BsAs ranked 13th in AskMen.com's Top 29 Cities to Live In

[tangobob]

Even in Capital Federal if you want to do business, have Argentine friends, or really just get off the tourist treadmill you have to speak Spanish. Life is definitely more interesting if you can communicate with the people and you certainly have the advantage of knowing if you are being ripped off.

I find Buenos Aires to be a fairly expensive city. For people who started arriving right after the peso devaluation we know that those days were dirt cheap. The dollar really does not stretch that far today. But, I guess it depends on your lifestyle.

The fact that insurance pays for surgery has nothing to do with the topic. The fact is that there is a surge in obsesity in Argentina. It is in the news often enough, anyway. Haven't you noticed all of the fast food eateries? There is a total 'fast food' culture now. Obesity is not as bad as in the U.S. but just give it 20 years.

And, Buenos Aires doesn't have pot holes? Where do you live? Are the sidewalks in Chicago worse than in Buenos Aires? I don't think so.

I am not putting down the fact that you lost four people to crime in Chicago. But, crime is pretty bad in Buenos Aires and getting worse. Don't you remember the protest this past March in Buenos Aires because of the fear of crime???

The article of which these comments are based gives the usual "Paris of the Americas" nonsense. I think that was true 70 - 100 years ago. Just look at the beautiful architecture from that time period. Then, fast forward to the construction that began in the late 1950's. The world keeps changing. Nothing stays the same.

Back on my Soapbox just for you:
I find in every barrio, the shopkeepers want to use English, infact they make it difficult for me to practice my Castilano. No I am not in the tourist areas, Cabalito, Almagro, and Villa Crespo are my regular Haunts. The only areas where they do try to rip me off are the tourist places.

Expensive? have you been anywhere else recently? inflation is a worldwide problem. My energy bills at home have doubled twice since I bought my apartment, where they have gone up about 20% in BsAs. I could go on about food and many other things, but I suspect you are already not listening.

Just about every local district in the UK cannot find the money to repair their roads, cycling is impossible due to the state of them. I can only listen to what others are saying about their hometowns. The roads here are bad, but have not really got any worse in the five years I have been coming and may have been worse than the UK five years ago, they are not any longer.

Crime, again it is very subjective. If you are used to almost zero crime then anything is bad. I walk regularly across Cabilito and Villa Crespo in the wee small hours, believe me or not (your choice and I suspect I know which) you would not venture alone in the centre of Wrexham at night.

Paris of the South? true there are numerous new builds, often taking the place of run down neglected buildings, but use your eyes, this is still one of the most beautiful cities in the world. As Pericles has said the parks and plazas are idylic places to relax, people watch, and just enjoy the city. The amount of work that has been done in recent years is amazing, what was just waste land is now in most cases oasies of calm and peace.

I'm packing up my soapbox now to put in my case, be there in a few days.

 

[HDM]

It is interesting to me how different are the experiences of just this small group of commenters.

Here are mine.

I don't know if I live in a "tourist area" or not -- I live in Palermo Nuevo near La Rural -- but I find English speakers in my neighborhood to be rare, and when I do find one, usually the level of English is comparable to my level of Spanish, and I have the vocabulary of maybe a 20-month-old baby. For example, I have not once, in dozens of visits, ever come across one English speaker among the staff at the nearby Jumbo/Easy. I get by and have something of a social life because all my acquaintances here are English speakers, usually because they happen to be from the States or GB. I would faint if someone in a shop wanted to practice English with me. That has never happened. Furthermore, even in the nicest restaurants in my area (Francesco, La Catedral, Rio Alba, Elizabetta ...), when a server does try to help me in English, I find it to be basic, at best, and we get the job done with Spanglish and pantomime.

The only times I am sure I am being ripped off is by street flower sellers, and now I just expect it and factor it into the price, which starts out pretty cheap from the start. Otherwise, if anyone in any shop here is ripping me off, I don't notice it.

I live in BAires on dollars, not pesos, so I find most things to be cheaper than the States in general, and way, way cheaper than Washington, DC. Having said that, I came here expecting most things to be even cheaper than they turned out to be. Relative to the USA, it is cheap here, almost everything (excluding most electronic items), just not as cheap as I thought (and hoped) it would be.

Vis-a-vis crime. I will probably believe it is negligible (where I live and where I go) until a criminal event and I come into contact. So far not. Again using DC, the last place I lived before here, the entire eastern half (NE and SE) of DC is largely a combat zone. Areas I wouldn't go into, day or night. I have felt or sensed a threat when out and about in some cities (Johannesburg, to name the most notorious, but also Vienna and Paris), but not so much here ... but I am willing to add "yet."

In all ways, with the except of cheap being not as cheap as I hoped, Buenos Aires has exceeded my expectations as a place to live. But I will not hesitate to add that I live in a bubble. I know that. I think most commenters here live in the same one.

 

[steveinbsas]

It would be great to hear from more single men who chose to live in Buenos Aires over any or all of the other 28 cities on the list. After all, that was the theme of the article.

