[code-blooded]

I moved from the US to Europe a year ago and I think articles like this don't capture quality of life in Europe well.

Just think about healthier food, walkable cities, great public transportation, safety, free education and healthcare. The way I see it, life in Europe is less stressful and more enjoyable than in the US.

Having less money translates into having a smaller house or a car, but in my opinion that doesn't make you any less happy. You just need enough to live comfortably, which especially in tech is not that hard, and then you can focus on whatever gives your life meaning.

[seren]

As a European, I can still believe this is true (maybe this is some kind of coping mechanism), but at the same time, I got the impression, that overall healthcare, education, safety nets are getting worse as time goes by, so I don't know how long it will stay an advantage.

At some point, you need to have the mean to finance these services, so stagnating GDP is not that good.

[remarkEon]

I've spent about a month in Europe for the last three years on vacation and travel there for work semi-frequently. I've considered moving (wife says no, for now). I agree with you on the finance part. I'd need to accrue some significant coin to make this move make sense financially (plus finish becoming fluent). What I'd tell you is this "cope" isn't really cope. Americans just don't have many options for cities that have clean and reliable public transit, beautiful architecture, and safe streets. There's exceptions, obviously. But ... those exceptions are not, say, Vienna.

Edit: I suppose it isn't just the transit and the architecture and the safety that's the draw. Many in America, even if they're "conservative" (whatever that means today), are willing to pay more in taxes if it means free health care and a functioning bureaucracy.

[_g7d8]

You don’t need to become fluent in a European language before moving there. Most expats don’t. Having some familiarity will help, it’ll become much easier to learn the language when you’re actually in the environment, and no one will expect you to suddenly speak their language when you get there.

[rcarr]

I would say this depends on the country. You can obviously survive without learning the language but you are definitely better off learning it, particularly if you want to integrate with locals. It’s also country dependent. Somewhere like the Netherlands or one of the Nordics where everyone speaks fluent English you’ll probably be ok not learning but if you tried just speaking English in France they’ll consider you a massive arsehole.

[_g7d8]

I didn’t say that you shouldn’t try to become fluent at all eventually, it’s just not a prerequisite before moving.

[remarkEon]

Yeah, I know. I guess I just consider it a polite and respectful thing to do. At a minimum you should speak enough to "get around in an emergency" before you move there. Maybe that's just my midwestern sensibilities.

[klabb3]

I’d second parent’s point. Im Swedish, lived in the US for 8 years now, and am moving to Spain. I speak a little Spanish. Obviously I intend to learn more, but it’s not a prerequisite to know everything up front, that’d be a catch-22. This is of course how I treat others as well.

Learning is 99% for yourself to socialize and thrive, and maybe 1% showing respect. I think actions speak louder than words, and being kind and respectful can take many forms.

I say this because I’ve seen first hand how travelers, expats and tourists from the Anglosphere self-limit at least a bit more than us who grew up speaking less common languages. We’re used to the discomfort and misunderstandings, and hand gesture our way through sometimes. I’d say most Europeans can relate to this strongly. (Of course, we always joke about the French, who refuse to speak English even if they can, but I think even that’s a dated stereotype these days)

Best of luck with your plans.

[jefozabuss]

Speaking of Vienna: is anyone here who work from there remotely (for a non-Austrian company)? I heard it's a bit complicated due to you need to have an in-country representation of the company or similar.

[FirmwareBurner]

Vienna and Austria in general sucks for tech opportunities including remote due to tax and work laws. Also buying real-estate is eye-wattering expensive when you look at local wages (being non-NATO country means it's a safe harbor for oligarchs to lauder their money and also a cash based society means a lot of black untaxed money gets put into real estate).

You're getting absolutely hosed if you move here for tech work. It's great if you're on government jobs, minimum wage/unionized jobs and living in rent controlled flats though and need frequent government support but if you're a skilled professional, living on real estate off the private market, then basically anywhere else in Europe is better bang for your buck than here.

As an expat there I don't think quality of life in Vienna is that WOW to be honest, it's just that it keeps being promoted by The Economist every year at winning this title they invented, based on some random requirements they set up, to the point I feel it's basically and ad paid by the city of Vienna (Austria already pays a lot for such international advertisements to support their tourist industry) to lure expats to wage-dump themselves and work here and cover the labor shortages (the "most livable city" title comes up a lot in job ads targeting foreigners).

It's basically the Canada of Europe: high real estate costs , low wages, with generous subsidies and social nets for the less well off Austrians.

