Let's just take one perk I get to enjoy right now: I can afford to live in a high density city block with a long-term average yearly homicide rate below 4 per 100000 inhabitants.
In the U.S. I could replicate this only by purchasing a city block sized campus for myself and then investing in very very good screening of tenants and a private security force.
Based on average salaries of police and municipal infrastructure workers, combined with real estate prices in major U.S. metros, even with a bit of optimization, I couldn't get the cost to go below $2,150,023,240 for the first year (including real estate purchases) and about $1b yearly afterwards. I could maybe go lower by building my own city block somewhere outside a major metro, but I think infrastructure costs would eat that up.
And that's just one perk I got to enjoy: others, such as living within walking distance to my workplace, would be even harder to replicate. Yet others, like the ability to visit a borthel without having to worry about losing my job or going to jail, are nigh impossible.
Sure, there's additional efficiency where one action can help achieve multiple such perks, so let's assume I could replicate the lifestyle I enjoyed for a measlt $1b pa. That's about 8000x the annual income I had when I retired. And US salaries are not even 10x higher than Australian ones, so as far as I can tell, the math is not even close to working out.
(Of course, not everybody cares about these specific perks, and for some the U.S. may be a better fit. They're welcome to emigrate: the ones who don't appear to care enough to vote and keep these policies in place every 3 years, so I doubt anybody's getting the short end of the stick. The point is that it's stupid to compare salary numbers, because a lot of the things people want are trivial conveniences here and still unaffordable for even the richest people in other places, and vice versa.)
> achieving a homicide rate below 4/100k would require building a secure compound and hiring live security
This is a little silly. There are many US cities that meet that standard. Seattle's rate is 6/100k which sounds reasonably safe to me. I've never known anyone (and none of my friends knows anyone) who has died by intentional homicide. It's simply not something that we worry about.
> living within walking distance to work is hard to replicate
Why would this be the case? Major cities have both large tech offices and dense housing. My office has many apartments, townhomes, and single-family homes within walking distance. The neighborhood it's located in is quite livable.
> visiting a brothel without losing my job is impossible
This one is probably true. If regular brothel access is a priority, then the US is probably not a good choice. Nevada might be an exception.
The brothels bit is oddly specific, but it's worth mentioning consuming prostitution in many European countries (including some of those with top wages) is illegal.
> I've never known anyone (and none of my friends knows anyone) who has died by intentional homicide. It's simply not something that we worry about.
I do know people who were hit by a car while crossing residential streets.
I don't know any people who were hit by a car while crossing a highway.
This doesn't mean highways are safer to cross on foot than residential streets.
Similarly, the people who are not murder victims in US cities must change their natural behavior in thousands of costly and humiliating ways so as to not become victims, and all that effort still doesn't keep the murder rate lower than the 30-60s that US downtowns have. Do you mind your own business while a teenager walks out of the grocery store without paying? Congratulations, you won't show up in those homicide stats. But it's not merely the stats that were the problem: it's the amount of social disfunction that it indicates and you won't buy your way out of that by any realistic higher salary.
Similarly, I don't personally know anybody who died of lung cancer, but would also not be keen to wear a respirator so that I can safely eat in a restaurant where people smoke.
> There are many US cities that meet that standard.
Oh, I'm sure there are many such _cities_. But that's not the rate of my city, it's the rate of the high density business district I live in. The city itself has a still lower homicide rate, but it's not relevant. I can't find data about the homicide rate of high-density living downtown areas of Seattle, but I doubt it's lower than that of the city itself.
> living within walking distance to work is hard to replicate
Because then you have to make your city block purchase in the immediate vicinity of your employer's office, which will further increase costs since you won't be able to choose among the cheapest high density city blocks.
Hello, I am an American who has never been murdered. I am curious to learn more about the humiliating ways I have unknowingly modified my behavior to avoid a violent death. Can you be more specific?
Sure, let's be more specific. First of all, do you live in a high density area with a high homicide rate?
If so, answer the following questions.
- Have you ever seen somebody walk out of a convenience store without paying. If so, would you try to say anything disapproving to such a person?
- If you're a woman, have you ever taken an Uber instead of the bus service your taxes subsidize because of safety concerns? If not, has this happened to a partner or friend? Would you let your underage daughter take the bus home from somewhere alone after dark?
- Have you ever had to cross the road because you weren't comfortable walking past somebody standing/lying on the corner?
- It's 3am. A large group of teenagers are having a party in your apartment building. They're still at it and they're very loud. Are you comfortable heading over and asking them to keep it down?
- It's 6pm. A large group of teenagers are hanging out in a public park near your place. You are curious about what they're up to. Are you comfortable walking past them while keeping eye contact with one of them and visibly checking out what they're doing?
- Would you consider walking the streets regularly while wearing an all-red streetwear outfit with a red paisley style bandana? How about a different color,say blue?
- Would you feel safe wandering the neighborhood at night in a drag costume?
- Would you feel safe wearing a black t-shirt with white text announcing that you don't like the music of a popular local rap artist?
