Comment by jodacola
7 days ago
I appreciate your frustration, dumbledoren. Your comment speaks to perspectives I could expect to face in another country - thank you.
I can only say my personal intent isn't that. I live a simple life. My family has a small, old home. We garden, grow our own food, and are respectful to our environment.
I prioritize supporting small, local businesses.
I wouldn't want to parachute into another country acting as though I Know Better™ and bringing my "American sensibilities" to another country.
If I were to leave the US, I see myself entering another country, hat in hand, knowing fully I'm not better or special, and it's my job to adapt and to respect the culture and country.
> I can only say my personal intent isn't that. I live a simple life.
And yet you will end up doing that when you move to such a country. Regardless of your intentions.
> it's my job to adapt and to respect the culture and country
Unfortunately respect and cultural adaptation do not alleviate the effects of gentrification via housing costs and cost of living.
It would be less of a problem only if you went to a country and location that has a similar cost of living as where you live now, but then again, that's not really on the table, is it...
> It would be less of a problem only if you went to a country and location that has a similar cost of living as where you live now, but then again, that's not really on the table, is it...
This seems to be an assumption you made, but the poster did not imply or state.
As someone in a similar mindset to the poster, I'm not looking for lower CoL places, I'm looking for comparable QoL places which ultimately points to Europe or Oceania. We'd be paid dramatically less, which we're okay with, but the QoL would be comparable (perhaps even better when counting social services).
> This seems to be an assumption you made, but the poster did not imply or state
He doesn't need to. The dynamics of such emigration are always like that.
> I'm not looking for lower CoL places, I'm looking for comparable QoL places
That still causes gentrification. You will go to increase the housing demand in the place you go to and that will cause all of you to gentrify, including you. That even happens to those who go to lower CoL places - in just a few years, prices skyrocket and the richer emigrants themselves are stupefied - today CoL in major European cities that became popular locations for such emigration are catching up to the places where these people escaped from.
I was a big proponent of such international white-collar mobility before. The statistics and real-life experiences changed that.
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I understand where they're coming from, though.
If I pulled the trigger, it would be to a similar CoL location, but that still gets to their point: if many people do the same, prices go up. Housing availability goes down. And all the knock-on effects that could result in "gentrification."
How do I balance that (and all sorts of other things) with my desire to keep my family safe and give my children a chance at a solid future, though? I'm not sure, which is why I feel so much consternation and a need to gather more information to inform how I'll decide to act in the future.
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