[whyever]

It's possible, but complicated for the employer: they have to found a branch in each employee's flat unless they have a permanent establishment in Austria.

[motbus3]

As a non European, I can see some patterns that happen to my country 10-20y ago. There is a systematic de-funding of education and health care to prioritise the same private sectors. It is hard to explain in few words, but at least in my country we realised it too late.

[stuaxo]

Neoliberalism is fairly explicit that the government shouldn't do anything - everything is farmed out to for profit businesses with light touch regulation - enshitification of everyday services is the result.

[pas]

That's the result of "lack of neoliberalism", which is about efficient market-based solutions. Of course it turns out that just as socialism neoliberalism also tends to fall into a pathological state (regulatory capture, oligopolies, etc).

In the end these labels are pretty useless, the underlying problem is pretty easy to describe, is the system sufficiently just and cost effective or not. It doesn't really matter if it's market-based or it's done through some magic lottery system.

...

That said, services are suffering from cost disease big time. Healthcare and education badly needs productivity increases, otherwise quality has to drop to get back to sustainable funding levels.

[stuaxo]

In the UK, our healthsystem was the best on most metrics before the Tories came in and now it's behind on most.

Next will be Kier Starmer for Labour who main promises seem to be to keep the policies of the incumbents.

(Health used as an illustrative area but this applies across the board).

[theironhammer]

Neoliberal ideology is deeply entrenched in the Angloshere. UK even more so.

Kier Starmer thinks Corbyn lost because he was a Socialist. It was about Brexit. "Get Brexit Done" was a master class in political expediency. Even Boris was wise enough to sprinkle a little "socialism" with his levelling up policies.

Kier Starmer looks like he's going to score an own goal in the last minute of extra time.

[m000]

> At some point, you need to have the mean to finance these services, so stagnating GDP is not that good.

Shouldn't a stagnating GDP translate to a stagnating quantity/quality of services? If things are getting worse while GDP stagnates, it appears that there is a gross mismanagement of the same amount of resources.

And I'd dare to say, that this mismanagement typically boils down to the privatization of (previously) predominantly publicly-operated sectors. A soon as the publicly-operated provider shuts down, profiteering starts.

[nvm0n1]

"Getting worse" can be relative. If progress in your country had stopped in 1920 then it would be fair for people who lived there to think things had got worse over the past 100 years when they look to America and see how people live there.

[murderfs]

Europe, with the exception of the countries directly bordering Russia and Greece (buying weapons to point at fellow NATO member Turkey), has spent decades underinvesting in national defense, arguably freeloading under American hegemony. Now that that's coming to an end, expect things to get worse.

[piva00]

Freeloading? The USA spends massive amounts on its military exactly to maintain hegemony, European countries weren't going around the globe to fight pointless wars based on shaky (or completely fabricated) casus belli. There was no reason to spend a lot of tax money on military equipment, training, upkeep, just because. Russia's complete invasion of Ukraine shook Europe's defence outlook and created a reason to invest in it but that's it.

The USA providing security guarantees is not freeloading, it's USA's strategy to hegemony, it's how the USA has kept it...

Investing in defence without participating in wars (or to defend your hegemony) is just a waste of taxpayers' money, it's money that could go to healthcare, to education, or to any other improvement in quality of life of your citizens. I'm very glad that Europe hasn't been burning trillions of dollars on stuff just made to kill people.

[pauldenton]

European nations were not paying the percentage of GDP on defense as they promised.

[veave]

I've read this comment (or variations of it) so many times I am starting to wonder if it's a joke that I'm missing. Or simply propaganda.

I understand that you are in tech and are happy with your position, but consider the lives of millions who are unemployed, or those who can't afford to turn their AC on or fix their car when it breaks down. Not to mention how much prices have increased.

[code-blooded]

There are poor people anywhere in the world. I have friends who only make a little more than minimum wage here in Europe and of course they cannot afford many things like nice vacations or perhaps even the dryer at home (people just hang clothes anyway - not a big deal :) ), but they don't live on the street, can still see a doctor, have a car or use the excellent public transportation, and are okay overall.

The last city I lived in the US was Seattle and there were people doing drugs on the streets in middle of the city and cops just walked by. Many homeless people actually have a job. Healthcare is insanely expensive. Education costs are a joke.

I'm not saying everything is great in Europe. The original point I was trying to make is that comparing salaries/wealth alone completely misses the point. Quality of life is more complicated than that.

