As New Zealand Courts Tech Talent, Isolation Becomes a Draw
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
For the most part, this is all true in, say, Tulsa. Especially if you stay off Facebook.
You especially don't have to go to New Zealand to find a cheaper, commuter-friendly place to work.
Nothing against New Zealand. I'm sure it's a great place to live. The writing in the article is just sloppy.
I used to live in a very low cost of living area in Florida. I'd go back in a heartbeat, but guess what, there was literally one company within a 100 mile (probably 200 mile) radius hiring software people like me. That's too damn risky.
No, it's really not -- it's actually more like $77,000[1]. With the bulk of the difference being driven by housing prices. And $77,000 is actually above the average salary for a SE in Ft. Lauderdale (according to Glassdoor: $73,000).
[1] http://www.bankrate.com/calculators/savings/moving-cost-of-l...
I'm willing to bet that as you limit you data set to a smaller region, salaries normalize even further.
It really boils down to your relative earning power vs your professional peers (including non engineers) in the direct geographic vicinity of you, in a supply constrained bidding war situation like desirable real estate.
Let's say the average primary care physician's salary has been matching inflation for 20 years while that of the software engineer has outpaced it. Well even if a physician is doing just fine vs his physician peers, the rapid rise of sw eng salaries and the dramatically increased number of such people will have reduced his or her relative earning power and the standard of living he or she can afford, over said 20 years.
Almost anywhere else in the country, that $2200/mo will get you quite the spread; you can trade off between square footage, neighborhood, and commute time, but you're going to have very nice accommodations if you're willing to put that much money up. In SF, you're lucky if you can get a 1-bd for that, and LA is only slightly better.
While the price of goods doesn't fluctuate as much, housing is a HUGE factor. If you want something functional for a family of 4 (or if you just like a lot of space), you are going to be paying at least $4000/mo in these tech hubs, or living 60 min+ away.
Florida also has no income tax, v. California's rate between 7.5% and 13.3%. That is a big dent too.
One other note. If you have the skills, look for remote work in companies that pay rates that are higher than you get paid in your local market. It's a great way to make the COL differential work even more in your favor.
[0] http://sf.curbed.com/2016/3/30/11332920/rent-small-soma-micr...
TBH the harder part of the bay area and kids is actually finding an affordable place to live that have good schools.
Translation: it's expensive to live where rich people live. "Good schools" is a flimsy proxy for wealthy, exclusive suburbs.
Where I'm from, "good schools" is a nice way of saying "it's a white neighborhood". I would not feel good about letting "good schools" influence where I live, or buy a home.
There is no need to inject race. Plus, in the bay area, many good schools are comprised of mostly minorities.
Good schools in the bay area just mean good schools, as based on standardized testing methodology, class sizes, dollars per student, extracurricular activities available, and acceptance rates to selective colleges.
You can definitely pay a lot of money to send your child to good private schools.
Citation needed. I have lived in this country for a long time, and have never hear it used in this manner, and Google searches turn up nothing.
> pretending like the comment is "injecting" race into the discussion ignores American history
"Pretending". Way to jump to conclusions. If you're proposing that an innocuous phrase like "good school" is forever tainted by history, that is a small and petty view of the world. That's like saying "honky tonk" has racist connotations because of the word honky.
Here for instance was a fair housing organization filing a lawsuit suggesting that real estate agents used "good schools" as a proxy for race in attempts to racially steer buyers.
Its in the normal lexicon enough for Urban Dictionary to consider that the top definition: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=good%20school...
I'm not suggesting saying "hey they are doing a great job over there, my kid goes to a good school" is enough to assume that the person is saying their kid goes to a white school, but in the context of a discussion about real estate pricing, distance to city centers, etc, the term "good schools" has connotations.
That you are unaware of them is fine, but it wasn't the original commenter that injected those connotations, they've been around for a long time.
Urban dictionary and one isolated lawsuit doesn't a pattern generally make.
I can accept that this term has been used in a certain way as a code phrase signifying something else, but that's been true of so many phrases and terms that it loses all significance. (Is nice restaurant also coding for no minorities?)
The original statement that's objectionable is I would not let "good schools" influence where you live and buy a home, which is ridiculous. Taking school district reputation and test scores when buying a house is neither racist or something to be ashamed of, no matter how many quotes you put around "good school".
Eh. The Bay Area isn't where you're from. Actually, relatively few people in the Bay Area use the term "good schools" at all because they tend to have few children and the idea of school quality isn't on their radar.
> wealthy, exclusive suburbs
Honestly if you wanted to say Bay Area residents were coding racism into how they talk about where they live, you could point to the San Francisco fetish where people AVOID suburbs like Oakland and the East Bay, though honestly that's _actually_ because of all the public-transit-accessible hipster coffee spots in the one and the violent crime and strip-mall Starbucks and sprawling freeways with hours-long commutes to work from the other.
At least for HS, MV High has come a very long way since my time and would probably lead the "affordable good school" category in the area.
I truly don't understand why anyone would live in Florida unless they were growing sugarcane. The climate is extremely hot and damp, and there is Zika according to the CDC. So what is good about Florida?
True, in the summer it becomes a hellscape, but 5 months of paradisiacal weather is better than most people get. ;)
Florida has reasonably priced housing (for the most part), plenty of land, and with almost 20 million residents, there is tons of variety across the state; from most population centers, it's a relatively easy drive to more than enough to interest anyone, no matter what you're into (except maybe skiing).
It's very scenic with palms swaying, beautiful sunsets and beaches, many lakes and an abundance of interesting wildlife.
Florida also has no state income tax, strong homestead protections, pretty-OK gun laws, and otherwise mostly-sane state policies.
Zika is a non-issue at this point and there are only a tiny handful of cases of local transmission. Florida is a large state and only the very tip of the peninsula was impacted by local transmission. However, it's always wise to avoid mosquito bites.
There are lots of reasons to like Florida. :)
Forget about having a house with a shop/garage unless you're willing to spend a million and a half, though.
Closest "real" hiking trails start along Skyline Boulevard - there's plenty of them but it is not close.
20 minute driving time includes Rancho San Antonio, Stevens Creek County Park, Villa Montalvo, and Lexington Reservoir, all of which are perfectly adequate half-day hikes. Make it 30-40 and you also get the Los Trancos/Montebello/Russian Ridge area, Castle Rock, Almaden, Calero, Garin/Dry Creek, and Don Edwards.
Probably, but doing menial tasks behind where the modern edge progresses in technologies, your skills would become obsolete in 5-10 years. You'd either need to proceed to a general managerial path in your chosen no-name company, or devote time for self-study to stay in touch with the fashionable technologies.
Because traditional industries are so out of touch with the latest hipster trends, giving them just a little taste (calibrated to appear as bottom line-relevant as possible to the right stakeholders) can make you seem like the second coming of Jesus, get you massive raises and promotions, and make you essentially layoff proof. I remember I had a job in 2006 - where I was a low-grade operations nobody - and I prototyped something in client-side JS for an internal project. Overnight I became Master Sensei, and everyone in engineering (not my division) knew my name. They were mortified when I tendered my resignation.
It doesn't always work. Megacorps don't intrinsically care about new technologies for their own sake, and it is true that defending the value of engineering to a bunch of greying MBAs in financial services or retail can be demoralising, at times infuriating or heartbreaking. Sometimes this type of activity can be consigned to skunkworks that never get a hearing or see the light of day, whether for political reasons (you're infringing on the J2EE guys' turf) or because management isn't tech-savvy enough to understand the value.
But man, when it works, it works! I'm in telecom, and much of the industry - by the numbers, forget Twilio and WebRTC - operates according to soul-deadening customs that have changed little since the 80s and the advent of the micro-computer. Core routing tables and key provisioning databases are still distributed as giant spreadsheets and Access databases. Cable companies can be surprisingly low-tech, too.
I've seen what happens when one becomes their connection to spiffy, modern innovation techniques like regular expressions and Python ETL jobs. The threshold for mind-blowing Bushido is startlingly low in enterprise. That can really make you an A-player in their eyes.
Your main competition is going to be that these companies prefer to source such insights from giant professional services companies and consultancies, who can be similarly low-tech, but some of whom have realised there's enormous money to be made in opening large companies' eyes to 2003-era technology like Perl and Subversion. There's also the fact that big companies don't like the risk profile of depending on one guy or a small team to do advanced stuff. They'd rather spend millions of dollars to have it done mediocrely by Accenture or Deloitte, in the customarily obese enterprise fashion, skies darkened with "Linux resources" and the Sun eclipsed by UML diagrams and process maps.
The other main danger is, as you allude, falling behind because the threshold for being ahead of the curve is so low. If you show them screen scraping or write an internal portal in a modern JS framework, they'll think you're from the future. Then you get into an actual tech company job and realise you've become an entrenched maintenance specialist in some decade-old stuff.
e: changed killing to stunting, because I do believe that it is recoverable.
Lots of that is on older "enterprise" stacks v. cool open-source or experimental stacks, but it's still a plenty legitimate career path, and you'd be surprised how modern a company that looks like a dinosaur at first glance can be when you look a little deeper. Example: Walmart runs lots of stuff on Node.js.
If you want to slave away in a startup, then yeah, you're probably going to want to be in SF, SEA, or NYC.
If you want a long-term job at a stable employer where most people don't take themselves too seriously, overtime is rarely or never expected, and you work with a bunch of smart, established people (even if they're a bit change averse), there is plenty of opportunity outside of the tech hubs.
And on salary, the average may be an OK guideline but it is by no means the top of the market. Lots of good people will hire in at 1.5-2x the area's average.
Having one company in an area does not help. My original comment dealt with the risk of when that one company doesn't work out for whatever reason. If that's the only tech employer in the area, you're screwed.
Even if there are a few in the area, getting a tech job is not like getting a job at the local Starbucks. One could easily apply to all 20 companies in the area and not get anywhere. Ask me how I know. At least in the Bay Area, you could apply to 20 companies a week and not run out of potential opportunities.
For one, you have a lot more competition from other applicants, because every brogrammer thinks that he needs to move to SV to be part of the scene (and I really dislike that SV is becoming Hollywood-for-nerds; flooded with tons of fledgling wannabes who worship at the feet of an elite few).
For two, you have a lot more snobbery and people expecting specific pedigrees. They want Ivy League, they want other startup or big-name tech experience, etc. There are a lot more people who think talking to a candidate coming from a job in Nebraska where he wrote software for a company that runs a machinery rental business (for example) is below them. That type of experience is severely undervalued, and if SF needs anything it's more people with an appreciation for a stable production ethos.
