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Comment by tomelders | Hacker News Reader

I'm bored of hearing about how dull, miserable, offensively expensive and/or painfully trendy places are poised to be the next Silicon Valley.

Now if somewhere like Spain sorted out their bureaucracy and local corruption and made it feasible to set up business somewhere nice, by the sea maybe, somewhere with plenty of nice countryside, in a place where people could actually afford to buy their own homes, and the weather was consistently nice, then I'd be there in a Flash. Who cares if it's not on London or Berlin's doorstep. The actual Silicon Valley is as far away from the US's financial and political capitols as you can get, and used to be a good thing.

Quality of life. That's what will make me sit up and take notice of the next silicon valley wannabe. Until then I'll begrudgingly just go where the work is.

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In my experience, more young people in the tech industry prefer crappy weather and lots of clubs/music/dating/party/etc. and living in an urban core, vs. having awesome houses in great weather.

San Francisco vs. South Bay is a perfect microcosm of that choice. (which is ironic since I'm a huge house with a car with no neighbors within line of sight kind of guy)

I understand your micro regional distinction there but it strikes me that most of those enamored with SF cite the weather and/or wonderful lifestyle is a key driver for most people being there. As to Spain, my startup Spreedly is sort of an infrastructure service for payments challenges with global support. I'd say Spain is the most active country we see for startups in Europe (if it's second it's second to the UK). I'm always impressed and also drearily wonder if it's a function of Spain's incredibly high youth unemployment rates. (making a startup more appealing given the dearth of other good options)

There's more to the tech world than young people.

While true, young people are vastly more willing to move, especially internationally, from a first world country to another first world country, especially for a startup which is likely to fail. (and for the SF vs. SJ example, it seems to be "people under 40-45, or generally without kids", so not that young)

> Now if somewhere like Spain sorted out their bureaucracy and local corruption and made it feasible to set up business somewhere nice, by the sea maybe, somewhere with plenty of nice countryside, in a place where people could actually afford to buy their own homes, and the weather was consistently nice, then I'd be there in a Flash

Weird, I always look at these warm places with beaches and think to myself no wonder productivity is low in these countries

Indeed. Apparently it's all about natural selection: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_are_Western_colder-climate_cou...

> If somewhere like Spain sorted out their bureaucracy and local corruption and made it feasible to set up business [...]

That's a big ask.

The country is on it's arse. Now would be the perfect time to make them an offer.

Speaking as someone who's currently in Spain, if your business allows it just set up the company elsewhere and work from here. I do it and many of my friends do it. It's a wonderful combination.

What are your living expenses? Where are you located?

I've scouted for houses in South Spain some time ago and was under the impression you can get a decent house near the beach for around 50k Euro, which isn't a lot.

Also, what about Mallorca? I've heard Martin Varsavsky say there is some sort of a retreat-hackerspace-coworkingspace thing?

I'm in Barcelona. My rent is €1000 per month but that is for a quite nice flat. Food and going out is cheap compared to Copenhagen where I am from, but not as much as I expected.

That said, if you are already up for adventure, you could consider South East Asia or Latin America instead and really stretch your budget.

The advantage of Spain is that it's Europe, the worlds largest economy, with no travel or work restrictions, and you're never more than a few hours away from some of the most important cities in the world.

I see from your profile that you're based in London. Do the advantages that you mentioned come in useful for yourself? For example, do you do a lot of travelling/working between European countries?

€1000 per month for what? In Berlin, 1000€ would seem excessive.

Berlin is one of the cheapest places to live in West Europe.

Because most of the buildings here are basically shitty, think of that ;)

Shitty is comparative. I've seen people pay a lot more for way worse infrastructure in London, Paris, or San Francisco.

Of course, Nordic countries are much better infrastructure-wise. But they provide a lot more expensive, and more restrictive environment.

(Background: a Finn who has in addition to Helsinki lived in St. Petersburg and Istanbul, and has been in Berlin for the past couple of years)

Couldn't disagree more. You should see London. Germans seem to inherently like quality discipline and order and they don't put some ancient laws in front that prevent from taking down some "historical" buildings in order to renovate the city - I'm looking at you, UK.

Not sure, but about that "taking down ancient buildings" thing, I believe the UK helped Germany a lot in that, although pretty much unasked for.

>dull, miserable, offensively expensive

None of these apply to Berlin. Flamebait much?

Kreuzberg might be "painfully trendy", and the weather does kind of suck.

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