[hcks]

Europeans have a strong ability to cope for their declining standards of life.

They’ll mention how about they have great cities/safety/etc but you’ll notice they never say which city/country exactly they’re talking about (as in let’s pretend all of Europe is Switzerland)

[klabb3]

Hard disagree. The ones who ramble about Sweden, Switzerland, Finland when they’ve reached some goal like “happiest people in the world” or “safest cities”, usually with some picture of a cabin in the alps, are Americans who romanticize Europe.

[FirmwareBurner]

> are Americans who romanticize Europe.

Indeed. They don't know that many people here still have 1h+ commutes to their soul crushing 9-5 jobs just like they do, and assume everyone has a 15 minute bike ride to work through a cobble stone street or working remotely with their MacBooks in hip central cafes.

[TMWNN]

I laugh while rolling my eyes whenever I read on Reddit that "Europe" has "good transit" so doesn't need cars. Such geniuses will, of course, never ever actually have to tell a rural Irishman or Spaniard or Frenchman that there is no need for the truck he owns for the farm and the sedan his family uses every day. Or the German or Italian who ackshually has no need for the automobile he uses to commute into Frankfurt or Milan every day.

[FirmwareBurner]

It's not just rural, but most smaller cities (usually less than 1MM people) that don't have great public transport connection with the extended zones that have developed around them for industry and living, where personal car ownership is the norm if you don't want to commute 2h+ via public transport.

Not every EU city has the public transport of Vienna and London, nor the cycling infrastructure of Netherlands and Copenhagen. And a lot of Americans miss this as they just look at the model cities where it's all perfect, but those are like what, 10%-20% of the EU.

[gfedtbyby]

> 15 minute bike ride to work through a cobble stone street.

That's a pretty awful experience. I'd much rather ride for 30 minutes on asphalt.

[ramblerman]

Swiss cities are consistently among the most expensive in the world. Food is bad. Very xenophobic society.

It has a lot of great things too ofc. But I wouldn’t consider it representative of the nicer parts of Europe (vs pure financial optimization) mentioned above such as working less, walking, biking in the city.

[FirmwareBurner]

>Food is bad. Very xenophobic society.

Where did you get your info? Swiss food quality is some of the best in the world, well regulated and mostly organic, that's why it's so expensive.

How did you measure xenofobia?

[ramblerman]

By food I meant preparation, i.e. cuisine. You are right that food quality in supermarket although expensive is not bad (I wouldn't say it's as amazing as you claim either though, any french/spanish market would knock switzerland out of the park for fresh produce/meats).

xenofobia is subjective, and maybe wrong word, but expat society is largely cut off from locals. I know many germans firsthand that feel they can't integrate.

[FirmwareBurner]

>expat society is largely cut off from locals.

I'm not Swiss but, I think you don't know what xenofobia means. Honestly, I'm getting pretty tired of these tropes, of expats who think that because locald don't chat them up, and if the baristas never greet and smile at them like it's the norm in their home country they immediately take it as the country being xenofobic.

Expat societies are mostly isolated in most other countries, because the locals already have cemented family and social circles from their youth/childhood/university, especially in the Germanic/Norther-European cultures where small-talk and chit-chat is unpopular and people mostly keep to themselves and don't interact much with people they don't know out of respecting their personal space.

> I know many germans firsthand that feel they can't integrate

Then Germans get to experience exactly how expats feel in their country. Join the club.

Snark aside, a Swiss/German/Finnish person not chatting you up and not inviting you to hang out the moment they meet you is not xenofobia, it's people keeping to themselves. Every country and culture has completely different social norms which other cultures might find "unfriendly" but that's not xenofobia.

Xenofobia means something else. And I doubt you were a target of xenofobia too often in Switzerland.

[nvm0n1]

Switzerland has a massive foreign-born population compared to other places - their largest city is something like 30% foreign - yet very few problems caused by that even though those people often don't learn the local dialects or not even German/French at all. If it were actually a xenophobic society (spelled with PH not F in English) then they'd be having race riots all the time.

In practice Switzerland is one of the more accommodating societies in the world. Most Swiss people don't move far from where they grow up though, so often still have friends from school. It isn't a culture oriented towards chatting with strangers or making new friends at the drop of a hat, but that's not the same thing as xenophobia. Swiss who move abroad then back after many years experience the same difficulties with making new friends.

[sam_lowry_]

Swiss are also quite bullyish. The only time I saw two respectable white men get into a fight over a seat was in the train to Zermatt

[veave]

>Very xenophobic society.

