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Comment by frodowtf | Hacker News Reader

If the US were a liveable place, I'd consider it as well.

Somehow millions of us live here without living in the type of world that our mainstream media portrays. We have our issues for sure, but you’re kidding yourself if you think the USA is not an amazing place to live with incredible diversity of cultures and geographies.

The U.S. is a gigantic heterogeneous place. I think your comment is perhaps a _little_ harsh.

This may not be the case for you, but I think most people's only experience with the United States (or any faraway foreign country, really) is from the news and / or temporarily visiting 1-2 major metros, making them woefully ignorant of what living there is actually like.

The United States has it's issues, for sure, but there are plenty of cities that provide ample conditions to live a "good life".

The food is garbage. Sugar levels are higher. FDA only forbids ingredients when they are proven unhealthy. Compare that with EFSA.

Urban planning is garbage. The likelihood of being able to walk or commute by something besides cars is close to zero.

Healthcare, guns, politics... Why would I pick this over anything in Europe?

    The food is garbage.

The food is... whatever you buy or make. If you buy garbage food, you'll eat garbage food. If you buy healthy food, you'll get healthy food. Simple as.

    Urban planning is garbage.

Agreed. Every city in the United States that developed after the highway system was built in the 1950s has a long way to go to correct decades of poor urban design. Most cities are actively taking steps to correct this, but we still have many decades to go. There are plenty of solid places to live, with human centric urban design, in the United States, however, you're just going to to pay a premium. Otherwise you get used to driving, which really isn't all that bad given how focused all of the infrastructure is on making it convenient, hah. I'd still take walkable communities any day, though.

    Healthcare

Anyone with an average professional job will have good health insurance through their employer.

Anyone retired will have ok health insurance through Medicare.

The above cover the majority of the population. Anyone else definitely suffers, for sure. Obamacare is very expensive. I would gladly take a single payer system over the existing system, but if you're working professional, what we have is fine.

    Guns

Gun violence is just not a lived reality for basically all Americans outside of the news and outside of certain economically depressed areas, like south Chicago. Doesn't mean we shouldn't have stricter gun control, though.

    Politics

Populism is definitely a real bummer, but the United States is not unique in this trend.

Every state also has its own unique political environment. Federal politics is only a small part of the lived political reality for Americans. Local state politics are far more impactful, and there are plenty of liberal states enacting policies Europeans would be proud of.

    Why would I pick this over anything in Europe?

America is a pretty sweet place to live along a significant number of important dimensions, but by no means is perfect, for sure.

No European country is perfect either, even if many of them have a leg up on the United States along important dimensions like urban design.

Live wherever you want to live, but be careful of basing your life off angry social media posts and the news. They're not going to be very representative of reality.

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