Where to live?

[cjsmith]

Question stolen from aleeceh: If I could move anywhere, and the people I care about most (rfrench) would come with me, where would I live? I have the assets and skills I have today.

I have been thinking about this. I don't know the answer, but I have narrowed down some of my criteria.

1. Must allow general aviation and have a small airport nearby (for Rob to teach). Would be nice if it's uncrowded enough to have hangars available (for the nice aerobatic airplane I'd like to own).
2. Salary to cost-of-living ratio must be better than Silicon Valley.
3. Physically beautiful landscape. I will not be happy in an area that appears to me to be ugly. This probably implies uncrowded. Finland looks awfully lovely in the fall. So does New Hampshire.
4. Climate not beastly hot. Phoenix or Austin probably wouldn't agree with me. Winters are fine, though. I grew up with them and I miss them.
5. If outside the US, resident alien status must not suck or (Rob and?) I must qualify for citizenship. (I am willing to and would consider it my duty to learn the language. Rob might not enjoy it, though, so that effort would have to be taken into account.)
6. The laws of the state or country must not be personally abhorrent to me. I won't be happy in an area where what I perceive as the wrong things are supported and rewarded, while what I perceive as good and valuable things are penalized. Widespread and accepted corruption would bother me.
7. The local prejudices of the area must not be major limiting factors for me. I can't be in the closet about being an intelligent and capable woman. I probably can't be closeted about coming from the USA or having lived in California. I won't be happy any place I'm barred from driving a car because of my sex. I won't be happy living anywhere that's likely to be at war with the US, not only because that's a really bad situation to be in, but because there are many people here I care about.

I'm not sure I've caught them all here. It's a start.

Comments

[eichin.livejournal.com]

I don't know what aviation is like there, but Sweden (in the outer parts of some of the major cities, like Stockolm, Uppsala, maybe Gothenburg - yes, the three places I've been) seems likely to qualify. Way ahead of the US on 6 and 7; 2 pretty much says "Oh, not DC or hongkong then"; as for 3, I liked the cities and found things like the bus ride to the airport to be quite pleasant. As for 4, "more temperate than boston", though far enough north that the daylight change is dramatic. I don't know the details on 5, other than that if one of you had a job there, the other one gets residence rights by filling out the "partner" paperwork and that's about it (ie. I could move there if I weren't tied down here...)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I haven't researched this enough yet, but my initial information says Sweden is too socialist for me to be happy. There's a two-income couple we have stayed with a couple of times when we've been there -- they can't afford more than about 1000 square feet of apartment no matter how hard they work, but then it doesn't seem to matter a bit to their budget if they're *not* currently working.

Norway, now...

2 also says "not Japan, probably not most of the EU (remember it's the *ratio*, and I'll want to fly), and not Manhattan."

[eichin.livejournal.com]

Norway is just as socialist - it's just *oil-subsidized* socialism :-) It also has an absolute language requirement and I recall some other things that make it more restrictive.

Apartments in stockholm are a little strange (there's a List, so most of them are "black market" rentals anyway) but most people seem to have houses in the countryside as well. From your list, I would have figured living near-but-outside those cities made more sense. Also factor in "working public transit" which you might recall from your time in Paris, but in a more modern form (ie. unlike anything in the US :-)

Looks like www.luftfartsstyrelsen.se is the new agency in charge of civil aviation, split off from lfv.se just this year, so such a thing exists, but I couldn't tell the practical aspects from a quick look.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Norway is just as socialist

That's not at all the impression I got from being there. Maybe it's just that socialism works a lot better when there's something to subsidize it with.

It also has an absolute language requirement

I deeply respect a language requirement, although Rob's effort level does have to be taken into account.

Apartments in stockholm are a little strange (there's a List, so most of them are "black market" rentals anyway)

That says a lot about how well the system works. (The couple I mentioned, by the way, does live 40 minutes outside Stockholm. They commute into the city daily. That's not the life for me, but I know people who would love it.)

Still, I gotta smile at any country who (so the tour book told us in 2000) allows breastfeeding in the meetings of its Cabinet.

Also factor in "working public transit" which you might recall from your time in Paris

...or from my time in Sweden, even.