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I'm genuinely surprised that this post is up to 214 comments and nobody has mentioned Paris yet. I have no idea what the practicalities of a life in Paris are,

by davidmr 10y ago

I'm genuinely surprised that this post is up to 214 comments and nobody has mentioned Paris yet. I have no idea what the practicalities of a life in Paris are, but it's still at the top of my list. In maybe half a dozen visits, I've found Parisians to be quite friendly for city dwellers (very much counter to the stereotype). If I approach situations in my severely broken French, people figure out quite quickly that their English is better than my French, and like most everywhere else in Europe, nearly everyone under 40 speaks excellent English. Maybe it's one of those things that looks better to an outsider than it is, but the pace of life is very attractive to me. I'm far less surprised that nobody has mentioned Chicago, but it's not bad here. For a large city, it has most everything I want: great art, great restaurants, etc. The cost of living here is obscenely low relative to NYC or SF. For far less (monthly rent vs. mortgage payment) than friends who rent one bedroom apartments in either city, we own a modest, but very nice detached house in a nice neighborhood smack in the middle of the city. Between the recent dramatic uptick in shootings and the truly shitty weather in the winter (though spring and summer are glorious), it's pretty hard for it to bubble up to the top of anyone's list.

blueline 10y ago
nobody who is posting on HN will be living in englewood or east garfield park, so the relative effect of crime increases in chicago is almost totally irrelevant to their decision. It's a problem I want desperately to be solved too, but not because I'm deluded into thinking it's going to affect me in any way. Other than the cold/hot weather, there's nothing more I could want out of chicago. As you said, the cost of living in comparison to other big cities is incredible.
- davidmr 10y ago
  Maybe you and I have different interpretations of what affects us, but I'm still affected if I live in a city with a dramatically increasing murder rate, even if I'm not likely to be murdered. I have friends working in trauma care at hospitals, for the police and fire department, I volunteer my time in neighborhoods I don't live in, etc. More than that, I have a hard time saying that the problems of people just a few blocks west of me aren't a) my problems already, and b) likely to become bigger problems for me in the future. Maybe it's all just misplaced liberal guilt, but I find it hard to ignore.
  - blueline 10y ago
    No, i'm on the same page as you completely, i just mean that the representation of the issue as if the shooting is indiscriminate or random and anyone is equally likely to be affected bothers me. people that arent from chicago think it's a warzone. They're right, but it's only that way for the people unfortunate enough to be living in the small number of areas that are so disproportionately affected by it. To me, it removes weight from the actual truth (that a proportionally smaller number of people are being horribly affected by the violence) to represent it as something that everyone is facing some comparable likelihood of being shot/hurt. It is a Chicago problem, not just a south/west side problem, and I think everyone here should feel empathetic and responsible for helping us all get past the issue, but I guess I just don't like it being represented as if well-to-do people face anything even remotely comparable to those in austin or englewood etc.
tildedash 10y ago
And, in 2017, Station F (https://stationf.co https://stationf.co), the "World's biggest startup campus" will create a lot of IT jobs in Paris.
uiri 10y ago
If I approach situations in my severely broken French, people figure out quite quickly that their English is better than my French The stereotype incorporates the inherent rudeness of city dwellers (particularly compared to the rest of a country). My belief is that the stereotype also comes from monolingual Americans who start off in English and assume (or appear to assume) that everyone speaks (or should speak) English. If you start in French, it shows some amount of effort and respect for their culture.

by davidmr 10y ago

blueline 10y ago

nobody who is posting on HN will be living in englewood or east garfield park, so the relative effect of crime increases in chicago is almost totally irrelevant to their decision. It's a problem I want desperately to be solved too, but not because I'm deluded into thinking it's going to affect me in any way. Other than the cold/hot weather, there's nothing more I could want out of chicago. As you said, the cost of living in comparison to other big cities is incredible.

davidmr 10y ago
Maybe you and I have different interpretations of what affects us, but I'm still affected if I live in a city with a dramatically increasing murder rate, even if I'm not likely to be murdered. I have friends working in trauma care at hospitals, for the police and fire department, I volunteer my time in neighborhoods I don't live in, etc. More than that, I have a hard time saying that the problems of people just a few blocks west of me aren't a) my problems already, and b) likely to become bigger problems for me in the future. Maybe it's all just misplaced liberal guilt, but I find it hard to ignore.
- blueline 10y ago
  No, i'm on the same page as you completely, i just mean that the representation of the issue as if the shooting is indiscriminate or random and anyone is equally likely to be affected bothers me. people that arent from chicago think it's a warzone. They're right, but it's only that way for the people unfortunate enough to be living in the small number of areas that are so disproportionately affected by it. To me, it removes weight from the actual truth (that a proportionally smaller number of people are being horribly affected by the violence) to represent it as something that everyone is facing some comparable likelihood of being shot/hurt. It is a Chicago problem, not just a south/west side problem, and I think everyone here should feel empathetic and responsible for helping us all get past the issue, but I guess I just don't like it being represented as if well-to-do people face anything even remotely comparable to those in austin or englewood etc.

tildedash 10y ago

And, in 2017, Station F (https://stationf.co https://stationf.co), the "World's biggest startup campus" will create a lot of IT jobs in Paris.

uiri 10y ago

If I approach situations in my severely broken French, people figure out quite quickly that their English is better than my French The stereotype incorporates the inherent rudeness of city dwellers (particularly compared to the rest of a country). My belief is that the stereotype also comes from monolingual Americans who start off in English and assume (or appear to assume) that everyone speaks (or should speak) English. If you start in French, it shows some amount of effort and respect for their culture.