Australia vs USA
 

Who hasn't followed my previous threads, basically I am relocating from Europe and looking for the perfect-ish spot. After living in several EU countries, I grew to hate the French, Italians, Russians, Germans and about everyone else.

I've looked into the US and the current options are:
a) buy half of Detroit
b) buy a nice townhouse in Vegas
c) buy a craphouse in the Bay Area

But that won't happen until late 2010 due to visa issues.

A friend of mine recently got back from Australia and I've looked into Melbourne. So far it looks promising - the AU dollar is weak and rent is ridiculously cheap compared to EU.

As a typical webmaster I don't really give a crap about the surroundings as long as I have broadband and a nice pad.

But if you were to choose, what would it be and why?

AU isn't so great when it comes to broadband. It is improving lately, but don't expect to get unlimited full duplex 100Mbps for $30 a month. Cable exists in a few major cities (including Melbourne) but they stopped stringing it more than 10 years ago, so if you live in an outer suburb or an area where the local council blocked construction then ADSL2 (2Mbps up/25Mbps down max) is probably the best you'll get. If you live in a new area of Melbourne that was developed in the early to mid part of this decade you may be unlucky enough to be stuck on older ADSL1 equipment... I'm one of those unlucky people, 384kbps/8Mbps is the best I can get. At least because it's new cabling it's a nice clean connect at full speed, my modem tells me it can actually achieve a connect of 600kbps/12Mbps if the DSLAM permitted it (remember this is ADSL1... ADSL2 can obviously connect at a higher speed)

That's really all I can comment on because although I've moved around Melbourne over the years I've never lived in another state, or been to another country. (Unless you count Tasmania ;) )

Australia is pain in the ass for immigration howmuch i know.

too much info

It's still better than the US though from the looks of it.

The only thing great about europe is insanely fast Internet.

Well if your going to be making porn sites while living in Australia, you might not be able to access them when the gov goes live with their filter. No gambling sites either.

"a) buy half of Detroit" :1orglaugh


.

with the current internet censorship issues i am finding australia increasing shitty. beautiful place though.

Invest in me. You can buy 30% of Fatfoo town.

Joking.

Melbourne is a great city, you will love it. The AUD is really not that weak compared to the USD right now so not sure where you're getting your info.

One thing to note the internet censorship thing that may be coming in soon would really suck.

Good luck.

I visited the western Aus and found a lot of friendly people
I would never move to San Francisco, weird laws, weird people
I live in Northern Cali and love it, if you want to get neck deep in the business, move to LA, San Fernando Valley, other wise known as Porn Valley

Dont buy a townhouse in Vegas, buy a house, you can get REALLY good deals right now.

I think the porn filter is opt in, but there are a small number of blacklisted sites, worth checking up.

Brisbane is a smaller capital city, 1 hour south is the Gold Coast, 1 hour north is the Sunshine Coast. Great city mall packed with people, unlike Melbourne which is much bigger and spread out over several main suburbs, Brisbane is centralised.

Perth has a great nightclub and restaurant district, and the roads are much better than Brisbane, but very isolated, 3000km to nearest city.

Aus has no borders, just beaches, a bit like a small USA without guns.

No shit. I can get an actual house there for $30k.

But fuck the USA for it's fucked up immigration laws.

have you looked at sydney? i preferred that much to melbourne.

choose b) :)

Yeah, I dunno, it seems kinda boring

Looking at Miami apts right now, it's also dirt cheap there

Australia is great, if you like ridiculous heat and humidity all year long.

Nevada is great if you like living in the middle of a damn desert.

Detroit is great if you like poverty and high crime.

All great options!

Also keep in mind that Australia does anything America asks them to do, their laws are pretty conservative, their infrastructure needs tons of work, and as their land mass is close to that of the US, but their population is only 1/10th of the states, their taxes are higher as less people are paying to keep everything running along.

They do have better healthcare than the US, but you can say that about almost ANY civilized country. France supposedly has GREAT healthcare, and yet that is one of the countries you claim to be sick of, so maybe you have different priorities.

My suggestion is the Pacific Northwest. You get all the benefits of the USA, without the urban problems plaguing most of the country. Spokane, Missoula, Coeur d'Alene, Boise, Bozeman, Kalispell --plenty of good choices. Just pick one, you can't lose.

Yeap, just need bed, 32'' LCD, computer and broandband connection :thumbsup

stay the fuck away - we have enough rats here already