What city is this? "s I lived or visited in Europe cheap enough to compare was Prague and Lisbon." Lisbon is a bad example. Real Estate is out of control ther

What city is this? "s I lived or visited in Europe cheap enough to compare was Prague and Lisbon." Lisbon is a bad example. Real Estate is out of control there. A decent apartment will set you back at least 500k, thanks to supply and demand due to the Golden Visa. " employer-paid healthcare." If you have an employer and everything goes smooth "Educating your children for K-12 is free at the point of service, paid for by tax dollars" There are a few excellent k12 schools if you live in the right place (did we mention real estate costs?). But if you want your children to go to a good school you likely have to pay for private school. Then the universities fees later. I think my school in the US bills you 60k or something per year. 4 years, two kids, this sets you back already about 1/2 million. If you pay for k12 we are talking easily 1 million for education alone. "There are ton of totally valid and reasonable criticisms of life in the US that would not incentivize someone to move here, " No sure. If you do the right thing at the right time the US is great. I immigrated, got a STEM PhD, got naturalized and then left to China. Never looked back. And if I see not how my friends that stayed are struggling, it was a really good decision. Not everybody works in IT my friend.