Maybe that's why it works so well.

[Gud]

To paint Switzerland with such broad strokes… Switzerland is culturally very different, you cannot compare Zürich to rural Valais, for example.

I work for a small factory in Aargau and they send me across the planet to install their devices, but I live in Zürich.

It is genuinely one of the nicest place I’ve ever been and I would hardly describe it as xenophobic.

[pieter_mj]

Swiss wages are easily 20-30% higher than the rest of Europe as well.

[piva00]

To be honest, it seems that living standards are declining all around most of the developed countries. The USA is very much included in that.

Some developing nations have seen living standards raise, mostly because the baseline comparison to 20-30 years ago was pretty low (China, India, Brazil, etc.).

[prasoonds]

I assume you're a tech worker - that places you in the top 5-10% of the population, wealth and income wise. Most of the 'other half' isn't doing so well - living in shared apartments well into their late 30s, never being able to afford a home, no kids, no travel except for a handful of cheap spots and staying in hostels, eating out perhaps a handful of times a month, many small quality of life things that add up (old crappy phones/laptops, no dish washer/dryer, buying cheap quality food in supermarkets because that's all you can afford etc.) and suddenly, life isn't so rosy.

> walkable cities, great public transportation, safety

These are great upsides for sure, no arguments

> healthier food

As I said, only if you can afford it. I would guess about 70-80% of the population can't - they shop at discount grocery stores and get cheap foods, usually of terrible quality

> free education and healthcare

Healthcare is a sham. Pray that you don't need anything 'complex' ever. The GPs will talk to you for 2 minutes max, tell you something generic (go rest, green tea, ibuprofen) and tell you to be on your way. Getting appointments at specialists usually takes weeks on average and can often take months. It's very good if you have a costly treatment for a chronic disease, however.

Education is severely underfunded and getting your kids into a good kindergarten is a massive undertaking, especially in a large city. You have to start usually an year in advance. Higher education, while free, is likewise underfunded (look at any university rankings for research output)

The collapsing population means that the pension liabilities of countries are growing quickly and pretty much everyone who's working age today should expect their pension to only cover 25-50% of their living costs. But, no one's saving anything and people don't seem to realize this fact.

Yes the quality of life is decent - for now. The trajectory of many things that make it so however appears to be going downhill. The worst part though that that most europeans have their head in the sand about it and as a result, no one's pushing for any changes.

I love living here but for all the things I said before, I don't think I'll stay.

[FirmwareBurner]

>I assume you're a tech worker - that places you in the top 5-10% of the population, wealth and income wise.

No, it doesn't. I live in Austria and as a tech worker you're not in the 5-10% income. As a tech worker you earn as much as the unionized tram-driver, ~2500 Euros net/month.

Also, INCOME != WEALTH. It takes time and a big income to build wealth and we don't have that, and most wealth here is inherited cross-generation via zero-inheritance taxes. There's people making minim wages spending all day smoking weed and walking dogs, who's families own entire apartment blocks and several houses, yet you'll pay way more taxes than them and be financially less well off.

If you move here for work, the high taxes, low wages means you won't build any wealth (legally).

I agree with your other points. All the great social services in Europe are underfunded relative to their usage.

[hulitu]

> Having less money translates into having a smaller house or a car,

It is more like no house and no car. Prices of cars increased with 50 % .

[FirmwareBurner]

>Prices of cars increased with 50 %

So has real estate.

[roydivision]

(European, working in IT). Agree for the most part. However getting used to it is an other matter. My money used to go much further, pay rises are rarer, the cost of living is going up. One feels like one is running to stand still sometimes.

[r00fus]

The entire concept of "wealth" in the US is perverted - there's general ignorance or disdain for socially-owned wealth, instead of it's wealth extracted from the ground or populace or biomass and converted into personal wealth (then aggregated into a metric like GNP).

As someone who had a chance a decade or so ago to emigrate to the EU from the US, I regret not doing so every time I hear of a school shooting or visit the EU and see how much actual health/enjoyment for normal people I see over there that's not visible here.

[mmmmmbop]

What stops you from moving to the EU now?

[r00fus]

Just trying to get comfortable with how well the jurisdiction supports people with special needs.

[FirmwareBurner]

>I moved from the US to Europe a year ago and I think articles like this don't capture quality of life in Europe well.

Europe isn't a country. Where exactly in Europe did you move?

