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Comment by forza | Hacker News Reader

Sweden is outstanding if you ignore all the equally great countries in Europe and elsewhere. Sweden also used to be the standard-bearer for the Nordic model, this is not true anymore. There's plenty of reasons to avoid Sweden, but here are the top ones:

* Everything is expensive.

* Taxes are high.

* Housing (more or less) can't be rented, buying is expensive.

* Weather is cold and/or dark most of the year.

* Culture life is relatively mediocre.

* Foreigners generally perceive Swedes as guarded.

* Racism is on the rise.

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Despite that "everything is expensive", "taxes are high" and "whether is cold" it is actually a very good place to live.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality-of-life_Index

Cultural life in Stockholm is rather quite good for a town of its size, and you have plenty of nature around you to compensate for not having quite as many bars as London.

Racism is sadly on the rise, but not as bad as in many other societies. Anecdotally I have immigrant friends and visitor friends, from backgrounds that would invite racism, who say that they feel less discriminated in Sweden than in other Euopean countries. No place is perfect though, you just have to select the drawbacks you want to put up with.

More importantly for Hacker News readers I consider that the startup and investment community to be fairly insular and limited in scope in Stockholm compared to other places I have worked, particular London, West/East coast US. But no surprises there, it is a lot smaller after all.

Indeed: I am a Swede.

That's quite an old ranking and it's hard to compare against any other ranking, but I can't imagine Ireland still being at the top of the list.

I do think the "IT-community" (and most people) are awesome. While somewhat underappreciated it's lot more enthusiast/hacker than academic/corporate, compared to other countries. People also generally don't care about hierarchies and titles in the workplaces. I mean getting to work is often more "troublesome" than getting things done at work. YMMV of course.

Well, Ireland having economic troubls hasn't affected Sweden much. The GDP is up: http://www.google.co.uk/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_...

"investment community... limited in scope"

But how about the regulatory environment?

Maybe it might make a good base from which to launch a startup focused on reclaiming some standard expectations privacy for internet users, by using original internet peer-to-peer design instead of the prevalent "calf-cow" (client-server) model. Many, like the 60-something Harvard blogger who recently wrote about Facebook's flaws, are calling for an end to this design.

Consider the Skype example mentioned as one of Sweden's startup success stories. (And I believe he did eventually go to London for better access to capital.)

What do you need to know about the regulatory environment to satisfy this?

I am afraid I do not understand the question as you have structured it.

If you can rephrase it, maybe I can give you an answer.

I may have been sloppy in my usage of the term "regulatory environment". Is that want you mean?

I, as an American, decided to move to Sweden for all of the reasons GP posted, and despite your list of supposed downsides. A few observations after six months here:

* The Swedish summer more than makes up for the dark winter. Not that much colder than Chicago either.

* Taxes are high, but the benefits you get from the taxes are astounding, especially from an American perspective. Great roads, clean cities, amazing public transit, free healthcare, etc.

* Six weeks of vacation, over a year of maternity leave, etc. Enough said.

* Yes, the rental market in Stockholm sucks.

Honestly, Sweden is truly a democratic model that other countries should try following. I'm very happy with my decision to move here and wish I had discovered it sooner.

I'm a joint Australian/UK citizen, I work in Stockholm from time to time (usually 3-6 months bursts). Because of my pattern the tax issue is a non issue for me.

I would agree with all the positives posted here. The only notable negatives I've noticed (in order of annoyance) are:

  * The intrusive personnummer.
  * The rental market (and the bloody laundry madness...) in Stockholm.
  * Something similar to but not quite as overt as Racism.

The personnumer is used as a primary key by many businesses. Some visitors may not have a personnumer and this makes it difficult to do a range of things like visit some Gyms and so forth.

The rental market situation is a nightmare. Even worse than Sydney.

If you look like a non native Scandinavian this can lead to significant non-confrontational discrimination in some "exclusive" sub-cultures.

"Housing (more or less) can't be rented, buying is expensive."

Is it plain non-availability? If so, then why? If not, then why? (I'm genuinely interested)

(I am merely a layman, but native Swede)

Lots of people want to move to Stockholm, Malmö and Göteborg (Gothenburg), so demand is rising faster than supply.

But also, the laws that ensure that lower class people are to afford to live in nice places also makes it a bad investment to build new houses. It's great because the classes are more integrated, leading to more sense of community, less crime and less 'ghettos' riddled with crime and drugs. But on the other hand, since the government keeps prices reasonable, low prices makes it a less good investment. Sadly we can't have the best of two worlds, but I think a golden middle path ("lagom") is the way to go. Not regulated enough that no one will invest in houses, not free enough that the lower classes will (even more than it's now) have to move to ghettos.

Yes, non-availability. Basically high demand because of rapid urbanization, poor infrastructure, small and single city center. Low supply because of rent control on the first and second hand market, conversion of rentals and not enough new buildings. At least for the three large cities in Sweden.

A large factor is probably the oligopolies in the building industry, which earns lots of money with the present situation, despite little building going on.

Regulatory capture in Sweden is still not counted as corruption, for some strange reason...

and considering that everything is expensive, the wages are not that high either. Moreover buying in apartment in a appropriated size (>=55m^2) close to the city in Stockholm is always >3 million SEK (~330k €).

That is an exaggeration. More correct is always >2 million SEK, and usually >2.5 million.

If you add in the non-visible salary taxes ("sociala avgifter") and other hidden costs, the salaries are quite high... you just don't get any of that money.

" Sweden also used to be the standard-bearer for the Nordic model, this is not true anymore."

Tackiest comment I've read this week...

"Everything is expensive."

Does that include healthcare and education?

Healthcare is generally very cheap (theoretical maximum 1000$ per year, plus hospital stay 10$ a day). Dental care for adults is not. If you're a non-EU citizen Sweden has some of the most expensive education in Europe. As a citizen of the EU, tuition fees are cheap, but so are they almost everywhere in Europe[1].

[1] http://www.studyineurope.eu/tuition-fees

I've sometimes wondered: Is there any country that has "free" dental care?

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