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Comment by asoneth | Hacker News Reader

For now we're in an old New England town with good bones and good pedestrian infrastructure. Not much in the way of crime waves or shootings and the only religious laws are blue laws which I can live with. But the cars are enormous and just keep getting bigger, and housing is expensive.

Moving to a safer country run by grown-ups is something we considered and it's not off the table if things get worse. My wife and I both worked in Sweden years ago, but besides that I have only been a tourist in Europe, and have never traveled outside of that. I'm curious what countries you have in mind?

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I can second Belgium, although I’m a bit biased since I’m Belgian-American.

I used to live in Los Angeles, so talk about a car dependent extreme, and now settled down more permanently in Belgium. I’m car free for about a year and a half now and it’s extremely doable between my bicycle, the train and car sharing.

Every now and then I contemplate moving back to the US but then I run into the same predicament as you, which less-than-completely car dependent place to move to.

Belgian here, moved to America. Living just outside of Los Angeles (TO). Used to live in Belgium. I walk more here than I did in Belgium. Partially because I don't need to deal with the weather anymore. And since I work from home I don't commute.

"Partially because I don't need to deal with the weather anymore. "

I'm completely lost, since it's 7AM, but I would guess it's very hot out there?

No. It’s T-shirt weather 11 months out of the year.

Nice, I lived in Agoura Hills so I’m quite familiar with TO. I used to get more steps in too but you’re in a relatively nicer part of Greater Los Angeles to walk, and that doesn’t change the fact that your transportation options for things beyond a leisurely walk are limited at the end of the day.

Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark (esp Copenhagen) - all modern, safe places to live and cycle.

Just not the UK. We don’t meet your test of “run by grown-ups” …

The UK is on my list. It’s not run by grown ups now, but neither are we. It’s an infinite step up, walkability-wise, and I think things will improve politically over time. Surely you guys are learning some lessons now, right?!

You could get away without a car in London because the public transport is good. Outside of London it isn’t great, depends on where you are - you will probably need a car. London is not a great place for cycling. It’s very congested. I got knocked off my bike every year there. Maybe not as bad as the US but the UK is still a very car centric country.

You should get away without a car in London. :)

It depends what you mean by "without a car". I live on the edge of a medium sized city in the UK and could manage without a car for getting the kids to school, shopping and I'm still working at home. In practice, I might need to go to work sometimes and my hobbies require a car so I have one.

When saying the UK isn't a place for grownups ( and it certainly isn't run by grownups at the moment ). I'd place it somewhere between American and Northern Europe in terms of the sensible rating! I like American too, but agree with some of the shortcomings mentioned above.

We came over in July to try it out. We stayed in Kent and living car free wasn't a problem at all. We both work from home so that wasn't a problem. I brought my bike and riding around Kent was incredible. Much nicer then back home. I even went out with the local bike club and they all had wonderful things to say about the area.

Now, going in London itself - although it took less then an hour by high speed train - wasn't as much fun by bicycle at all. The cars were crazy and there were stop lights everywhere so it took much longer to get anywhere.

You have to be a special kind of biker to enjoy cycling in London. A friend cycled across London twice a day every day but I'm not sure I'd want to do that. Public transport is good so you can walk or take the tube/bus.

When I visited London a couple of years ago, I noticed a couple of very questionable bike paths that were short, appeared out of nowhere, and disappeared into nowhere. Arguably worse than no bike path at all.

Public transport was great, though.

"Learning lessons" isn't really a thing in UK politics if you look at the general trajectory of the past century. If you like the idea of living in the UK but want to avoid the actual UK, might I suggest Ireland or the Netherlands?

I've thought of both, the Netherlands especially looks very appealing, but they don't allow dual citizenship and, unlike Germany, don't appear to have any plans to ever do so. I don't really want to give up my US citizenship.

Netherlands allows dual citizenship for foreigners marrying Dutch citizens. So if you are single, go for it!

My partner is Dutch. I'm not. My own Dutch citizenship was approved last week.

> Surely you guys are learning some lessons now, right?!

I wouldn't count on it. As bad as the Tories are, Labour still doesn't seem to mount much of an opposition. I think the country would be much improved if both those parties were to vanish and replaced by the LibDems and the Greens or something. The SNP frequently comes across as the sanest party on the island, and that's really quite unusual for a separatist party.

(Not a Brit, but I've looking at it from across the channel with varying degrees of horror for a number of years now.)

All university towns in Denmark are bike-friendly and improving. Copenhagen is definitely further along that path, even car-unfriendly, but also with much more expensive housing.

Danish culture is (statistically) not authoritarian. People are expected to think for themselves, and also expect to be allowed to.

How do they treat folks who haven’t yet learned their language and/or don’t look like them?

I moved to Sweden years ago and I can only recommend, especially if you have kids.

Yes, this is not heaven and we are having problems but overall this is a really safe and people friendly place.

What are the problems? I live in the Netherlands by the way. Genuine question.

High taxes, immigration and integration and rising crime rates are just a few. Immigrants tend to complain about the unfriendly natives, the darkness and the slowness of the government.

So it's just the same as the Netherlands?

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