For three, SF is appreciably worse along most axes and the extreme cost of living means the "extra" money go down the drain very quickly, seriously diluting the real value of the salary. This is compounded when you consider that taxes are also very high in CA and SF, especially compared with states without income taxes like TX or FL.
Four, we're talking about "the Midwest" as a unit here, but the fact is there are a lot of cities in the Midwest and some of them have a lot more bustle than others. There are not many companies that are strictly tech companies, but there are hundreds of potential employers in every metro area, and again, some are much more active than others.
Also, when discussing job markets in the "Midwest", I'm really referring to everything that's not a tech hub, because the distinction is really tech hub v. non-tech hub. Houston and Dallas/Ft. Worth are in the top 5 biggest metros in the US and I'm sure there's plenty of tech work there. Florida is one of the most populous states in the US and the availability will depend on the metro, but they have a good share of tech work. The Mountain West has much to offer (especially Utah).
The point is that there is plenty of opportunity for someone who wants to look outside of NYC, SF, SEA, and LA. No one should feel like they're trapped there as long as they're willing to work for some companies that aren't household names.
Lastly, you never run out of opportunities if you're willing to work remote, and this can be a good way to maximize the benefit of low COL areas.
This is true for SF and NYC but not for SEA (all three of which you mention in the grandparent post). Washington has no state income tax. The cost of living in Seattle is also more comparable to, say, Austin than SF or NYC.
I'll dispute that your points one and two about competition and snobbery apply less in Seattle than they do in SF. I've never been to NYC or LA so I won't comment on those. My feeling about those areas is that the tech scene in NYC is more comparable to SF than to SEA and the tech scene in LA is more comparable to SEA than to SF - although you still deal with the crazy California state income taxes and cost of living issues.
Personally, I think that it is preferable to work for a tech company where what you do is a profit center rather than for a non-tech company where what you do is a cost center. That said, plenty of people make a good living making internal software for non-tech companies. I am sure quite a few of them are great programmers. If they prefer that lifestyle to what they would get in a tech hub, more power to them.
It is of course true that the vindictive or psychotic boss could always try to make your life a living hell by filing a ridiculous lawsuit, but if they want to do that, they'll do it no matter what state you live in, and just trudge up whichever allegations seem most plausible.
California's toting of such protections is really a crafty political scheme. The change in law doesn't really make a substantial material change for anyone, as it's almost never worthwhile to sue someone over their side project (and if it is, you can usually get them on all kinds of violations that are related to but are not directly "he was employed by me while he made it"), but it sounds great in a soundbite and gives the people something to feel better about when they look at their tax rates.
Aside from these "protections", the state has significant disadvantages for someone interested in running a side project or any other type of business, not the least of which are the high taxes.
LOL, hi, nice to meet you. Well technically, I work at a small agency that does this for many local businesses.
Best job I've ever had. Fair pay, work with great people, zero stress, work on whatever I want, < 40 hours a week every week, actually get to help real people and see how happy they are with our work.
Let me rush to trade that in for a "career in software."
Not really. The quality of life on just about any axis, from parks and recreation to culture to education in Ft. Lauderdale is just inferior. Also, $50k doesn't go as far as you think there. There are a number of day-to-day and intangible costs (e.g. commute) that are actually less expensive in the valley.
On the other extreme - absolutely free - I would take Fort Lauderdale Beach and the weather over anything SV has to offer. After all there was a move to totally relocate Hollywood movie industry from CA to South Florida. And parks? What measure does SV outperform? Everglades National Park is probably 4-5x larger than SV and it's in Fort Lauderdale's backyard.
Though South Florida doesn't get the tech press, we also have billion dollar startups. As far as schools, I went to a public high school (top 50 in the US) not even the best rated public school in my area, but my 4 brothers and I all have graduate degrees, fellow alumni include astronauts, countless professional athletes and even a tech founder by the name Jeff Bezos.
I won't touch culture, because it is much to loaded but there is no shortage of meuseums dedicated to arts and sciences. Come to Wynwood during Art Basel and you might leave thinking we have the most progressive city in the world artistically. Finally, I don't want to minimize the diversity of the SV demographics but it again doesn't compete with the diversity and actual cultural influence these various background have in South Florida.
Florida is absolutely a garbage state (born and raised Floridian speaking) but there's no place in the US that is even in the discussion when it comes to water recreation-- MAYBE Hawaii.
Edit: to get an idea do a Google image search of Fort Lauderdale International Boat show. As to your quip about things with motors, South Florida is also home to the largest cruiseships in the world (>100,000 tonnage) that are dubbed floating cities.
Surfing. Significantly better in the bay area.
Seriously though Fort Lauderdale beach and Hollywood beach have great surf communities that have been around decades.
http://seek.co.nz to get an idea.
The developer of DayZ has set up a gaming studio in Dunedin, but it's still pretty sparse down there.
For me that's a huge downside. The leftism here is stifling.
New Zealand does look absolutely stunning, though.
Doesn't sound like much of a life to me. What's the point of making 6 figures in a hard profession if you're going to live like a miser?
How 'bout that ISP spying, and those latest pushes against net neutrality. (But okay, at least you have cheap - for the US - rent) I'd love to get locked in to that as a small business.
> Easy: don't watch the news.
"The news" is not just followed as an emotional stimulant; your life in relation to "the news" does not begin and end with the television or computer screen. It's a harbinger of law and policy to come.
How is it a submarine article? The people and agencies involved in the campaign are upfront and explicit in what their roles and goals are.
It isn't one of those "the suit is back" articles.
Woah woah woah, as someone who used to live in Tulsa, don't even joke. It is easily one of the most aggressively conservative and corrupt cities in the US.
Anyway, I picked a medium-small city arbitrarily. Look at Lawrence, Kansas or Bloomington, IN then. They each have big state universities in town. Or Eugene, OR.
And owns a massive bolthole ranch on the South Island should things turn pear shaped.
And stop talking to people.
What you're saying, at least in a sense, is there's no cultural difference between the two places.
http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/02/24/shooting-of-2-indians-...
I don't know if you know this, but large swaths of America were so unsafe to travel for African Americans for a long time after slavery ended, that a guidebook was created specifically for the purpose of avoiding the most dangerous areas.
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/blog/green-book-helped-ke...
And - Good thing none of us have a time portal to 1954.
What natural beauty does Tulsa have?
Don't knock Tulsa, it's not some hell hole.
Not pictured in the tourism campaigns - our vast reliance on agriculture.
Smart parrots though.
https://goo.gl/photos/9AQWmraCss6U9uVp7
If you're in into biking, or windsurfing Wellington is definitely a stunning place to live.
[edit] Also since everybody is talking about emus, this trail is actually called barking emu. But it is misnamed - since it's actually an Ostrich in the paddock up there.
Calling Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch "big cities" - I could tell you were a kiwi before I even read the name!
You can in parts of Christchurch. The southern alps are visible from the university where I work (though they are a fair way off). House-wise, you're probably looking at at least NZ$500k for that view from within Christchurch, which does kind of suck.
Besides, Sumner doesn't seem very safe, earthquake-wise, which will be contributing to the price.
Will that 700k USD house have wall insulation and double glazed windows and central heating?
I think there's a reason a huge chunk of skilled New Zealanders end up leaving.
I'm intending to make a move with my family in near future, and we actually went to visit the northern island for 15 days last month. The country is really beautiful, and there are not a lot of people around, so you can't help but feel blessed by the surrounding nature. The people are great, probably the nicest I've ever seen (as a whole).
I've noted some cons though (not blocking for us thankfully):
- housing prices are extremely high. I don't understand that, there is plenty of space everywhere (maybe except Wellington) and somehow they manage to not use this advantage...
- housing quality is really poor (comparing to Europe)
- prices are generally quite high
- internet connectivity feels like we're 10 years back
- outside of Wellington and Auckland, I didn't feel like there were any interesting opportunities in IT (that's a subjective and based on a very limited evidence from discussions with local / personal observations)
- food quality is good, but eating habits don't seem to follow. Obesity seems to be a huge problem there (we have kids so will need to pay double attention to that). We were pretty much shocked because we naively thought that in such a beautiful and clean country everybody is running / biking all the time.
Would be very happy to hear stories that made the move ! Also very interested to hear about opportunities / work environment there in IT (even better if it's ML related).
> housing prices are extremely high. I don't understand that, there is plenty of space everywhere (maybe except Wellington) and somehow they manage to not use this advantage..
Yes, it really is crazy particularly when you look at prices relative to salaries. As I understand it, the primary driver is everyone wants to live in Auckland as that's where most of the higher paying jobs are located which is driving up prices. Also, given the city is on an isthmus, the main space is really North and South of the city which increases commute times on already clogged highways.
> housing quality is really poor (comparing to Europe)
This is slowly changing as proper insulation becomes a requirement, but compared to Europe and US houses the quality is incredibly poor.
> prices are generally quite high
For consumer goods, absolutely. Also dining out seemed expensive, but supermarket costs seemed pretty reasonable given the quality of the food.
>internet connectivity feels like we're 10 years back
I was pleasantly surprised by this. I was regularly getting 50-100 down where I stayed, and it appears the government has made ultra-fast broadband a national priority so it should hopefully continue to improve over the next decade. One thing people warned me though is don't expect anything to happen quickly in NZ.
>outside of Wellington and Auckland, I didn't feel like there were any interesting opportunities in IT
Have you looked at Christchurch? Apparently the government is incentivizing companies to build there with the goal of making it the high tech capital of the South Island. I believe Vodafone has some pretty impressive plans for the city.
>food quality is good, but eating habits don't seem to follow. Obesity seems to be a huge problem there (we have kids so will need to pay double attention to that). We were pretty much shocked because we naively thought that in such a beautiful and clean country everybody is running / biking all the time.
I believe this is largely driven by income inequality, much like here in the US. While the food really is phenomenal quality, families at the lower end of the socio-economic ladder are often priced out of the market and default to unhealthy options as a matter of necessity. Also, it was explained to me that a lot of Maori and Polynesian recipes are very fatty which is why they tend to be over-represented in obesity statistics.
Overall my impression after visiting is that it's a great country, but it's not perfect. Prices are higher (due to it's isolation) and salaries are lower, but people tend to worry less about materialistic things and "getting ahead". There seems to be more of a relaxed mood to everything and as my wife contemplate where we want to raise our kids that is hugely appealing.
