Does everyone want to live in the US?

[AteRiri]

I was talking to an American friend and he made this blanket statement, "Everyone wants to come here!"

Is this true?

Want2bSupermum I'm glad you are happy there, but there are several points in your post that remind me of other reasons I wouldn't want to live there.

1. I'm technically Hispanic but consider myself white there for a start. I hate the way everyone has to define their racial background. I even hate the word white.

2. having conversations with their kids about how they should be interacting with the police. FFS I'm having that conversation with my kids who are 5 and 3 I live in Mexico City and I know that that not a conversation I have to have with my children.

3. I think the biggest issue in the US is the lack of good education in poorer areas The fact that public education is locally financed means it was ever thus.

Again I am glad you like it there. There a lots of wonderful things about the US and its people, but it is a society in decadence.

Nope, as a Black person I'd rather stay here, less chance of a bullet in the head by the police

As I have a chronic medical condition, I wouldn't want to live anywhere that had no nationalised (free) healthcare system.

The US is fascinating in many ways, but I've heard it's great to live there if you have money, not so much if you don't,

I'm happy to visit there every now and then

Seneca - and there in lies a lot of the problem: I do not blame the police for their paranoia. I do blame the NRA for their part in creating a nation which encourages the settling of differences by pointing a gun and firing rather than using reasoning and logic.

No. You literally couldn't pay me!

All those who are saying you couldn't pay me, so if someone offered you, say, 5,000,000 pounds to live in, oh let's see, Boston or San Francisco, all expenses paid for a year, you wouldn't do it?

Parts of it are great to visit but I wouldn't ever want to live in the US. Canada though, I spent 2 years living there in my 20s and adored it, it's such a wonderful place. If I was going to move anywhere again it would be back there or to New Zealand.

No. I wouldn't. My family are here, we have lives here, and are happy.

No. They add palm oil to their milk. Bleurrgh.

Honestly Seneca I don't think I would!

Yep, for a year for £5 000 000 I'd live in most places but I wouldn't want to otherwise.

Seneca, does that include a top rate health insurance with no co-pay??

tayto Certainly.

I like it here. You can get perfectly good chocolate and cheese if you live near Trader Joe. I actually feel like it is a more innocent place to grow up for kids- having taught in London I am familiar with the UK teen culture and I do find the teens more wholesome and respectful here generally. I do not know anyone who has a gun in their home but we live on the coast and the coasts are different from the rest of America. The taxes are lower here too so we can actually save- no massive London mortgage like a yoke round the neck. Healthcare is indeed a shock but there is no doubt I have had better care here than in the UK and no doubt sadly the NHS will not last forever as it is not sustainable.

I guess I compare London and the quality of life here is just so much higher for us as a middle income family- no more 90 minute commute into London in the freezing drizzle every day just to make a wage that is eaten up by an overpriced house mortgage. There may well be places in the UK where quality of life is equal to what we get in the US but it depends on having a job in those places.

Some of the best tv in the world is made in the US ( HBO) and all the UK shows ( and let's not pretend the UK's heyday of producing the best tv is still with us) are streamable.

Life is what you make it wherever you are but having sunshine most of the year, less crowded everything-I never yearned to live n the US but now I do I can't see us ever returning to the UK just to get by in the grey and rainy days that are so rare now, they are a novelty.

But you're comparing a big city to a smaller area by the sounds of it. I live in rural England and have all of the above - excluding the weather.

No, I would not.
I did have a gap year there, more than twenty years ago and loved it.
However, I came home realising that I am British and love Britain. I love living in Britain, even though we are not, at the moment.

They have a rich and very interesting history, but culturally the USA isn't for me.

I love my American friends tho and visit when ever i can.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

I just give up. There are some very good parts to America and we have been very successful there. We celebrated Christmas last night and we are in a Scandinavian country. That socialist utopia is a joke. It's our money that has saved my in laws. Without America and the opportunities we have been able to take advantage of the lives of my in-laws would be entirely different.

America is a great county. Not perfect but neither is the U.K. Gun crime is a problem but so is knife crime in the U.K. America is the size of Europe but you guys all expect that because the language is the same (and it isn't) that the same values that apply in the U.K. should also apply to America. It doesn't work that way.

This thread just goes to show how limited MN can be.

No.. ireland doesnt have the nhs but i am poor enough to have a medical card. No dignity extended to those on benefits in the usa. Different queue at the supermarket if using food stamps. How unnecessarily divisive and humiliating!
also hate listening to shows like desperate housewives and hearing words like retard and bastard on tv.
More racial division i think.
Education secular but there is no religious nut like an american religious nut! (And im in ireland!)

Also even tho im a single parent on a low wage my kids can go to university. There will be grants i can apply for.

I think being from a low income household less damaging to DC's futures here in poor Ireland. America no place to be poor.

So no. I definitely would not want to live there!

Denmark, sweden or Spain appeal more.

Nope. I would like to visit and do the Disney thing, maybe travel around a bit and see the sights. New York, LA and Boston appeal for a visit, but a big no from me to living there.

Reasons to go:

-Disney world
-Root beer
-Flipz (chocolate covered pretzels)
-Halloween
-Cheap petrol
-Movies/ products/ toys all get released over there first
-Taco Bell (and better Mexican food in general)
-Cheaper clothing
-Children don't start school until 6/7
-Extreme couponing

Reasons not to go:

-No NHS
-Trump
-Guns
-Genetically modified food
-Tornados
-Racial inequality
-Spelling
-Health insurance
-Death trap cars (no MOT/equivalent required)
-Lack of Indian food / curry places
-Unhealthy obsession with a flag
-Tax Returns
-Poor employment laws / lack of maternity leave etc.

In general I think living in Europe appeals more to me than America. It appears to be a very consumerist society. I know we are too but not quite on the same scale yet.

I've been to America twice - once on holiday to San Francisco and once on a 3 month "BUNAC" trip that included working in Boston for about 2 months, and travelling across the country as a tourist for a month.

Things I liked:

the wide open spaces and sense of freedom and to a certain extent possibility

the stunning landscape in some places (Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, New Mexico for example)

Boston and San Francisco amongst other places

amazing bookshops

the weather

the food in some places

how easy it is to start a conversation with someone

the cultural melting pot aspect

the optimism and can do attitude

I worked with a really lovely family!

Things I didn't like so much:

the fact that a street could suddenly become menacing - you'd be wondering down a perfectly normal street and suddenly it would be not just a bit of a no go area, but actually dangerous

the huge number of sweet and savoury fast food outlets and the fact that profit seemed more important than the obesity problem

the fact that there was obviously less of a social security net

The sense of their being more racial segregation and anger/division

Erm

the eternal optimism .

By the end of my first BUNAC stay I really missed Europe - its melancholy and culture amongst other things, and the fact that it's home and I love it.

Objectively the other things that would put me off living there are the lack of NHS, gun crime, and the fact that the police seem to kill a black person every week . Mothers having to tell their sons how to behave around the police to avoid being murdered. That is a complete disgrace. I live in London where the knife crime does scare me, neither is the police perfect (especially if you come from some communities) but we haven't reached the stage where they are blatantly racist and trigger happy .

And of course now they have Trump .

the sense of there being

"Gun crime is a problem but so is knife crime in the U.K."

Oh yes, all those knife killing sprees that keep happening in UK schools. Totally the same thing as what happens in the US.

What Cote said.

No. No desire even to visit. Not interested. Ditto the UK. Prefer living in Europe.

Nope...and I'm from there! Much prefer England.