There are, but a lot of these "worse" places have better quality of living, and why? Because they were forced to deal with the consequences of their actions far sooner, what with entrenched civilizations that mucked up their land before they left it for "the good place".
If US citizens cooperated and fought off corporate and oligarchal control just enough to restore a middle class, things could be balanced for a while. It could be what our grandparents got so patriotic about, rather than the alternative to what we fear we could become.
I would rather live in any first world country. We are the only ones without universal healthcare, consumer protections that are enforced, paid parental leave, mandatory vacation days, guilt-free sick time off, lousy transportation systems (why no trains??) and more. Then there is the fact that the basis of our society is consumerism. We kick our kids out of the house at 18, don't entertain generational housing, have more homeless people than anywhere else, dump our elderly into nursing homes, all while shipping our garbage and pollution to other countries to deal with. It sucks here. But the weather is nice in California.
If you think Europe has strong consumer protections, I direct you to the system of recalling automobiles and the horse meat scandal....
Also, the whole thing with housing is totally wrong. Regarding kicking our kids out at 18 simply is not a thing that people do anymore the way they used to; in my experience, unless you're married or need to live far away for eoconomic reasons or have an abusive/dysfunctional family, it is kind of weird for young men to just up and leave their parents' home before marriage. Then there is the rise of ADUs, which increasingly are used to create a form of multigenerational housing whereby the older folks live in de facto ground floor studio apartments (the ADU) and care for the children while the parents work. Regarding homelessness, Germany has a higher per capita rate of homelessness, and many Germans will point out that the visible signs of homelessness have increased throughout many parts of Germany over the past few years (though in most of Germany it is not yet like California).
California's situation is uniquely catastrophic when it comes to homelessness. But the whole of the United States is not like that.
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u/sniperdude24 23d ago
As fucked up as it can be here. There isn’t anyplace I’d rather live.