> Have you looked at Christchurch? Apparently the government is incentivizing companies to build there with the goal of making it the high tech capital of the South Island. I believe Vodafone has some pretty impressive plans for the city.
I was last in Chch a couples years ago, so it may be changing, but my impression was not great. My wife lived there during the earthquake and their recovery has been slow. I think it will improve, especially with increased investment, but it's probably years away from being anywhere like Auckland or Wellington again. Even 2-3 years ago the downtown area was essentially a ghost town from what I remember, and that's still several years post-earthquake.
I found an article [1] about it which contradicts your understanding of the crime here. Auckland is much worse as a city overall, but Cathedral Square in Christchurch is dangerous compared to the rest of the country. I can't find a good comparison of actual crime rates between countries, but did find articles saying the perception of crime risk is way off here compared to reality.
1. http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/79704084/New-Zealand-rates-f...
For food, it seems like for the food problem it's also caused by the lack of 'culinary education' as we may call it in France. Children are eating bad food very early and those habits stick for life.
We too have kids, and it looks like an amazing place to raise them ! People are super friendly, especially to kids. There are playgrounds everywhere, a ton of outside activities to do. One thing bothering me a bit is the lack of history / culture, at least as I know it. This is again very biased by my education, but in Europe, you have castles, small villages with rich history literally everywhere. NZ is much younger so it's not surprising of course. Just a little con I forgot to mention.
But yeah, totally agree on the fears - kids have a lot of freedom there. On the other hand, I believe US is an outlier here too - it's quite frequent in Europe to let kids get back home alone.
Of course, the Maori culture is amazing and I'm eager to learn more about. It's just that I feel like my kids will miss something I had the chance to experience.
South Island is best island buddy ;)
> For food, it seems like for the food problem it's also caused by the lack of 'culinary education' as we may call it in France.
Obesity directly correlates to poverty here.
> One thing bothering me a bit is the lack of history / culture, at least as I know it. This is again very biased by my education, but in Europe, you have castles, small villages with rich history literally everywhere
Yep, we're a young nation, I routinely drink in pubs in Munich that are older than my country - but New Zealand's history is older than NZ, Maori have been here since the 1100s at least. Also, our natural history is very compelling .
Which units of measurement? :)
Call it an experiment in whether they can build a country around American tech billionaires. I would wonder whether the prices of things reflect that, and whether it's different if you're a native (or whether there's some other mechanism at work: in Vermont, I pay less for housing because I'm able to declare my home as a homestead. If I was an out-of-stater keeping a summer house in Vermont I'd be paying a different rate.)
It will be interesting to see how New Zealand deals with its influx of hyper-wealthy. That will probably continue until we invent the intercontinental ballistic pitchfork ;)
It's unlikely to be seen as a major downside by those living in California and along the Pacific Rim, and it's clear NZ is no worse than Japan in terms of seismic risk, yet an advanced economy with plenty of people thrives there, to put it mildly.
But coming from the US midwest and then the southeast, where these issues are seldom a concern, it makes me nervous.
What are your thoughts on that?
The whole place feels like it's unstable and ready to blow ! I loved the city, but I'm not sure I could live there, with those constant remainders of the seismic activity (this plus the smell...)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taupo_Volcanic_Zone
Fun fact - Auckland is built on a large monogenetic volcanic field.
But, the earthquake that hit Christchurch directly removed the seismically vulnerable buildings, and typically we've built for earthquakes - hence why our predominant building material is wood not brick or stone.
One point to add - mentioned in other comments in the thread: the Auckland housing market is toxic.
No captial gains tax on property along with crowded population in Auckland means that this is the best investment available, hands down. The yield isn't in the rental market, but appreciation of 30-40% YOY has not been uncommon.
The major side effect of this that many people miss is that business investment has been stifled because property is a far safer bet. Auckland has a very weak startup/VC scene, and salaries have not increased in line with living costs.
I guess if I'm being picky, I'd also pick you up on the point prior; fatty foods aren't necessarily correlated to obesity, but I'm guessing that's not exactly what you're driving at.
Thank you for making me think a little more!
This is going to be a huge hinderance for any tech enterprise.
I'm glad to see @bspn (sibling comment here) say that the Internet quality is improving.
We used to be an internet backwater, lagging behind Australia and far behind Europe/USA, but in the last 10 years we've really leapt into the 21st century.
Case in point: http://www.speedtest.net/result/6217789165.png
The main issue was the monopoly on transit, but domestic competition has helped a bit.
What? Hell no. The only Australian ISP that tried to set-up here (Telstra) ended up selling out to Vodafone and exiting the market. Our internet is far better than Australia's.
NZ has a nationwide copper network owned by NZX listed company Chorus, and there is a gigabit fibre network nearing completion (Chorus and about 3 other companies). Network owners are prohibited from retailing and must provide retail ISPs access on fair terms (wholesale pricing is regulated).
There are a few Australian owned ISPs, but none that operate in both Australia and NZ.
Surprisingly, NZ is not a good place for cycling. A guy and his wife[0] did a world cycling tour a while back and Wellington is the only place where he had serious issues with the locals[1].
[0]: http://www.pathlesspedaled.com/
[1]: https://www.seattlebikeblog.com/2012/01/12/russ-from-path-le...
Same problem Canada has: interest rates below the rate of (real, unadjusted) inflation, and no limitations on foreign ownership of real estate (a major catalyst, at least, for a bubble).
At best they might send their wife, kids, and elderly parents over to take advantage of our subsidized schools and hospitals (for hospitals you can just borrow a fake ID from someone with PR status, Canadian culture is extremely trusting so we don't have any safeguards in place for abuse of any of our social services).
http://www.rbnz.govt.nz/statistics/key-graphs/key-graph-infl...
http://www.rbnz.govt.nz/monetary-policy/official-cash-rate-d...
https://www.asb.co.nz/home-loans-mortgages/interest-rates-fe...
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/311147/call-for-infla...
That's one way of looking at it. Another way is.....we can argue about what the specific numbers are, but leaving that aside, there is very obviously a major, major problem with housing costs in many countries in the world, Canada being one of the very worst affected. But in the realm of political discussion, it is almost never mentioned, and when it does come up, almost all politicians "poo poo" the idea as if it's some crackpot conspiracy theory, and if you won't shut up about it, they then resort to calling you a racist, which in Vancouver was almost a foolproof technique for suppressing discussion, until it finally got so bad that even that stopped working, but even then almost no politicians would acknowledge the elephant in the room.
It feels like a complete conspiracy. Could the explanation be as simple that all politicians own real estate, so it is in their best interests to blow the bubble as big as possible? As silly as that sounds, the numbers are literally so big that's is nearly the equivalent of winning a small lottery...and knowing human nature, how many people wouldn't compromise their principles just a little to guarantee win the lottery?
I'm so sick of it. Houses should be for living in, goddamn it. Not for storing your cash out of reach of a corrupt government, as necessary a thing as that is.
I have a buddy who works in IT and lives in Dunedin. Don't really have any other details, but I'd suspect that there are opportunities outside of the two big cities, though they are probably in the few. He seems to enjoy it.
Health care was a mixed bag. If I remember correctly, it's pretty socialized. You can see a doctor right away with little or no charge, which is almost unheard of in metropolitan U.S. unless you want to pay through the nose. I also remember spending more time with the doctor per visit, in contrast to my experience in the states where it seems like you might get about 5 good minutes with a doctor. At this point, I've realized that I diagnose myself much better than most doctors, so I just skip the whole waiting process and just buy whatever prescription drugs I need online. I wouldn't even have to go through that hassle if I still lived in NZ. The disadvantage to NZ healthcare, and dental care, is that their practices are sometimes really backwards. Especially with the latter. Dentists are far more likely to just yank out a tooth than try to save one. As an example, they almost pulled out one of my younger sister's front teeth and give her a plate. Obviously, this sucks for a teenage girl(anyone really), and it was for an infection that could have been treated without uprooting the whole tooth. My mother actually consulted our dentist in the U.S., who then called the doctor in NZ to tell him how to treat the tooth without pulling it. This was also at one of the better dentists in Wellington. Granted, this is just one person's experience, but it's in line with what seems like medical practices that seem 15+ years behind in many regards.
Overall, my life in NZ was one of the highlights of my life. Despite the challenges, I had so many life changing experiences there. The landscape and hiking are unlike a lot of other places. Everyone is super friendly, smart, and easy to get along with. If you're more introverted and feel out of place where you are, you might enjoy NZ better. I know I did, as I was far more introverted in my teens. Yet that was one of the first times I'd had actual friends who genuinely enjoyed my company. I might be tainted from growing up in LA, but everyone in NZ is far less "fake". The food is great if you're willing to forego Mexican food(of which there is none comparable to the Americas).
Interestingly, I also know a guy in Dunedin that works in IT; remote for a company up in the Auckland area..
Thanks for overgeneralising my entire country :/ Dentists typically only pull teeth if you can't afford the fix - that is the one downside to our medical system, medicine is subsidised, dentistry is not, and offering dental insurance as part of an employment contract is very unusual here.
I'd also tack on that the variety of transportation options are very low. Cycling and public transit infrastructure is very poor and far, far behind other first world countries. From my understanding traffic and commuting in Auckland is a complete nightmare due to the weak public transit system. It's a bit of a southern hemisphere LA. Auckland has finally recognized they have a problem and they're slowly fixing things, but they have a long way to go. They've just recently reorganized their bus system so that should help some.
The housing bubble is extremely bad in NZ so that spikes the cost of living. Another con is that it feels that NZ, like many countries, is having trouble transitioning from the mindset that everyone should have a single family home, to one where denser apartment living is going to be necessary. Auckland is very sprawling endlessly as there's a reluctance to densify and change established neighbourhoods.
In a couple of years NZ will have one of the highest (if not the highest) average internet speeds in the world.
Christchurch has a fair few also, and it's closer to the "LOTR scenery".
> but eating habits don't seem to follow. Obesity seems to be a huge problem there
Obesity directly correlates to low socio-economic status here.
My understanding was that it costs ~100NZD to get a decent connection and I was very surprised to notice than in most hotels / airbnbs it was one of the first things advertised - free WiFi. With our French mobiles, which costs 20e/month, you have unlimited data while in France and 5Go per stay, up to 35 days in a year in many countries (all Europe, US, New Zealand etc).
General browsing is often still a little slower than in the US though, because of the ~200ms latency to the US where most sites are hosted. International bandwidth is pretty good now though - I usually get 200mbit downloads from US servers.
