John.St said:
I don't know why because you are wrong! I've made two trips to Mendoza over the past ten years. Have toured quite a few of the wineries. I was not putting Mendoza down at all. When you said that your cost of living was much lower than in the US I was trying to say that it depends on WHERE in the US. Someone mentioned Napa. Of course it is very expensive. Look at the location, just across the bay from one of the world's most loved cities.
I cited West Virginia because of its low cost of living and fabulous scenery. I added the bit about college towns because there is so much elitist prejudice against the state even though there are numerous college towns that offer quite a bit in the way of culture plus it is not that far from major metropolitan centers like Washington, Cincinnati or Pittsburgh.
I just wanted to point out that the COL and quality of life depend on WHERE you are in the US. New York is on the high end but it usually gets cited here as representing the COL in the US when in fact there are a lot of options.
A couple of other points. Someone mentioned the price of flats in New York. If you read the Sunday NYT real estate section you can see a lot of very nice one bedroom apartments in areas like Chelsea that run around U$S 500,000-600,000. These are co-ops which are most common in Manhattan. Every week the Times features several apartments in a full page color display. There is usually one or more in this price range - higher than BA but not nearly as high as cities like Paris or London. It is easy to spend $1,000,000 or more in New York but that will buy a 2 bedroom or larger luxury apartment in quite a nice building in the best neighborhoods.
I agree that there is some lovely architecture in BA but a lot of it is in undesirable areas like Avenida de Mayo. Recoleta has some beautiful French style buildings in good shape. They are expensive but prices are certainly much lower than they are in cities like London or Paris. It's also true that taxes are low compared to some countries like the US. They have gone up quite a bit though -- it seems to me I am paying two or three times more than I used to but still not much by US standards.
All of these factors have to be considered in light of local salaries, however. If you are living on a US or European income BA may be affordable but to most people living on the local economy it is not.
I suspect that it's now reached the point where an Argentine family could find many pleasant places to live in the US that would be cheaper than BA, even if their earning power was not much better in the US - but of course it would be much better.
None of this is to negate the value of living in Buenos Aires. For expats it comes down to a personal decision and that is not something that can be measured objectively. From an objective point of view it seems that there is some truth that BA may no longer be a wise destination for those who do not already have roots in Argentina.
