GTKFE: What brought you to Argentina?

[soulskier]

"diego7david" wrote, "affordable living for those with dollar income ie its much cheaper than any other big city in the world to live in."


Really? I've read more than one extended debate about this very subject in just this forum.

Agreed, but in my own experiences, when I ask others why they choose ARG, it is rare hear about the low cost of living.

 

[perry]

This is not a reason to ever pick a country to live in as the cost of living can rapidly change in Argentina .

The first choice should be lifestyle and then culture. Love as well is a great reason to move here

 

[diego7david]

staying on topic which is asking for the reason people moved to ba, my answer is a reason if that is the reason i chose to move here. but what the intention of what i said is..

i like big city life.....yes thats ba. and it is cheaper to live in ba than almost any other big city. for those who read too much into things. i didn't say that it is a cheap place to live for most of those people who have to earn a living here. its cheap when placed on a chart with cost of living in other cities of the world. prices of housing first of all are a fraction of any other big city and no matter what the price of volta ice cream is, the low cost of housing makes up for it a thousand times over. i bought an 1100 sq ft apt in recoleta for 76k late 2005. put 25k into it to fix it up and a comparable place in nyc would start with a cost about 1.8 million usa dollars and go up from there! about the same as paris or london or moscow or most any big city.

 

[Ries]

I just love Buenos Aires.
The unique mix of culture, history, architecture, music, art, food, and personality.

I have spent time in a lot of cities around the world- I am partial to some, but most of the competitors cost twice or three times as much, and are much more limited in their horizons. Globalisation has hit Argentina much less than in many cities worldwide, and the economic history means a lot less "urban redevelopment", which, in many cities, means tear down beautiful old buildings, and build the cheapest, short term profit replacements possible.

Plus, there is an entire continent easily accessible, one that is varied in topography and culture, mostly unspoiled by McDonalds, and much cheaper than BsAs.

Plus, I just happen to be addicted to Fuggazetta.

 

[TomAtAlki]

Tom and I would probably repeat everything D7D and Ries said.
Nancy

 

[diego7david]

Tom and I would probably repeat everything D7D and Ries said.
Nancy

thanks guys i think im going to modernize and take a cue from you from now on im going to introduce myself as, d7d sounds like a 21 century name!

 

[mini]

staying on topic which is asking for the reason people moved to ba, my answer is a reason if that is the reason i chose to move here. but what the intention of what i said is..

i like big city life.....yes thats ba. and it is cheaper to live in ba than almost any other big city. for those who read too much into things. i didn't say that it is a cheap place to live for most of those people who have to earn a living here. its cheap when placed on a chart with cost of living in other cities of the world. prices of housing first of all are a fraction of any other big city and no matter what the price of volta ice cream is, the low cost of housing makes up for it a thousand times over. i bought an 1100 sq ft apt in recoleta for 76k late 2005. put 25k into it to fix it up and a comparable place in nyc would start with a cost about 1.8 million usa dollars and go up from there! about the same as paris or london or moscow or most any big city.

Talk about reading into things. It was a bit of a joke the whole Volta thing! Clearly Volta is not an essential to life in the big city but it makes it quite enjoyable! =o)

I forgot this forum is very serious. =oP

Globalisation has hit Argentina much less than in many cities worldwide, and the economic history means a lot less "urban redevelopment", which, in many cities, means tear down beautiful old buildings, and build the cheapest, short term profit replacements possible.

You don't think this is happening here?

 

[citygirl]

I originally came b/c of a combination of lifestyle options available that were important to me - city life, bars, restaurants, a great showjumping scene (admittedly not important for most ), the ability to have a direct flight back to NY easily and definitely the low cost of living here was a *very* important factor - especially last year when I was taking a sabbatical from working. Yes, it's much more expensive than it once was but as D7D says, when you compare BsAs to other major cities, especially if you earn or live off of dollars, it is still a bargain.

We made the decision to put one of our primary work sites here in Argentina because of the relatively low-cost of labor (not low but still lower compared to Brasil), a pool of well-educated candidates, a client base of multi-national companies located here and a need to have a footprint in Latin America.

 

[Ries]

You don't think this is happening here?

Of course it is- but much less than in Seattle, or Portland, NYC or San Francisco, Tokyo, Bangkok, Singapore, Shanghai, and a dozen other cities I could name.

There are probably 20,000 Casa Chorizo's left standing in Buenos Aires today, 2 dozen buildings on the level of the Palacio Barolo, (Palacio Barolo is truly spectacular when compared to ANY building, ANYWHERE) and 2000 or 3000 beautiful french provincial and art noveau 3 to 5 story mixed use buildings, just in the inner part of the city.

I have walked, with architecture books and maps, Torino, Milan, Brussels, and Paris- and Buenos Aires has more great architecture from that period still standing than the first three, and is a close tie to the last.

Most US cities are unrecognizable, even from as recently as 20 years ago, and certainly 80% of the good buildings from 50 years ago are gone in most of them. Detroit is tearing down 10,000 to 20,000 houses a YEAR. Youngstown Ohio is bulldozing entire neighborhoods. Springfield Ma and Pittsburgh and Buffalo have let incredible gems moulder, rot, and collapse.

But walk down Corrientes, and see more, better, art deco movie houses and theaters than in all of the USA. Stroll down Cordoba, or Scalabrini Ortiz, and see example after example of period ironwork, great stonework.
Walk the microcento, and look in the lobbies of office buildings on Hipolito Irigoyen or Rivadavia, and see marble, bronze, and woodwork, chandeliers and elevators and stairways that you have to pay a million dollars to own in NYC or Paris or London.

So yes, while there is certainly some demolition here, and they are building a lot of crappy cheap apartment buildings in Palermo Hollywood, the architectural richness of Buenos Aires is truly incredible, and, for a city of its size and age, most of it is virtually untouched.

And thats not even getting into La Plata, or Mendoza, or Rosario, or the great treasure of the Francisco Salamone structures throughout Buenos Aires Province, or the art deco buildings in Tucaman and Salta.
Salamone alone would be hailed as a national genius if he had lived in Belgium or LA- but here, there isnt even a book in print about his work.

I travel a lot. I look at architecture, particularly the period I most love, from about 1880 to 1950, all over the world. I lived in LA for ten years, driving obscure neighborhoods all the time looking for specific buildings. I go to cities in Europe just to see the metalwork of Mazzucatelli- and I have to say, people here just dont know what they got- its incredible.

The economy, the distance from the rest of the world, and the lack of easy credit have all contributed to a lot of preservation, by world standards. Not all factors that Porteno's would have chosen on purpose- but the net result is unintended or not, historic preservation on a massive scale.

 

[diego7david]

reading these posts is like reading the articles that foreign journalists write about ba. that english is spoken everywhere in ba, etc. you wonder if we all see the same thing. i do see lots of interesting architecture in buenos aires but the majority of buildings in center city or metropolitan ba are relatively bland and newish. especially when compared to many, many other cities like paris rome florence london istanbul, st petersburg, madrid havana - even lima or bogota or cartagena have a lot more history preserved. my list would be very long before i got to ba. i dont think of ba as the "paris" of s am as it used to be in the belle epoch. i do like and enjoy its many flavors and the people, and i am here part time by choice, but it would never dawn on me to classify it as a well preserved historic city - much less historic preservation on a massive scale. i say this as a person who has visited and studied many cities and in 2000 was a loeb fellowship at harvard in the graduate school of design (architecture) specifically concentrating on cities.
ps there is a matching "palacio barolo" in montevideo exactly the same by the same architect (Palanti) (Palacio Salvo) plus a lot more old buildings in the old city part