Since Jared seems to have a burr in his ass about my criticisms of his ideal locations to erect a domicile, I figured I would come up with a vague list of criterion for good places for the SC to move to. As always, I would encourage all takers to hop in and advocate their favorite points and maybe we can all agree to move somewhere... or something.
Culture
I think that we can all agree that we want to end up in an area rich with culture and with access to the finer things in life. And while that doesn't necessitate living within a large city, it does necessitate living at least within striking distance of a large city... and speaking from practical experience in Longview, 2 hours, while workable, is probably further than is profitable... so let's say 1 hour from a major (at least 1 million people) city. It should be noted that, for the time being, I'm reserving judgments on individual cities... with the exception of Cleveland and Newark. Cleveland sucks and yet is heaven by comparison to Newark. Beyond that though, we'll have to come up with some way of discussing the cultural merits of the city of choice.
Level of Freedom
While there is a certain correlation to freedoms accorded to those who live in a state where police activity and federal authority are severely curtailed, I'm afraid that there are members of the SC who don't want to go turning our social organization into a drug cartel... much more's the pity, but there it is. That said, while a certain level of anarchy is charming, we're going to want to end up in a place where the police presence is available and reassuring, but not overbearing. And yes, Wheeler, while London is a wonderful place on a lot of levels, I'm not such a big fan of the Orwellian schtick that they've been playing to in the last 10 years. This includes thousands of monitored cameras in London alone, tracking all vehicle traffick in and out of London, the acquisition of flying spy drones, and God only knows what else... sorry, just say no to totalitarian levels of police monitoring.
Language
To limit ourselves to areas of the world that only speak English would be foolish, insular, and downright detrimental. I mean, after all, if we can't have the option of leaving the US for other places, that would be terrible. At the same time, ending up in an area where five languages are spoken and none of them English would leave us rather high and dry. Thus, while ending up somewhere like Spain where English isn't the primary means of communication would be less than ideal for some of our members, there is enough English spoken for even the meanest gringo to get by initially, and I would expect that the same is true for many of our more ideal destinations.
Stability
And lastly, where would we be without stability: both financial and governmental. To put a point on it, governmental coups suck... as do financial crashes. Thus, I refuse to put my ass in harm's way in a country where the economy and the government aren't at least moderately stable. While I'm not demanding exclusively First-World destinations, I am probably excluding (between this and other conditions) most Third-World locations by this demand. And yes, while I'm very sad that I'll probably never get to live in the Sahara as a result of this, I value my bullet-free self a bit more than a nice safari. Ah well... such are the sacrifices we make.
What Now?
Where does this leave us? Well, I would like to think that there are a number of candidates in Europe, North America, and the Tropics that are fair game. There might be a location or two in the countries of South America (read: Brazil and Argentina) and maybe some outliers like Qatar and a couple in East Asia... but for the most part, we ARE talking about First-World Western locations, at least as I read it.
That said, while I may be the most vocal member of the Council, I wouldn't presume to speak for all of it. So I'd love to hear additional considerations and pleadings... but please, leave individual cities out of this for now unless they're so unique that they bear special consideration on their own merits.
Posted by Vengeful Cynic at May 24, 2007 01:23 PM | TrackBack