Man as someone paying a premium for power in the US, Australia is sounding really nice
Best 5 years of my life. I'm back in the US now temporarily, but there's zero doubt in my mind I will end up back in Aus. I've lived in 8 cities now(1), and Sydney was the highest quality of life I've had out of any of them. Great infrastructure, great work-life balance, great culture, and fantastic weather. Only downsides are the distance and the lack of ozone layer (do not fuck around with the sun in Australia - there's a reason why they have over 10x the global average of melanoma). Happy to answer any questions about it or the process for getting citizenship.
(1) Cities lived for comparison: San Diego, LA, Honolulu, San Jose, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Sydney
But I’ll add to the downside that housing prices are actually laughable here. How anyone affords to buy a house here is beyond me.
Despite the buying costs of Sydney being equivalent to something like SF, 4k/mo goes much further in Sydney for renting.
Seattle > San Francisco > San Diego > Sydney > San Jose > LA > Honolulu > Portland
For your average person though who's prioritizing overall quality of life, the list would be:
Sydney > San Diego > Portland > Honolulu > Seattle > San Francisco > San Jose > LA
Each city has something distinct to offer, but I will say that LA was among my least favorite cities to live in. It's just a worse version of San Diego.