The family will be your primary fullfillment, not the job, so you might as well work as a bricklayer, provided the income is enough. Also factor in: Free housing or easy real estate from your family or in-laws, quality of life, happiness of wife (where does she want to live and raise children) etc. All of these are *way* more important than monetary income. Especially in times like these.
If I'd start a family again, I'd move together with my girlfriend in the town she lives, simply because her career is way more solid than mine right now. And I wouldn't care if I were the main caregiver to children and would be driving a dump-truck on the side. Be prepared to do that aswell if your future wife turns out to be the vice-exec of some uprising company or having and wanting to keep a more stable career than you aparently have right now.
2.) If you want to earn money in IT and are prepared to leave everything behind, you do the full monty and should get prepared to move anywhere within a few weeks notice, at any time and occasion. Singapur, Silicon Valley, Moskow, Dubai perhaps and maybe some high-polpulation areas in china are where the partys at right now. Live out of the suitcase or in microapparments for the next 15 years, rake in some stable cash or real estate and buy/build a home for your old age.
3.) If you aren't prepared to go full-on cyberpunk and move around the globe for the rest of your working career you should stay put right where you are and adapt. If the Euro goes belly-up and the world finally notices that the US dollar isn't worth the paper its printed on then you'll be glad if you've got some contacts to a local farmer and some real-estate and a small shed on it somewhere in southern europe. And maybe some solar panels to power your computers. I'd be happy if I had that. I'm living in a single room sharing flat with 6 people in Germany and right now things aren't looking up, even for an expert like me. Living expenses are through the roof, the IT staff shortage is nothing but a legend to keep wages at the 2002 minimum and inflation is ramping up allready.
Bottom line: Move for the family you want to start, and *only* for that, go fully international and prepare to relocate to Timbuktu if the money and/or the benefits package is right or stay put, get by somehow and prepare for some elongated worldwide economic downtime.
My 2 cents.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Speaking for my church.
We don't have the recession, we don't have the climate problem, we don't have gun, neither any strong social/cultural problem.
We do have a strong IT/software development infrastructure from aerospace to game field or financial institution.
We are a multilingual and multicultural city, you can find food and language from anywhere around the globe here.
We do have apartment or house that doesn't ask you a arm.
We do have nice commuting infrastructure, the metro (subway) are underground, some apartment building and office building have direct access to the metro... so you don't have to but your nose outside during the cold day of the winter or the hot day of the summer.
We have a unique family policy that put the children as a societal value (6-8 month of parental care for a new birth, cheap children gardening, real restaurant with children place...)
In the city of Montreal, you will find a lot of natural park and children park.
Park are big enough to do mountain bike, skying, and so on....
Lot of Europeans people work in the IT field in Montreal, you will not look that strange...
It's easy to have the canadien residence for a european
If you have a diploma from a know european university, you will have a job faster than the canadian residence.
Ceci n'est pas une Signature !
1.) very reasonable priced health care ! (contributions will be transfered by your employer to the insurance company from your salary)
- the health care insurance company is not allowed to pick, they have to take anybody
2.) good job market
3.) reasonable priced rent
4.) you can mostly get along with speaking english,
but learning german is not that hard,
Example: that iranian young women whose face pic was taken from facebook by western media due to a name glitch, she was prosecuted by the mullahs,
got asylum here and after only one and a half year she is fluent and speaks execelent, she was on radio last week.
If you want to learn german the national public radio (not npr) has a livestream,
http://www.dradio.de/
you can also find places on the internet where you can watch our exported tv series ("Der Tatort" which translates as "The Crime Scene" or "Derrek" these got even dubbed with japanese language for Japan of course!!)
5.) state forced sponsored pension (will be transfered by your employer as part of your salary) after your 67 birth day these insurance benefits will be paid
6.) disabled persons & families are last to be fired (workers rights)
7.) strong unions
8.) from north to south, funny speaking people
9.) reasonable wages
When you negotiate your salary keep taxes and other things in mind (~%43 will be subtracted from your salary) so just add it beforehand !
10.) IT, Tech & Engineering Jobs
I love my country so I'd like to present my country to people in this world, european, african, asian, indian.
Think of finding a job ?
-> Try Germany!
Of course if money is your primary choice, I would suggest Australia.
As someone who thought the same a few years back, I'd highly discourage this as a course of action. In Australia, I made far more money than in my native New Zealand, but it was all eaten up with the ridiculous cost of living. Sure, some places might be cheaper than Sydney, but good luck finding a well paying job outside of Sydney (if you do, grab it - it probably WILL be worth it).
Since moving to Hannover, Germany, my pay stayed around the same or increased slightly and my cost of living went down by more than 50%. I feel significantly better off here than I ever did in Sydney.
My book about LSD and Self-Discovery
Also on facebook as: DroppingAcidDaleBewan