alt Hacker News> People in tech, especially from US, are so accustomed to spending $5,000/mo just to survive, that they cannot fathom one is able to live without having a tech job in San Francisco. It's a pretty sad state of affairs.
Quality of life in suburban America is incredibly high relative to a "first world" country with such a low average income. From what I have seen, most families in the "European periphery" still live in small Soviet-era apartment buildings, own one small car or no car at all, and are far from enjoying many other things taken for granted in America.
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First time I heard Northern Italy compared to Soviet Russia, but my fault for discussing this stuff with Americans, trying to pass people as poor because they only have one car.
Did you know that life expectancy in US is 5-7 years lower than Western Europe? But sure, do go on about "first world" countries.
Living in a cookie-cutter suburb full of parking lots and strip malls is not, in fact, a higher standard of life than living in a small town in Europe. The fact that we've somehow convinced ourselves that it is says absolutely nothing good about American postwar culture.