[code-blooded]

Poland. I travelled around Europe and stayed for 1+ month in several places last year before ending up in Poland. Since I have recent first-hand experience with multiple countries I say "Europe" when it applies to what I observed in majority of the countries I visited.

[FirmwareBurner]

But visiting a country is not the same as living, working and paying taxes in one though.

[code-blooded]

Not sure what you mean. Of course I cannot live and pay taxes in every single European country. All I say is based on limited experiences of visiting multiple countries for 1-3 month long stays and then living and paying taxes in Poland.

[FirmwareBurner]

I meant that with your 1-3 month long stints (working remotely for a foreign company I guess?) you still have just the tourist view of a country, and not the "full package" of living there long term because you never had to deal with long term housing system, the bureaucracy, the education system, the corruption, the healthcare system, the business and tax system, the labor market, the commutes to work and the grind of the locals.

In the end you still just had the tourist experience, enjoying the best parts of life there, while being mostly isolated from the poor stuff the locals have to put up with.

[shaburn]

You trade a higher average on the lower end for upside for the majority.

[edem]

Where you live (which country)?

[code-blooded]

Poland. I travelled around Europe and chose Poland for a mix of personal and quality of life reasons. Whenever I mention Europe I speak about what I observed in majority of places I visited in Europe though.

[astrange]

Just think about having to post this comment every time Americans ask why you don't have ice water, air conditioning or clothes dryers, and why you have half their purchasing power and are buried in cookie banners.

Btw, the main reason people think European food tastes better than US is because we enrich our flour with extra nutrients. You just don't like the taste of iron.

[code-blooded]

But I do have A/C and a clothes dryer. Again, things like that are easily affordable if you work in the tech or professional fields in Europe.

[FirmwareBurner]

>But I do have A/C and a clothes dryer. Again, things like that are easily affordable if you work in the tech or professional fields in Europe

In which country do you live? In Austria you're not allowed to install an split unit AC due to building regulations. You could if you own your own single family house but you need to be very wealthy for that, beyond the average tech worker. Tech worker is blue-colar work here.

[seszett]

House ownership is very different among the European countries.

I think it's somewhat rare in Germany and Austria, but you don't need to be very wealthy to own a house in France or Belgium for example. And you are allowed to install A/C, in fact heat pumps are very much recommended for new builds, almost mandatory even given the tight energy requirements today and it's becoming common enough to use a reversible one.

[FirmwareBurner]

Why is housing so much cheaper in France and Belgium?

[gfedtbyby]

It might not necessarily be cheaper but people have more generational wealth due hsitorically much higher home ownership rates. e.g. even Italians are much wealthier per capita than Germans. If we look at the median of course (the mean is comparable since inequality is much higher in Germany). Germans are just gennerally pretty poor and clooser to Greece or many east European countries than to France or Belgium.

The Belgians on the other hand are the 4th richest people in the world, and also Belgium has one of the lowest levels of wealth inequality. So it's much easier to inherit a home or at least enough cash for a downpayment.

[astrange]

Is it vented to the outside, or is it the kind that doesn't work?

(Japan also only has the kind that doesn't do anything. No personal experience elsewhere.)

[code-blooded]

My current building is different than majority of buildings with A/C here (and note - A/C is non-standard in central Europe).

In my case the entire building I live in has "central A/C". I'm not an expert, but I believe it works by circulating cold water in the pipes and then each apartment has fans in the ceiling that blow cool air. You regulate it by setting the desired temperature in each room using a thermostat. IMO it works very well.

Majority of other buildings with A/C have a more traditional A/C units like in the US that blow air outside.

Like I mentioned in the first paragraph, A/C is non-standard in the country I'm currently in. Some of my friends who don't have A/C use devices similar to humidifiers, but you put ice in them instead of water. They say it's good enough to cool down one room in a an apartment (like a bedroom or an office).

[astrange]

I mean the dryer, not the AC.

[raverbashing]

Dryer - check (it's the slow type but I'll get back to it in a minute)

Fridge - regular sized ones (that is, full height) are not uncommon

AC - not a problem in the hotter places and it is getting better in the not so hot places (also if you're booking an Airbnb definitely check this)

"oh but the dryer doesn't do anything" it absolutely does, for most of them select the 'Iron' or 'Cupboard' level of dryness instead of the time. It does take a long time, so just throw it in the night and have a day/night or peak electricity contract. Unless you're overloading it or think someone would go out in 5C/40F weather with humid clothes