Housing prices aren't that high outside of Auckland. Auckland housing prices are high for all the reasons you can think of: no capital gains tax, tax incentives to own property, no restrictions on foreign ownership (not even a register of foreign ownership!), very liberal immigration laws, and lots of NIMBYism about increasing housing density.
Almost all immigrants go to Auckland and stay in Auckland, because they see it as where most of the jobs are (and that's true, but only because of what I just said: it's a self-fulfilling prophecy).
>- housing quality is really poor (comparing to Europe)
Older houses are definitely poor. Newer houses certainly aren't. New Zealand houses are built in a different style to those in the UK, or Europe, or the US: they're open-plan, they're built using timber framing, etc. Until a couple of decades ago, double-glazed windows and full insulation weren't mandatory.
>- prices are generally quite high
They are and they aren't. They probably seem higher than they really are because of the exchange rates. A lot of retailers sell imported stuff for way more than they should, because exchange rate has moved in our favour compared to the US in recent years but they haven't adjusted their prices.
Steam games are ridiculously cheap compared to games from a retailer for example.
>- internet connectivity feels like we're 10 years back
Um, no, really it does not. Internet connectivity in NZ is excellent. We have fibre-to-the-door everywhere, or at least will do when the rollout finishes in two years.
>- outside of Wellington and Auckland, I didn't feel like there were any interesting opportunities in IT (that's a subjective and based on a very limited evidence from discussions with local / personal observations)
There are probably more IT jobs in Christchurch than Wellington, honestly. New Zealand is a small country, there aren't going to be a lot of jobs when you discount the three biggest cities, obviously.
>- food quality is good, but eating habits don't seem to follow. Obesity seems to be a huge problem there (we have kids so will need to pay double attention to that). We were pretty much shocked because we naively thought that in such a beautiful and clean country everybody is running / biking all the time.
This is going to be controversial, but I'm going to say it anyway. Obesity is much less a problem if you are white and wealthy. Obesity is a problem in New Zealand if you look at the aggregate statistics for everyone, but that problem is concentrated very highly in poor communities, and mainly poor Maori and Pacific communities. I think that contrasts rather from the US. When I went to the US I noticed that everyone seemed huge. Average-looking people for the population would be considered rather chunky in NZ, and the fat people were enormous. Of course there were people that would be considered normal/healthy in NZ, but they were much less common.
But yes, obesity is a problem, from a government/health-services/etc. perspective. But there isn't some magical chemical in the air that makes everyone fat, and if you are in IT your kids will likely go to a school full of other upper-middle-class kids (which unfortunately translates to the demographics being rather a lot.. lighter), and obesity will be low there.
There is a big push from Government, as they are rebuilding Christchurch, to encourage walking and biking in the city over driving. For environmental reasons, for shop foot traffic reasons, for health reasons, etc.
If politics is what's motivating your relocation to a country like New Zealand, let me assure you, local politics are just as silly if not more so over there. Not only that but people are just as obsessed with American politics, and as an American, you will be singled out for these political discussions often. You may even find yourself discriminated against for your origins and nationality as I often did.
I'd class 70k as great for a junior, mediocre for intermediate and a joke for a senior. Wonder if they low-balled you for being a foreigner.
FWIW as a NZer you hit the nail on the head about the anti-americanism, and simultaneous obsession with american politics.
Had our honeymoon in New Zealand and really loved it. Auckland and Wellington are both beautiful, but, frankly, I'd rather be somewhere more relaxed like Nelson. I wish we had spent more time enjoying the south island and less time up north. Not so practical if you're trying to find work, though, I suppose. (I didn't make it to Christchurch).
The housing prices really did surprise, though. Granted, most places I looked at housing costs were more "wandering around town, find real estate office, look at what's in the window" so it ended up being expensive places like Auckland, Queenstown, Wanaka, etc, but it was still quite surprising, and left me wondering how anyone could afford it without bringing in money from the outside.
Then again, the grass is always greener -- I moved from Seattle to the SF area 15 years ago for the better weather and better traffic (don't laugh!) yet every time I travel, I find myself drawn to living in places like Reykjavik, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Nelson, etc. I'm sure the realities of the climates of these various places would come to me after the novelty wore off. And perhaps I just look fondly upon them because they remind me of "home" -- even though I was so happy to leave it.
I am screwed if my job goes away (screwed in that I'd have to move). For one, there aren't a lot of fortune 500 companies up here, and I've noticed a desire for smaller companies to prefer people with small/startup experience. I don't blame them, some of the challenges are unique. Also, given where I'm at in my career on the low end of the executive ranks, there just aren't a lot of laterals available up here on a good day.
All of those downsides and it's still the best move I ever made.
It's a beautiful place. I'm glad I left and I'm glad the few people in my family still there are either retired or working on escaping.
I don't think I could live too far north of Freeport or Brunswick, and I'm not very interested in living too far west of 95. Parts of this state are certainly backwards. Actually, the majority is if you go by land area, but I think we have a nice thing going in York and Cumberland counties.
- Salaries
- Housing price
- Housing quality - expect to pay top dollar for luxuries like insulation, double-glazed windows, and kitchens built within the last few decades.
- The cost of a car, and the size and quality of the roads
- The cost of electronic appliances, food, etc
Completely unrelated, what's the going salary for an intermediate programmer/analyst in one of those really flat US states full of cornfields?
Just based on my job hunting over the past three months - ~55k usd
Are salaries that bad? I know a bunch of developers in the Wellington area (and used to be one), and most are making around ~100k USD a year. Yea, it isn't Bay Area Google money, but also not terrible.
> the size and quality of the roads
I can't speak too much for the south island, but on the north island the roads seemed fine. The roads in San Francisco and Oakland where I live now are way worse then I ever experienced in NZ.
From what I can tell that's management salary in Wellington.
That salary doesn't sound far fetched for a contract though.
Financially, its not important what you earn, its important how much can you keep/save.
From a financial perspective - NZ salaries are relatively lower compared to its costs of living. A well paid tech guy from India would save a lot more in SF than they can ever do in NZ. For talented senior developers in India, they lose financially by going to NZ. And lack of (job) options is quite visible.
From a non-financial perspective - NZ is one of the best countries to live in. But just that is not going to bring you the top-tech-talent.
Australia isn't perfect but I'm not really sure that NZ is a more attractive destination for tech workers.
Yeah, come to New Zealand because you like mountains and temperate rainforests. Not to advance your IT career. I think in 20 years time that may change though - the tyranny of distance applies less to software than other products.
Isolation: yes, you are away from the troubles of the world, but it also means you'll be away from your families, you don't get Amazon Prime, and surprisingly you won't have as many Netflix movies to choose from. Don't expect to miss gridlock traffic, or be living in a Hobbit house lol
Costs: Don't expect NZ to be super cheap. Housing prices are ridiculous and often won't have much in terms of insulation and heating. Food prices will be fairly normal (although you will have a diverse selection, and it's generally good quality), and you're simply not going to get paid as much as you would in major centres elsewhere in the world. Phone and internet plans are going to be expensive. Also, take into account those flights home you'll be making - they won't come cheap.
Entertainment: There will be fun things to do for sure, but don't expect as much as what you might get in other major cities. NZ is however great for sports, and you'll fit right in if you have a sporting hobby or two.
People: NZ has a diverse population, and has a unique culture. Don't expect it to be like wherever else you're from. As a kiwi, I love the NZ culture - I love that people will stop and help you out, that police are friendly and non-threatening, and that we have the ability to laugh at ourselves, and not take things so seriously. Just like anywhere however, you do run into dickheads every now and then.
All in all, NZ is a "pretty choice" (pretty good) place to live. I imagine it'd be quite a bit of a culture shock for some people though, and it's not all cherries and rainbows. Some people might find it a little boring, others might like the chilled atmosphere and laid-backness.
Here's the thing. Would New Zealand stay that way if it pursued a policy of large scale immigration, they way the US has? The US takes well over a million new immigrants into the country every year. 10 years of our immigration would triple the size of New Zealand.
I'm sure they could find takers. Plenty of people would love to move to New Zealand.
I do wonder why the US, which takes over a million immigrants a year, takes so much heat for enforcing immigration policy, while New Zealand receives so much praise for being an ideal society.
It sounds like New Zealand may use its selectivity to allow in immigrants, but only those likely to contribute significantly to the bottom line. In a way, their exclusivity may actually help them cherry pick the very best. As strategy, I get it. But again, the NYTimes has been immensely critical of deportations in the US. Why do they give NZ a pass on this? And if they're going to praise New Zealand, doesn't that mean they're praising a very limited immigration policy?
I mean, how about this last quote: “It’s boom time for the next 10 years,” Mr. Drury said. The more immigrants, the better. “We’ll take a lot. We’ll take hundreds.”
Woah, not hundreds?
There's really no comparison between the US and New Zealand when it comes to immigration. They're opposites.
And, let's see how this latest attempt to attract high-skill immigrants goes. It's easy to romanticize New Zealand when you've spent your whole life in big US cities. Moving there is another thing entirely. It is remote and mostly rural. I will not be surprised if most Americans who go there come back within a few years.
US takes in 1mm per 300mm population, or 1 per 300.
NZ takes proportionately much more than the US. A similar calculation can be done for immigrants per area of land.
New Zealand has a couple of mid-sized islands, neither of which are particularly good for agriculture or mineral wealth, are a very long way from trading hubs, and has the shortest history of built infrastructure of all western democracies.
But if you want "historical immigration policy", the US's population has tripled since WWI while NZ's has quadrupled; similar growth with NZ having a bit more.
That sure hasn't stopped us. We're responsible for 30% of the world's dairy exports.
Probably not. Anyone adopting the "give me your weary" immigration stance would by design attract those who could not "get in" elsewhere, so unless they had a stellar education system and benefits to help those people get up on their feet, they'd probably not do well (not saying the US does)
> I do wonder why the US, which takes over a million immigrants a year, takes so much heat for enforcing immigration policy, while New Zealand receives so much praise for being an ideal society
For the same reason some people still see reddit as having 'betrayed some principle' - it set itself 'apart' as living up to some purported principle (in the US' case, "anyone can come here and make it") which enforcement policies "seem" like they are against (even if they're implementing a means by which that ideal can be met).
Apparently, first impressions w.r.t. companies, countries, and other organizations that center on ideals last. Make sure you're honest and upfront about your ideals, or figure out a way to re-brand, or get ready to 'always be seen as' some kind of 'welcher'. ...shrug
That was the CEO taking about his company not the country.
