> When you are poor in Germany you can drastically improve your cash flow by not living in one of the expensive cities. Well yes and no. I personally find virt

> When you are poor in Germany you can drastically improve your cash flow by not living in one of the expensive cities. Well yes and no. I personally find virtually everything is cheaper in a city except that which comes at a premium: rent. Now of course rent is a big chunk out of your cashflow, but in many European countries housing projects for the poor lock in the rents, such that they don't differ all that much across the country. In some countries, rents float freely, but there's rent subsidies that scale up, such that up to a certain maximum rent, your effective rent doesn't differ much across the country. But living in the city usually means dramatically higher degrees of accessibility to university education, broad public transport, diverse cultural offerings, job opportunities etc, many of them at a discount to the rest of the country, and subsidised by the rich population and economies of scale. Take London for example, various studies have shown poor kids do very well because London's infrastructure is so highly developed. Further I personally feel it's easier to get ahead in cities if you're new, or you're down and out. It's easy to get a restart. Cities are used to strangers, companies are used to hiring unknowns, people are used to meet new people. In rural areas, I feel all of life, whether it's personal relationships or job opportunities, are more dependent on your social connections, relatively speaking. It's harder to start anew, or enter a rural area as a stranger and thrive, in the way one can in a city. But that last paragraph is a personal preference, I'm sure it'll be the exact opposite for others. Anyway so it depends on the country, I'm not super familiar with the German situation. In the Netherlands though, I'd much rather be on welfare in a big city.