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Comment by lormayna | Hacker News Reader

> Show me a place that looks like that where no-one goes hungry, has to worry about medical bills and doesn’t live in fear of the rich and powerful and then I’ll be impressed.

You are just describing every western European country.

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I mean, my family and i just spent 5 weeks over Christmas in Rome, Paris and London.

I live in Toronto where we have our share of homelessness and those 3 cities put Toronto to shame with the amount of poverty and homelessness we saw.

Europe is beautiful and does many things better than North America and Asia but hunger and poverty are area's where its just as bad if not worse.

That’s something that’s developed over the last couple decades. Europe didn’t have vast amounts of homelessness and poverty. My guess is Schengen plus lax immigration policies. That is compare requirements for entering the UAE vs Europe. Europe is less selective.

Try wealth inequality. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer, at some point poor becomes homeless.

You’re importing millions which puts pressure on housing and employment where they compete against locals depressing wages. Additionally many/majority from Eastern Europe, Middle East, Central Asia and Africa are semi skilled and unskilled who in turn either can’t land a job or don’t earn enough.

People like ignoring this aspect and even deny it has any effect.

Exactly! In Europe, people that are leaving in the streets are mostly illegal immigrants, drug addicted or people that refuse helps for mental issues or culture (gipsies).

That’s guaranteed not to be true but you are free to believe that if it makes you feel better.

Every Western European country now. Not in the time those sights were built.

No true Scotland.

No, that was the exact point I was making: plenty of places have impressive stuff dating from the days of massive inequality/injustice, we just don’t produce it anymore. Pointing at a 300 year old building isn’t a gotcha, it was literally just the point I was making in the first place.

Really? So why are there food banks in the UK? Why does Google search remove links to personal details of multiple politicians in multiple European countries? For someone poor the top end of NHS dental treatment is a worry - even assuming they can find a dentist willing to take on NHS patients in the first place.

I could go on, but there are plenty of flaws in western Europe

the UK is a special case, not comparable to most of Europe. I work all over Europe(300+ travel days a year) and the UK is the only country I see young homeless men everywhere on the streets.

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