"A municipal program to fly in 100 developers next month — wine them, dine them and offer them jobs — was expected to draw 2,500 applications. But the recruitment effort, called LookSee Wellington, was besieged with more than 48,000 entries, including workers at Google, Amazon, Facebook, M.I.T. and NASA. At one point so many people checked out the program that the website failed."
Both NZ and Australia take in a far higher rate of immigrants than the US. You should change your question to "Imagine if the US took in as many immigrants as NZ".
NZ has a serious problem in that because it's easier for an NZ citizen to become Australian, a lot of immigrants use NZ as a 'stepping stone' citizenship - NZ spends resources on integrating the immigrants, and then they hop the ditch.
NZ couldn't take in the absolute numbers the US does, simply because of infrastructure. The US has an entire continent, full of roads, houses, and lots of wide flat arable land for agriculture, all of which has been built up over centuries. NZ has a pair of hilly medium-sized islands, one of which isn't great for large-scale habitation, and the country only has a little more than a century worth of infrastructure - and doesn't get the benefits of economies of scale that the US does.
In short, NZ gets the reputation it does because it consistently punches above its weight.
Putting 1M people per year into a country with the infrastructure and resources to handle 310M people is nothing. Putting 1M people per year into a country with the infrastructure and resources to handle 4M is crippling, to the point of destroying the country's social cohesion. Bridges, housing, agriculture, hospitals... none of these things are brought with immigrants when they move in. Or we can look at resources - the US has 10M square kilometers of land, 16% of which is arable (1.6M sq km), compared to NZ's 250k sq km, 2% of which is arable. (5k sq km).
The US is a ridiculously wealthy place and likes to emit lots of bluster about its 'melting pot', and yet it does not match up to its contemporaries when it comes to taking in immigrants. Many decades ago it did, but in recent times it's lost the right to brag about it. Arguing the absolute numbers totally free of any context is the wrong way to go about it.
To take in a comparable percentage of immigrants, by your calculation, the US would need to take in 3,750,000 immigrants a year.
Now, there are certainly 50,000 well educated engineers, scientists and other high skill workers who would might be willing to move somewhere else. But are there 3,750,000 such people? The nature of the immigration is different. That's not to say the US shouldn't be taking in 3,750,000 people per year, just that the challenges of doing so could be dramatically different from what New Zealand experiences with 50,000.
This is where sheer scale comes in. I don't think you can extrapolate from a simple linear projection. When you hit a certain scale, new challenges emerge. This is especially the case where it comes to population - after all, a high population density can indicate that a region is less able to take in more immigrants, not more! Perhaps your numbers could just as easily lead to the conclusion that New Zealand has a lot of catching up to do?
I do want to be clear about something here - I'm not (necessarily) arguing for policy one way or the other. My point is more narrow, which is that that using the "percentages" argument to praise New Zealand as an immigrant friendly place because it takes 50,000 immigrants a year, and the US as a xenophobic one because it only takes in about 1,200,000 a year misses a large number of critical factors.
For instance, New Zealand has a population density of 15/km_sq. The US has 84. This may reflect a much higher level of historical immigration. The way you calculate it, the US is considered a less hospitable country to immigration because it has had so much of it that the per capita numbers are lower!
And, of course, population density itself poses problems (after all, Australia has a large, hot, and dry interior, and Canada certainly has a lot of frozen land).
In short, I'm not saying your factors are unimportant, I'm saying that you've over relied on a single metric that leaves out far too much to reach these conclusions.
Australia specifically changed laws to make it very hard for an NZ citizen to become an Australian citizen back in the 90s.
I'm sorry but that's an incredibly ignorant thing to say. NZ is not a massive national park. Take a brief glance at it on google maps. Most of it is light green - farmland.
We have about the same forest area % as Idaho. Or is that a massive national park as well?
[0] e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craters_of_the_Moon_National_M...
I will agree that the statement is ignorant if taken very literally and, in my opinion, uncharitably. I don't actually think NZ is literally a giant national park, though it is a naturally beautiful and relatively undeveloped place.
Still in highly contentious arguments it's best to avoid giving people the opportunity to call you ignorant, so in future iterations I'll certainly be more careful.
But regrettably, I lack the patience to read past an intro sort of equating the ramifications of Brexit with those of Islamic State.
Could journalism please step outside for a minute and perform a reality check?
Hell, Brexit is more destructive to Americans than ISIS is.
IS's ability to project power adds up to a week or two's car accidents. It's insignificant.
Not to mention that last week senior Conservatives were talking up war with Spain over Gibraltar. Is this meaningless jingo garbage for the press or a likely outcome? Who knows?
Leaving the EU means leaving the benefits of the EU, and Brexiters have generally refused to acknowledge what those benefits were while simultanously complaining when they might be withdrawn.
My wife and I ultimately decided to stop as she became pregnant and didn't want to be as far away from family. That and the flight/quarantine times that would be imposed for our dogs. Another big issue was taxes.
To my knowledge NZ and USA are two countries that will try to tax you wherever you live until you die unless you renounce citizenship. So dealing with being double taxed on income from NZ and USA was a big deal as well.
Whenever I read these articles, it does sound so appealing. My sister has lived there for many years and the quality of life just seems so much better.
I have heard that USA does that though
If we wanted to eventually become residents of NZ, which we did, and I was obtaining income in the US, NZ and US would both tax me for that income.
It seemed, however, less likely that NZ would approve me for immigration if I was not intending to contribute my talents to a company within NZ, so in that case, if I obtained a job in NZ, I would be taxed in NZ, and US would again tax me as well for that income due to US citizenship.
Declaring your income does not mean that both will tax you.
Yes, the US will tax US citizens on worldwide income, but not if you are paying taxes in another country and earning less than $100,000 USD per year: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_earned_income_exclusio...
It's totally fine to live in New Zealand and work as a contractor for companies in other countries. I think it might actually be better, since you're bringing money into the country.
US yes, NZ no. The US is practically the only country in the world to do that actually. And they WILL hit you with an extra "exit" tax if you try and renounce your citizenship too.
My ex's family went and worked in Australia for a year or two. They boarded the plane, came back to New Zealand, and got a letter from the IRD demanding payment of taxes for the time they worked in Australia. Her father shot back that "They did not use any services from" NZ at all. The IRD responded that the services were available, and if they didn't pay their tax bill they were ready to initiate prosecution.
At a guess, your ex's family managed to stay resident in NZ (or the IRD may have incorrectly believed them to be so), or they spent too much time in NZ, or didn't spend enough time in the US, or the IRD just screwed up the paperwork, etc.
But the law is quite clear, and is explained in detail on the IRD's website: http://www.ird.govt.nz/international/residency/dta/double-ta...
So, New Zealand does not tax their citizens abroad wherever they live. They do tax their residents abroad wherever they live. New Zealand has an extremely broad definition of resident - anyone with a permanent place of abode (read: permanent home) in New Zealand regardless of how long they have been out of the country.
The US and New Zealand do have a tax treaty which ought to settle any issues of double taxation.
The other commonwealth countries (such as Canada) have similarly broad or vague wording in order to catch as many tax payers as possible. The US is large enough that all the weird situations which can happen, will happen and on a regular basis so the rules tend to be much more black and white.
- Most things are expensive and lower quality than you are used to. Furniture, housing, food, etc. Simply because of isolation and logistics. - Poor job market, terribly poor for most people. - Which leads to rules making it much harder to move to NZ long term. Unless you meet some high bars (several million dollars in the bank or married to a kiwi, etc.) it is hard to get permanent residence there.
On the other hand, it is one of the most beautiful and rugged countries in the world. An unlike Australia, every plant and animal is not actively trying to kill you.
With offshore manufactured things, yes. With handmade stuff, which is more expensive, I'd have no doubts rating it very highly.
It's the opposite here. There are no harmful animals anywhere. You can go walking through the wilderness bare foot (which I have done many times) without fear
You forgot the 3rd option - be on a skills shortage list. We hire many developers/testers from overseas and they have no issue obtaining PR or citizenship.
> Poor job market, terribly poor for most people.
Define 'poor' - our unemployment rate is slightly above the US unemployment rate, and in my area (Canterbury, main city Christchurch), unemployment is 3.7%.
We do have a "low wage" economy thanks to a neoliberal government crushing the unions in the 90s, but this doesn't really apply to developers.
Items there were charged at rates suitable for wealthy tourists. Pay rates were legal minimums, although the added extras you had to provide for your work were well outside any legal rights employers have. For my last job, I used my PC and other personal equipment just to do my job, while my employer sat back and raked in the cash. (Almost literally, they would pay $6k in wages and $0 for equipment while billing $60+k for a job. One guy I know who took a similar role in the business has had a verbal warning for not doing his job properly, so he's providing his own equipment.)
A friend of mine lives in Auckland. A year or so back, he explained that his rent had more than doubled in a single day. (He was on a fixed term lease that expired, he went to renew it, and the rent went up but his income didn't.)
Maybe this is "isolation" in a previously unheard of, to me, sense where you just don't want to be a citizen of a major nation or something? I don't know. For what I think of as "isolation" NZ is too draconian.
Higher taxes and stricter laws really make it a no go for many people.
When 50k USD lands you in the highest tax bracket (30%), when everything tech related is more expensive, and you're a software engineer it's a hard sell.
NZ's biggest selling points are low crime, low unemployment, interesting area, and attractive social programs. It's definetly not an isolationist paradise unless you define isolationist as being "not in America, Middle East, or Europe" which this article seems happy to do.
Well if it's so low I wouldn't mind sending you my paypal. You can always send me some supplimental money if you don't think the government is taking enough from you. We can think of it as wealth redistribution to a poor college student.
> It's low relative to the OECD
If I'm focused on isolating myself from everyone why would I care about what other OECD members are doing?
> depending on your politics, needs to go up or have some higher brackets for the wealthier
I don't think someone, who is attempting to isolate themselves from other people, would want to deal with this sort of thinking. If this is how New Zealander's think then they're not going to see many hermits swimming their way over the pond and lining up for land.
These processes will undoutably create the need to interact with other people to prevent yourself from being arrested or fined heavily. This is the exact opposite of what someone who would like to isolate themselves from the rest of the world would want.
When you vote for tax hikes you're essentially reaching into your pocket, taking out money, and giving it to someone. Then you're reaching into your neighbor's pocket, taking some more out, and giving it to yourself and that other third party.
Why not let people choose to give their money? Why vote to force them to give their money?
Despite that, charity is still a huge factor for changing the world. The B&M Gates foundation is one of many organizations that sacrifices gains to try and make the world a better place for ideological reasons.
