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Comment by sasvari | Hacker News Reader

As I second to that in principal, I do also have my doubts. India, China and the other emerging economies do have some drawbacks regarding quality of life (some more, some less): infrastructure, legal system, existing and/or arising environmental problems ..., just to name a few. Most western countries still have advantages of location, which might get more important in the nearer future. Just some thoughts ...

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Although quality of life in the whole of India or China is less than in the West, quality of life in a well-defined portion (e.g. city area) of these developing countries will often be competitive, e.g. Dalian in China.

As for infrastructure, I recently rode on the recently completed Wuhan to Guangzhou high-speed railway, cruising at average speed of 330km/hr, now the fastest railway in the world.

India beats China regards reliability of legal system, though many Shenzhen-based ventures use Hong Kong for legal activities. And of course India's internet is more open.

  Although quality of life in the whole of India or China is less than in the West,
  quality of life in a well-defined portion (e.g. city area) of these
  developing countries will often be competitive, e.g. Dalian in China.

I do agree with that partly. With infrastructure I mean everything: electricity, roads, wastewater, ... And I'm not that sure, if this will be the same than in western countries in the next few decades. Of course, if you hide out in some gated areas or luxury domicils you can have the same quality of life. And yes, this is a generalization, no doubts. But if you look for example at the striving Mumbai area, the environmental problems already present, and most probably increasing such as the groundwater issues they have, won't increase quality of live for most of the people. And in China despite the recent massive infrastructure investments similar problems are already present. I don't say there are no such problems in the west, but I think (not an expert anyway) that these problems are going to be much more present in named countries. As I said, this is just a generalization and exceptions exist.

It's been 20yrs since I visited India, but I remember Delhi, Mumbai, and Calcutta each had a newer part of the city where living was easier.

China doesn't seem to have the the crime problems of many larger Western cities, or the "no-go zones" of US cities, but of course the price is less freedom.

Many Westerners though enjoy living in a different environment, such as India or China, for a few years anyway, though not many would want to spend the rest of their lives there.

Overall, it seems most Chinese I talk to in China would emigrate to the US, Canada, or Australia if they could [though I admit my sample is skewed, i.e. Chinese who take the trouble to approach me to talk in English].

The USA's "terrible" railroad network is actually the best railroad network for transporting bulk goods of any country in the world. It's old but it actually works vary well.

You read that recent Economist article didn't you? Anyways it was an interesting article - I was amazed rail freight charges are lower in America than India

In India, freight charges are used to subsidise passenger traffic

Link to article?

There is also a movement to using "neutral" countries as locations to arbitrate serious international commercial disputes as an alternative to normal litigation.

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