I hope HDM is not just buying flowers to decorate his apartment (and I'm not casting any dispersions here). Even if he is being ripped off a wee bit by the petal pushers, it's still gotta be a lot cheaper than paying for sex, which is legal and relatively cheap here...(so I've read). That is something a few single men might consider an important factor when selecting the "best" city from the list.

 

[tangobob]

It would be great to hear from more single men who chose to live in Buenos Aires over any or all of the other 28 cities on the list. After all, that was the theme of the article.

I hope HDM is not just buying flowers to decorate his apartment (and I'm not casting any dispersions here). Even if he is being ripped off a wee bit by the petal pushers, it's still gotta be a lot cheaper than paying for sex, which is legal and relatively cheap here...(so I've read). That is something more than a few single men might consider an important factor when selecting the "best" city from the list.

LoL Steve, are you sure you have only read about the cheap sex, you can speak freely, you are among friends.
Should I leave the wife at home perhaps and save the airfare?

 

[katti]

I am European (belgian), I have been to the US several times, and I must say that when my friends ask me to describe BA I always say it is the most European city outside of Europe. We Europeans (maybe I should not generalise and say 'we Belgians'), feel more at home in BA then in US. It is not a matter of architecture, but or culture. We have a lot of Argentine friends, and one of our argentine friends has lived with us in Belgium for half a year so I know something about Argentine culture. The culture is also related to the religion. Argentina is 95% catholic, so is Belgium, Spain and Italy.

 

[perry]

An excellent Blog post which summed up many of my feelings of the city.

http://vivirenpresente.blogspot.com/2009/05/mi-querido-buenos-aires.html

Mi Querido Buenos Aires"


Just back from Buenos Aires, a city that breaks my heart every time I leave it. You see, I love her. But like a novia caprichosa, she can be a tough city to love: endless corruption, miserable inequality, grinding poverty. But she's just so beautiful....the architecture, the music, the food, the colors, the friendships, the smells and sounds. My dream place. It just always feels so much like home.

In neighborhoods like el microcentro, the architecture is a beautiful swirl of Rome, Paris, Rio, but so uniquely Buenos Aires.

The elegance of this city is hard to overstate. For example, the famous Cafe Tortoni. I'm still craving cafe con leche y medialunas con jamon y queso. They just taste better in this ambiente.Outside of our own, I can attest the best parilla in Buenos Aires is El Establo. No joke. The staff there feels like family. We lunched there as novios, then casados, then embarazados, now with bebes.

This trip, prices were staggeringly expensive, once again. Business is booming in Argentina. Construction everywhere, new cars everywhere. It was a wonderful change from a few years ago, when garbage was stacked high, homeless people were everywhere and despair haunted the corners of this city. Now, with world prices high for their exports and a cash economy protecting them from the worst of the global credit crunch, (for now), Argentines are doing well. Gracias a Dios.​

For me, bedtime. And let me say, international travel with two pre-k bebes is also no joke. I am beat. Will be dreaming of Gardel, la Clausura (vamos Boca!), Sandro, vacio con morcilla, mmmmm.​

 

[RWS]

. . . when my friends ask me to describe BA I always say it is the most European city outside of Europe. . . .

Interesting. I've some acquaintance with Belgium -- my brother lives there -- and might see some similarity in, as you say, the culture. I've described Buenos Aires as the poor man's Paris: again, more for the "feel" of the place than (aside from delightful corners and unexpected vistas) for visible appearance.

My Argentine friends and cousins, on the rare occasion that they compare their capital to foreign cities, have drawn parallels with Madrid, Barcelona, and Naples.

 

[Conorworld]

The original criteria for the Askmen article are hilarious. I wont go into much details about them but what they said about Buenos Aires is interesting. I suppose generally the cost of living is less than many similar cities of its calibre. BA has been getting more expensive recently and is continuing to do so. When will it end I wonder. If I was a local living on pesos, knowing that prices are going up by over 20% a year would be soul destroying. I suppose Argentines are used to it to an extent but nevertheless it is quite a lot.

As a European myself I can understand the general assumption that BA has a European feel. It is not 100% European but there is a strong European feel to the city which cannot be discounted. The city is a mesh of various cultures. Maybe the European one is more noticeable to people.

In relation to the whole 29 cities and their rank I am glad my hometown of Dublin is not in it. Dublin is an amazing city but it is so so expensive. They have made statements about London being so expensive but Dublin is a lot more now. My boyfriend lives in London so go over every fortnight and I stock up on clothes, drink and eat cheaper than at home. I am glad that Berlin is in the top 10. It's standard of living is incredibly good and has quite simply the best, most diverse nightlife in the world. I wasn't happy with Toronto beating Montreal. Toronto is pretty soulless and it knows it! All these festivals and big buildings are like a symptom of an inferiority complex, trying to prove things. Montreal is an excellent city and one of the very few major truly bilingual cities in the world left. Portland deserves to be higher but I can understand why it would fail a lot on weather. There is a noticeably large amount of American cities which I would question.

So overall I am not shocked or surprised by the list of cities. Nor by the criteria. It was always going to be up for debate.