No dipping into someone else's pocket needed. The fact that a majority of people are willing to vote for more taxes is proof that this is either a) not needed because those people would donate because they think it's important, or b) the majority is just using the fact that they're the majorty as a reason it's ok to take from others.
Taxes are not your money. They are, by their very definition, money you owe the government. Meaning they are the government's money. They just happen to temporarily enter your pocket before leaving it again for their rightful owner.
To answer your question though, charity is not a substitute for taxation because charity is not scalable.
Many Americans I speak to think that the US is a low taxing country, but this is false for most people. It is only the case for the moderately rich and up. Your tax system is not very progressive, particularly social security and medicare are flat taxes if I'm not mistaken, so not progressive at all, and the state taxes I've seen have barely any progressivity to them.
There is the matter of 15% GST to consider, but it's not something you often think about and factors in to the cost of living comparisons.
I guess it might be to entice skilled people not to leave?
If you're curious you can work out your tax here: http://www.ird.govt.nz/calculators/tool-name/tools-t/calcula...
There's also a 1.26% ACC levy on all employees, so remember to add that on.
"Isolation" and "Isolationist" are significantly different concepts. One is a physical property, the other is a social construct.
> To have isolation you need to have a place with very lax laws where people don't want to bother you.
This isn't isolationism either. Switzerland is isolationist, but it has plenty of strict laws (including conscription), for example. What you're describing is a libertarian fantasy country.
Someone who want's to isolate themselves, in search of "isolation", can be called an "isolationist".
> This isn't isolationism either. Switzerland is isolationist, but it has plenty of strict laws (including conscription), for example. What you're describing is a libertarian fantasy country.
If you want to be "isolated" you need a place where others will stay away from you. People who want to make you do things will undoutably cause people to come and enforce those desires. Any place that want's to force people to do things is not friendly to those who would like to "isolate" themselves... those whom could be called "isolationists" or "practicioners of isolation".
The word "isolationist" in a national context means the nation is the one practicing isolation. From my context it is clear that the personal is attempting to practice isolation. I don't think your interpretation of what I was saying is correct.
An 'isolationist' is someone who wants their country to withdraw from the world politically. It's not someone who wants to live 'off the grid'. It's not someone who is frightened by a 30% marginal tax bracket. It's not another term for 'libertarian'. Someone who wants to live off by themselves with little interaction with others is called a hermit, not an isolationist.
a person favoring a policy of remaining apart from the affairs or interests of other groups, especially the political affairs of other countries.
the process or fact of isolating or being isolated.
I live in Uruguay, and Americans think it's great, but it's not (barring an exceptional job offer/salary as usual). Lots of jobs but very low paying (USD 1000/month take home salary for entry level dev, USD 2000 for experienced dev. Gross salary can be almost twice because taxes are very harsh) and extremely expensive on a standard salary. We do have a tremendous amount of immigrants from the poorer Latin American countries, especially Venezuela and Dominican Republic.
[1] https://www.crownfibre.govt.nz/ [2] http://www.hawaikicable.co.nz/
Latency and international bandwidth can be bigger issues, US is between 150-250ms, Australia 60-120ms, UK ~300ms. It actually has a pretty significant impact on how 'snappy' browsing feels - Facebook, HN etc feel faster in the US even on a slower connection.
Server-grade/Datacenter transit is very expensive here, especially for international bandwidth. Many of the hosting/VPS companies here (like sitehost.co.nz ) have unlimited national bandwidth and then very small international caps.
Auckland house prices pushed up a load by Chinese families needing somewhere safe to put their cash outside of China. And the only thing they could put into was housing.
As to quality of housing its different to Europe because of the cliate duh! Solid stone and brick houses are not suited to temperate climates. And yes they are smaller than American houses because NZers dont live inside all year round. If its cold or wet, then just tough up, wear more clothes, and get on with your ife instead of hiding in your concrete bunker with the central heating on (you wont find those either).
First and foremost consider the lifestyle. If that is for you then you can be sure if you are capable then you will find work. NZ has the world's highest proportion of self-employed and entrepreneurs and still an attitude of 'can-do' prevails.
I'm sure the country has changed in the last decade, but one thing's for sure: saying that the cost of living is cheaper than San Francisco is like saying that Ferrari is cheaper than Pagani.
Also, in addition to the relatively high cost of living (housing in particular is terrible, especially in Auckland), the level of bureaucratic nonsense is very high. My parents owned a restaurant and grocery that targeted American expats, and the red tape they had to go through was much higher than just about anywhere in the USA.
The tech scene was very young when I lived there, with very little community. I'm curious if that's changed.
He loves the place, but I think would agree with the "poor housing" comments upthread - inexplicably under-insulated.
Very isolated - very little "new" jobs, conferences(Scala) etc... all in respect to EU (where there are hundreds of scala positions etc.).
I was on very good salary (100kNZD++ dollars / year), life was very very comfortable. Besides huge purchases buying house or like that which I couldn't do I found it very hard to spend over half my salary (never cooking, eating twice a day out). I was living alone in AKL renting all the time.
Weather is very nice, but sun is very very strong, so you require sunscreen 100% of time.
> Did you miss european culture ( or sports on TV or anything like that)?
Yes. I'm not sure how to put it, as I'm not native English speaker, but I hope noone will get offended by following. Also this may wildly differ outside of AKL. There are lots of ethnicities, which is fine, but I am single and I am most attracted to single type, so the pool for me to find girlfriend from is much much smaller (I'd say about 20-30%). While people are very very friendly there, the nightlife in Auckland is pretty bad (was much better in Wellington when I flew there once).
> How did you deal with the time difference between Europe and NZ? When I was in NZ on vacation I missed being able to watch the stuff that I am used to on TV in the evening, due to the twelve hour time difference to Europe. I dont think I could ever switch from soccer to cricket.
I don't watch TV so I didn't miss it, and they occasionally had NHL live games on, which is great, since I couldn't watch it in EU since lots of them were at crazy times. They are huge for cricket and rugby, which I given some try but I did not enjoy it as much.
All in all, I do not regret going there and it's awesome country, but my take on it is, if you have a family, it's the ideal place to move into. Schools are great, it's very safe country, people are mostly happy, and salary of programmer's is very very decent. If you're single, and move there on your own, you're gonna have it a bit tougher, but lots of that depends on you.
1. Cost of living is higher than you might expect. Housing is ridiculously expensive in the main cities (not SF/NYC levels, maybe, but getting close). Food is also much more expensive than you might expect, especially some staples likes meat. Chicken, for example is almost twice as expensive. And as others have noted, the quality of the housing stock is awful. The typical kiwi house has horrible insulation, is very draughty, has no HVAC, and woefully insufficient storage, power points, etc. It's baffling.
2. Salaries are low, at least once you compare to the cost of living. If you're making the equivalent of USD$70k gross, you're doing pretty good; you then have to pay income tax which drops you down to around USD$52k net. It goes further than it would in SF, but given the cost of living, not that far.)
3. Country is lovely, people are nice, political system is very sane, the health care system works very, very well, the social safety net (welfare, unemployment) is not exactly generous, but it exists and works. If you can afford to live here, there are some enormous intangible benefits. And some of the benefits are quite tangible. Private health insurance exists but is hardly a necessity; even without it a doctors visit would be around USD$35, a prescription USD$4, a specialist will often be free due to government subsidies, emergency care is free at point of use, etc. Also, at least in Wellington, the public transit system is really quite good. Not cheap (...actually quite expensive!), but has a broad reach, very reliable, very safe and clean. I've seen MPs riding the bus to parliament; I imagine you don't see too many senators on the DC metro.
4. There are a LOT of startups around, a tech friendly culture, tons of meetups, lots of jobs, etc. There are big companies, small companies, SaaS companies, enterprisey outfits, machine learning startups, lots of argumented reality startips, accounting startups, etc., etc., and a lot of them are competing globally. Xero is probably the biggest success story, but it's the tip of the iceberg; there's a long tail. NZ is small, but the major cities don't feel like a backwater. Someone in another comment was comparing the cost of living to Tulsa, but you'd never mistake Tulsa for Wellington under any circumstances. :) It feels more like Seattle or Vancouver just...smaller.
I'm very happy to be here, but it's not for everyone. It's certainly different, there's a major culture change, it's not a clear-cut financial win, and the plane flight back to the states to visit family is hideously expensive and utterly unpleasant. But it has its pluses.
Initially, I loved it. I was young and open-minded and it is easy to romanticize that kind of relocation for a while.
I found work and got comfortable enough there. After a year or two or three, the scenic country-side and beaches don't matter as much as you're just bogged down in the routine of living life.
Culturally, Auckland is an interesting place. I believe over 50% of the population there is non-white/european. Lots of asian immigrants come there as well as peoples of the middle-east, India, the south pacific and elsewhere. This means a thriving international community with plenty of good restaurants and food courts. Most of my friends there were not native kiwi's. As a matter of fact, I found it hard to make friends and break-in to the native kiwi social groups. My theory there is it was just easier to meet and mingle with internationals who didn't already have a social clique.
Most Kiwi's are fairly liberal (at least in Auckland), and most do travel overseas at some point and have a larger world perception than average I'd say. Though I found some attitudes and local social norms to be a bit dated. Kiwi's in general are non-confrontational and as an American you can often find yourself being over-bearing or over-stated simply because people don't share their opinions as vocally. They love Rugby and Cricket as much as Americans love football and baseball. Drinking is a large component of the culture and workplace. Most work places have Friday drinks and you will find yourself alienated if you don't participate. The youth start drinking way too early as well.
Weather-wise, it is chilly most of the year, but not severely cold. Auckland has a rainy/drizzle season that overlaps most of the winter. Hardly anyone has A/C and those that do, don't use it because electricity is not very cheap. Luckily the Summer doesn't get too severe and doesn't last too long.
Work and career-wise, Auckland has most of the job opportunities. I felt people were generally underpaid and there was not a lot of disposable income but I suppose it all depends on your career. Most work places are outdated in their attitudes and are practicing what was popular easily 10-15 years ago in the U.S. But again, this largely depends on what you do and how big the company is. Holiday benefits are great. A full-time employee gets 4 weeks of paid holiday per year, plus two weeks paid sick-leave, plus all the public holidays (almost another 2 weeks worth). As a permanent employee, it's also harder to get fired. People generally didn't fire employees unless they do something illegal or keep repeating some grave error. They usually are forced to get rid of you through re-structuring and lay-offs (redundancies). Unions have fallen out of favor though they are still around and relevant in some cases. A lot of companies unfortunately are using loopholes, like hiring you as a contractor or giving you less than full-time work as to avoid paying full holiday benefits. I often worked as a contractor until after 5 years in one place I was able to finally get in as a permanent. Taxes are not nearly as bad as you might expect, especially with the near free healthcare. Sales tax (GST) on the other hand are at a ridiculous 15%.