If you don't do some otherwise perfectly reasonable and morally activities because it would be irresponsible or unsafe to do so, you're modifying your behavior. If you don't feel that you need to modify your behavior to avoid being a victim of violent crime, chances are it's only because you're very very lucky with your preferences. Some people happen not to want to do any of these activites, of course, but that doesn't change the fact that one can safely engage in them here, but not in any comparable area in the U.S.
These fears seem to portray a kind of caricature of a US city that you might get from the media, rather than an accurate lived experience. There are neighborhoods in the US where you'd be concerned about some of those things, but the urban areas I've lived in are nothing like that.
Most Americans do not live in a constant state of mute terror, waiting for the day that some gangster cuts them down.
Of your examples, the only one that remotely resonated was "have you ever crossed the road because you weren't comfortable walking past someone standing on the corner". Yeah, I'll occasionally avoid a crazy person ranting on the corner. Also, I wouldn't walk by a bunch of teenagers while holding eye contact with them, but that's because I'm not a crazy old man. No need to scare some kids minding their own business.
Look, if only crazy old people make eye contact with each other, your community is not fine. And if everyone is so agitated that they'd be scared if you walked past them and made eye contact... well, that's not the strong testimony against people "living in a constant state of mute terror" that you seem to think it is.
About as convincing as claiming "I'm not gonna take my phone out of my pocket on a train, I'm not crazy! That just happens to be my preference, I don't wish to look crazy like the people who use their phones, nothing to do with crime" would be in [1].
But I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is. Ping me next time you're between jobs. If you live in a high-density area with a high homicide rate, I'll pay you a week's wages if you're willing to loiter on the streets for 3 hours a day every evening in an outfit of my choice and don't become a victim of violent crime by the end of the week. I won't pick an illegal (police or military uniform, revealing clothing) or politically charged outfit. If you're right about U.S. urban safety, this should be easy money.
I don’t have access to statistics for specific neighborhoods either, but I’m willing to believe Australia is safer in that respect. Singapore’s rates are so low that they make Australia and the US both look unacceptably dangerous. Perception is relative.
I’m not aware of any humiliating ways that I change my behavior to avoid being murdered, although perhaps if you observed me for a few days you would notice some.
I have never looked into buying an entire city block so can’t comment on that. I’ve been content with a single home so far.
To be clear, I am not looking into buying an entire city block: I am glad I can afford to live the lifestyle I want without having to. This wouldn't be available in the US, which is why the math didn't work out and I didn't move there given the opportunity. And I get salty when people like GP insist that this implies faulty math skills. I'm glad others who have different preferences can live elsewhere and do their own thing, though, especially if I am separated from them by land and water.
Re murder rates: I can't find data for Seattle, but based on data I could find (San José below, LA) I'd expect the rate to be about 10x higher for downtown high-density areas than for the whole city. Which is pretty bad.
>I can afford to live in a high density city block with a long-term average yearly homicide rate below 4 per 100000 inhabitants.
It's great you gave a clear threshold instead of making it vague. Here are some US cities that would satisfy this criteria according to wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...) : San Diego, San Jose (yeah I'm surprised too..), NYC (also unexpected!), Portland, Seattle.
LOL. That's not the rate of my city, it's the rate of the high density business district I live in. The city itself has a much lower homicide rate, because there are large suburbs where people onpy sleep and nothing ever happens. The homicide rate of Downtown San Jose (the closest equivalent area) is a whopping 41/100k. So not a good look there.
Let's just take one perk I get to enjoy right now: I can afford to live in a high density city block with a long-term average yearly homicide rate below 4 per 100000 inhabitants.
In the U.S. I could replicate this only by purchasing a city block sized campus for myself and then investing in very very good screening of tenants and a private security force.
Based on average salaries of police and municipal infrastructure workers, combined with real estate prices in major U.S. metros, even with a bit of optimization, I couldn't get the cost to go below $2,150,023,240 for the first year (including real estate purchases) and about $1b yearly afterwards. I could maybe go lower by building my own city block somewhere outside a major metro, but I think infrastructure costs would eat that up.
And that's just one perk I got to enjoy: others, such as living within walking distance to my workplace, would be even harder to replicate. Yet others, like the ability to visit a borthel without having to worry about losing my job or going to jail, are nigh impossible.
Sure, there's additional efficiency where one action can help achieve multiple such perks, so let's assume I could replicate the lifestyle I enjoyed for a measlt $1b pa. That's about 8000x the annual income I had when I retired. And US salaries are not even 10x higher than Australian ones, so as far as I can tell, the math is not even close to working out.
(Of course, not everybody cares about these specific perks, and for some the U.S. may be a better fit. They're welcome to emigrate: the ones who don't appear to care enough to vote and keep these policies in place every 3 years, so I doubt anybody's getting the short end of the stick. The point is that it's stupid to compare salary numbers, because a lot of the things people want are trivial conveniences here and still unaffordable for even the richest people in other places, and vice versa.)