Healthcare, there are pros and cons. Generally my experience was good. All hospital visits are free. Any accident of any nature is generally covered by what they call ACC, which all residents have. Think of it as an accidental injury insurance that's mandatory. If you register with a local doctor, you'll pay a subsidized rate for your visit, something like $25-60, depending on the place. Babies and Children go for free. Subscriptions are also heavily subsidized and I think you'll pay like $10 per prescription fill though I can't remember exactly. Some people do purchase private health insurance though most don't. We ended doing so for our kids because it wasn't much and it helped in a few scenarios. Adults do not get any Dental healthcare for free and dental insurance is expensive or hard to come by. This is by far one of the worst expenses you'll face regarding health costs. Kids do get free dental care till they are 18 though. The hospital and healthcare system has a tendency to work in slow-motion. Hospitals are understaffed and over-worked and people sometimes wait months to get an operation scheduled if it's not urgent. This is where the private health insurance can speed things up.
Love-life/dating/marriage - If you are not already married, your prospects are good here. Auckland has over a million people in the area and chances are you will find someone if you look hard enough. Do not count on meeting people organically. findsomeone.co.nz is the match.com of New Zealand. You're probably better off meeting someone there than you are at a club or pub. I went on dozens of dates using online dating services and no one ever thought it was weird that I talked to. I found my wife this way, a university student, studying in Auckland and originally from China. We have two kids now and are happily married. If you are looking for that commitment, and enjoy going out, there are plenty of "meat-grinder" clubs that people go to specifically to hook up and Auckland has a vibrant nightlife scene (which quickly tires for anyone past college age years). There are even some cool places that don't focus on hook-ups, like jazz-bars, etc.. And if you are looking for even less commitment, you're really in the right place because prostitution is legal in NZ and there are plenty of message parlours to choose from with many exotic, international girls. Legal or not (I suspect some of them don't have the proper licenses in any case), these places are as shady as you'd expect. I'd probably advise staying away though I had a few friends that indulged and loved these places and I'm not judging...
Cost of living and housing, in Auckland these are not cheap. 3 bedroom bungalows 15 miles outside of the city could easily cost you $500,000-600,000 USD or more. A lot of products are imported and more expensive due to New Zealand's geological isolation. Food and eating out have inflated to prices I could not justify easily. Still there are deals to be had. Find a $5 kebab in the city or a $5 pizzahut deal and you're good to go, right? I made my lunch most days and even went on a tuna sandwhich binge after we bought our house. Product variety and competition are significantly less than the U.S. and as a result, most things cost more. We did not have any expendable income. Almost all of my wage went to paying the mortgage and my wife had to pay for the utilities, and food costs out of her salary, usually leaving nothing. Luckily, we were able to snag some gov't subsidized help on the children's daycare. When I lost my job through re-structuring, I spent about 9 month unemployed, and if it wasn't for my Wife's mother, we probably would have had a house. There is a safety net in NZ and if you are poor enough (basically without any income), you will get enough from the gov't to house and feed you and your kids. It won't be pleasant but you wouldn't end up on the street.
Retrospect or hindsight or whatever you call is a strange thing. I guess I'll always love NZ in some ways. It was my home for a decade. I met my wife there. I had friends there. I probably regarded it as better than the U.S. for most of my time there.
In recently coming back to the U.S. though, I have come to recognize how truly different we are (some might say lucky). Without a doubt we have the most comfortable life-style, the most modern conveniences, the most overall accessible, luxury lifestyle that you can get. We also make more money at our jobs, though we work harder. We have thousands of choices in our consumer lifestyle, cutting technology in products and services that the rest of the world is denied, and we get it all for dirt cheap. Am I saying that all of this is good or healthy? I'm not going to get into that but I have decided to move my family here because, a) I want to make them comfortable and to be able to afford basic needs for them more easily (like being able to heat the house during winter so you don't wake up to find they discarded their clothes and blanket in the night and are shivering cold). I won't get as much time off but at least I can freaking afford to take them to disney world when I do, which is better than 4 weeks off, spent at home because you have no money. I want to feel confident that I can make a living and get a job and I want my children to have those job opportunities when they get older as well. I also want them to have the ambition and confidence to follow their crazy dreams (something I saw disturbingly lacking in the culture of New Zealand). I don't know what it is about us americans, maybe we are too stupid or have our heads in the clouds, or maybe there are just more opportunities, but we have a tendency to just go for it in a way I didn't see often in NZ culture.
In conclusion, I'd say that for me at least, NZ was probably a great place as a single and even the early years of my marriage but with having a family, I'll take the mod-cons and financial elevation of the U.S. over the thread-bare existence we had in NZ. Maybe it's all a system that is doomed and going to collapse or whatever but like how surfers go to where the waves are, the waves are here right now and choosing whether I want my kids to be New Zealand or American, I still think they'll be better off being American.
Having spent approx half my working life in (Wellington/Vancouver) I'd say Vancouver would be a more natural fit for our US cousins.
However that said you can't beat NZ for internal travel, day trips, adventure tourism. Its basically a compact version of British Columbia.
It also spans roughly the same range of climates - Dunedin where I live is Seattle/VancouverBC sort of climate (and the southern West Coast is very Olympic Peninsular subtropical rain forest). On the other hand Auckland/Northland is Californiaish but with more tropical moisture because we're an island and not a continent
...IF they would just look up from their phones. Humorous photo. Illustrates something though, which is that the more you "court" people from the USA (presumably on the basis that your country is so different from and far from the USA) the more your country starts to resemble the USA.
See Kim Dotcom's troubles for reference.
come now
You also forgot the part where Kim Dotcom is a convicted fraudster, who was making money through deliberate violation of copyright, is all tech talent like him?
Oh, and then there was the time he tried to get involved in NZ politics. That was not superpopular.
Violating copyright is not a crime in NZ, neither is it when former felons do it.
The NZ government still refuses to let US warships that may be nuclear powered into our ports, and thus has no free trade deal with the worlds largest economy. Instead we have a free trade deal with Red China, which is now colonising us.
I don't think you can squarely point to the New Zealand–China FTA for whichever interpretation of colonization you'd like – immigration laws were mostly unchanged by the FTA with the exception of short term work visas, and property purchases by Chinese investors is not an exclusively "countries who have negotiated free trade agreements with China" phenomenon (see Vancouver in Canada, Seattle in the US).
I personally likely won't be impacted too badly by Trump and his supporters. I may have economic options here that are as good as or better than my options anywhere else. But I feel a need to put some distance between this country and myself now. It doesn't represent me anymore. I don't belong to it anymore. I'm not ok with the decision it made. I've even felt that it ceased to be a place worth caring about.
There are just a couple things that pull me back from this line of thinking: A broader view of history and a broader view of alternative places in the world.
History: The last election may be the biggest step backward my country has taken since I was born, but I don't get to pretend that it was so wonderful before that. Yes, we all know this. But I just relearned it even more forcefully in a piece I read a couple weeks ago: http://www.mtv.com/news/2998426/fascism-has-already-come-to-...
Places in the world: If I'm going to leave for the reasons above, I need good reasons why another place is better. But every place has its downsides. There probably is a good case to be made in favor of a number of places, but if I'm going to be honest about this, I need to research it and not move reflexively without knowing a lot about the place I'm moving to. And if I do move somewhere, I should do it with some degree of commitment to put some effort into making that place better. Otherwise any anti-immigration sentiments that exist there will probably be right about me.
Being able to chose your home, rather than having to stay where you were born, is a valuable thing. But at some point it is good to choose a home and invest in it.
I wonder why I would ever consider doing that from New Zealand?
I would not make one more dollar while I would spend truck loads on things that I do not need, such as taxes and inflated housing cost, and what have you.
For anyone interested in tech, wanting to start up or grow in NZ, check out the Edmund Hilary fellowship.
Disclaimer: I have nothing against New Zealand and I am no fan of San Francisco
Really only the cost of living.
> Commuting is less wearying
Not really.
There's a near zero percent chance your commute involves anything other than driving. The walkable areas of midwestern cities are certainly cheaper than SF, but they're also not exactly cheap. You're still looking at half a million for a decent house, 200k for a decent condo, and that's on a midwestern salary. Not to mention the weather.
And if you're driving, well, driving is driving.
> And American politics, “Brexit” and the Islamic State are on the other side of the world... [can be avoided] Especially if you stay off Facebook.
I mean, I guess you can just avoid talking to people altogether, but avoiding Facebook is no way to avoid the nastier parts of American populist politics in the midwest, which is decidedly Trump's America. On my last visit I learned that there are still people who very strongly believe that Obama is a Muslim and Clinton is a witch (literally, as in worships satan. I'm not exaggerating and they weren't being coy with language). And I wasn't even seeking them out, they were just the people I was obligated to spend time with.
So no, the midwest isn't some cheaper version of California. There's a reason why people like me leave after a few decades and never look back. The weather sucks, the cities are either unlivable or not appreciably cheaper, and there's a high concentration of extremely unpleasant people.
First, commuting refers specifically to the to-and-from of your journey to work. I hate cars, but you're being dishonest in how you're addressing the parent comment. Going to the grocery store, for example, isn't a commute. Actually you could probably use Prime Pantry or something and not even have to drive to go do those things. I strongly prefer a walkable city, and people like Jeff Speck preach the gospel as far as I'm concerned - but I'll take a daily 20 minute drive over an hour hopping on and off trains any day of the week - especially when I can do so from my nice, comfy Lexus or whatever.
You can complain about the weather and that's valid, but the whole planet isn't California and we can't all live there for one reason or another. If a bunch of people like me moved out there from the frozen/scorching wasteland of places like NYC, then you'd be priced out of the state. Be thankful that for some people weather isn't that big of a deal.
>And don't get me started on the casual racism/homophobia. The Midwest is Trump's America. In-laws firmly believe Obama is a Muslim and that Hillary Clinton is a witch. I'm not exaggerating for effect, and they're not being coy. Sincerely held beliefs.
Just because your family is stupid doesn't make everybody else's family stupid. My parents don't think Obama is a Muslim , aren't at all racist, and they voted for Trump. I don't think Obama is a Muslim (I voted for him both times) and I don't like Hillary. So you can stop with the drive-by generalizations here - especially these undeserved "casually racist" ones.
I feel strongly about the midwest. I hated living there. There are serious down-sides, and if people move to Tulsa thinking it's "NZ in the USA", they're going to be in for a rough surprise.
Do you disagree?
> First, commuting refers specifically to the to-and-from of your journey to work
My point was that you're probably going to end up driving in either case, and if you have to drive anyways, your commute will suck no matter where you live.
OR, if you don't end up driving, you're actually not saving much on cost of housing. And you probably have a lower salary with which to purchase that prime real estate. Basically, little net benefit over California or other coastal states.
> You can complain about the weather and that's valid, but the whole planet isn't California and we can't all live there for one reason or another. If a bunch of people like me moved out there from the frozen/scorching wasteland of places like NYC, then you'd be priced out of the state. Be thankful that for some people weather isn't that big of a deal.
First, I don't live in California.
I agree with everything else. It's really all beside the point, though.
> Just because your family is stupid doesn't make everybody else's family stupid... So you can stop with the drive-by generalizations here - especially these undeserved "casually racist" ones.
My family isn't stupid. Pretty smart by any objective measure aside from willingness to believe confirmational bullshit, actually. Which is kind of my point. They're embedded in a terrible culture.
Look, I lived in the midwest for decades. I know what I'm talking about.
The politics of the region is dominated by this sort of stuff. It's a LOT more common and MUCH more difficult to avoid in the midwest. The composition of state houses speaks for itself. Name a midwestern state and I'll go member-by-member through its General Assembly to demonstrate to you the obscene popularity of blatant intolerance. Seriously, shoot.
It bleeds over into every aspect of life.
If you're lucky enough to be white male and straight, you can just avoid talking to people all-together, or silo yourself off from your community, and mostly ignore the terrible culture of the region. Which is what I did. But if you like living in a community where you know and respect your neighbors, the midwest can be a tough place to be.
I think that claim is both true and demonstrable. I even suggested one empirical test.
At the very least, it's not a generalization. Saying "box a has more red gumballs than box b, so if you don't like red, choose box b" isn't the same as saying "all the gumballs in that box are red".
> You don't know what you're talking about at all.
With all due respect, I lived in the midwest long enough to have an informed opinion. Maybe our experiences differ, but mine are PERFECTLY well-informed.
I believe that you know what you're talking about. I also don't believe your experiences are perfectly representative.
It sounds like you lived in one location in the mid west and have taken it upon yourself to assume that's how it must be everywhere. That's not well-informed, it's just an anecdote about a crappy time spent somewhere in the country.
Also not true. Try again.
> That's not well-informed, it's just an anecdote about a crappy time spent somewhere in the country.
Multiple decades across several states. Both in cities and in non-city areas.
The argument here basically amounts to: "But hey, the densest 20% County-Containing-Major-City, ST isn't so bad, and my college educated software engineering co-workers are all pretty decent..."
And I'M the one making inaccurate generalizations about the region?!
Come off it. Take a week off work on go two counties in any direction. Or hell, to that other suburb where 30% of the metro population but none of the folks you hang out with live. Come back and tell me you still think I'm wildly out of touch.
Like all places, the Midwest is not without its unhappy quirks or its difficult people, but Midwesterners are noticeably polite and friendly, even coming from other "flyover" regions.
Yes, they are generally conservative (not universally, and especially not among the young), but they can usually get along with their neighbors just fine.
When I lived in the Midwest, we had not only multiple gay people, but multiple gay teachers living in our neighborhood. While I'm sure it upset some of the parents, these teachers were able to go about their business just fine and spent many years teaching at the schools. This was in a very red region, not some liberal enclave.
We had people of all races and it was rarely, if ever, a visible issue. We didn't have anyone shouting racial slurs or visibly denigrating people. I'm sure this happened occasionally, not trying to say that there are literally 0 racists, but it was by no means a sentiment you'd come across with any frequency.
If you live in a big city like NYC or SF, you probably get exposed to more "intolerance" from contrarians/extremists who also live in big cities than someone who lives in the Midwest.
The Midwest is a great place to be. It's extremely unfair to cast such aspersions on it.
This is certainly true! To each his own. My point was that the midwest probably isn't a great place to be if you're looking for "cheaper California".
Sounds like we agree on that.
> When I lived in the Midwest, we had not only multiple gay people, but multiple gay teachers living in our neighborhood... these teachers were able to go about their business just fine and spent many years teaching at the schools
1. "Not being fired for being gay" is literally the lowest bar I can think of other that "not being imprisoned for being gay".
2. A school I attended explicitly discriminated against trans people in hiring. And those are the public schools. So, YMMV. I'm sure things have gotten better across the entire country since then, including the midwest.
3. Even without "lose your job/house" levels of hate, the world can still be a nasty place. E.g. imagine driving by this billboard every day: http://www.medina-gazette.com/news/2013/02/22/Passers-by-on-...
And of course most of the people you interact with disagree with the sign, but attend churches that teach the exact same thing. Those "midwestern nice" interactions don't feel so "nice" anymore.
> If you live in a big city like NYC or SF, you probably get exposed to more "intolerance" from contrarians/extremists who also live in big cities than someone who lives in the Midwest.
Sure. The difference is who's in charge! And that's the difference that makes a difference.
> The Midwest is a great place to be. It's extremely unfair to cast such aspersions on it.
For you. I hated it.
The point is that the community at large was willing to accept these people as role models for their children and did so with minimal hostility or interference (visible anyway, since I can't see what happens behind closed doors). Entrusting a teaching position is a little different than any other random job.
While I'm sure there are horror stories, in practice it would be very rare to find someone who was legitimately "fired for being gay".
The myth that Republican areas are hostile wastelands with poor quality of life for minorities has much more to do with confirmation bias and a desire to justify high cost of living than anything else, IMO. This is not to discount any personal experience you may have had, just my opinion on the sentiment in general.
If only that were true, I'd move back to the midwest in a heart beat.
> This is not to discount any personal experience you may have had, just my opinion on the sentiment in general.
Name a "that doesn't happen here" scenario -- from blatant racial discrimination/brutality in policing to "bobby's parents sent him to pray-the-gay-away camp" -- and I experienced or directly witnessed a friend experience it before coming of age.
Whenever people shame me for being overly harsh on midwestern culture, I stop and feel guilty for a split second. Then I think back to these victims of its excesses and the guilt quickly subsides.
I firmly believe there are decent communities in the midwest. Especially in its cities. I don't doubt your or anyone else when you say you've had good experiences.
Unfortunately, that doesn't change anything about the fundamental cultural trade-winds of the aggregate region. Or the effect they have on people caught in the zip code one over.
So you were born 20+ years ago? It sounds like your notion of the Midwest is about as stuck in the past as the notion that San Francisco is a hippie mecca.
>Whenever people shame me for being overly harsh on midwestern culture, I stop and feel guilty for a split second. Then I think back to these victims of its excesses and the guilt quickly subsides.
And you should feel guilty for continually shitting on a place you have no association with anymore.
And left less than 3 years ago. Not much had changed. In some ways, it got a lot worse. My perceptions aren't stuck in the past.
Again, don't believe me? Go person-by-person down your general assembly and send an email to each asking how they feel about allowing business owners the freedom to not serve LGBT people, or whether they will sponsor a bill to ban conversion therapy.
Or for that matter, ask if they support legislation to outlaw incrimination against LGBT individuals in hiring! Most midwestern states don't have such a law on the book.
And not just your representative -- all of them. Or even just yours and all from surrounding counties. After all, we wouldn't want to generalize.
> And you should feel guilty for continually shitting on a place you have no association with anymore.
Why?
I don't think the midwest is, on balance, a nice place to live. I think the cultural downsides of the region eventually bleed into your life, even if you try to cloister yourself in one of the urban liberal islands. My opinion may not be fair (I think it is, but allow the possibility that a lifetime of bad experiences was somehow unrepresentative). But it sure as hell isn't uninformed.
I think people who are considering moving to the midwest from a coastal area -- or especially from abroad -- should hear this perspective.
* Chicago has a pretty decent public transit systems.
* MSP and St. Louis both have decent light rail systems for their size. Still pitiful compared to most of western Europe or Wellington (the latter due to the comparably poor bus systems in msp and stl), but also cheaper on the tax base of course. And not too shabby compared to Portland for example.
Look at the results for something like Kansas City, MO.[1] It's about 50/50 between the two candidates. If you look at the Bay Area counties[2], it's 1/6th to 1/5th of the voters supporting Trump.
So in a room filled with a random ~10 people will have 2 Trump supporters in the Bay and 5 in Kansas City.
>they were just the people I was obligated to spend time with.
I suspect this is the only actual difference between the two. On your visit to the Midwest you were forced to hang out with people discussing politics. This is no less unpleasant if you are living in the Bay and aren't a rabid Democrat.
This isn't even close to an Apples-to-Apples comparison. You should at least include Clay, Lafayette, Johnson if you're going to look at the entire Bay area.
And then looks at who's Actually In Charge of the state! The people with the power are the ones who make an actual difference, on a political level. Greitens is downright liberal compared to a lot of the general assembly.
> So in a room filled with a random ~10 people will have 2 Trump supporters in the Bay and 5 in Kansas City.
But you and I both know that's not how it actually works basically anywhere. Except maybe the DMV.
> On your visit to the Midwest
I spent decades there, in cities, burbs, and rural areas.
My experiences are representative. Perhaps, I venture to guess, much more representative than someone who never leaves Jackson County.
Spend some time in the bootheel. Or even the comparatively flaming liberal city of Springfield.
The Midwest has its share of people who are off the rails, but so does the rest of the world. The overwhelming majority of people and interactions are just fine.
But for not much more (and with a higher salary) you can get a decent suburban house in any number of western or eastern cities. Maybe a tad less land here or there.
And the cities are still expensive with bad schools.
They are the future ...
Europe and USA will have to rely on in house minds .. which I believe will bring more equilibrium to this world
USA, Europe and Japan are not going anywhere I am not predicting their demise .. just that CANZAU will be the beacon
Those three countries you grouped together are very different in terms of compensation, quality and volume re: tech companies. Australia leads in all three while quality and volume are an issue in NZ and Canada's compensation vs. the cost of living in its larger cities (Vancouver, Toronto) feels very off.
https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/20/canada-is-north-americas-u... or the corresponding hn link https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14160053