I spent a decade in the US (2006/8-2016), primary in the SF Bay Area (9/10). I have visited most of its major cities, although Texas remains a major lacuna.

I returned to the San Francisco Bay Area in April 2025.

Dec 2024 Observations

In the past decade, the US has gone from strength to strength, becoming “dizzy with success”. Stock market capitalization at close to half the world total. “Europoors” are the butt of jokes about how they can’t afford air conditioners and young Japanese wistfully discuss flipping burgers in California for $20 a month. Crime rates are falling as Woke retreats. Even obesity is being conquered. Ozempic ensures that the “Ameriburger” meme becomes a thing of the past. Oh, and it might just build God sometime this decade – probably in San Francisco.

I spent a decade in the US (2006/8-2016), and will not rehash at length here my observations about life in the US. For those so interested, I would recommend checking out My American Decade (2016), as well as my series of national comparisons. In short, I think the US has created the most workable and effective model for accelerating economic productivity and innovation, while expanding effective liberties. There were aspects of this on which individual EU countries were competitive in the 2000s, but this now comes off as a cope as even on those metrics on which Europe used to have an advantage – secular attitudes and high culture – have been invalidated by American progress. They are now reduced to mewling about “walkable cities” and “natural food” but that is of scant console as the gap between professional salaries expands into factors.

Many parts of the US have become extremely nice places to live, much better than anywhere in Europe outside small isolated regions of excellence like Switzerland. This has translated into higher prices. The extreme expense of the US, especially rent, is even now little appreciated outside the digital nomad community. So nice as America’s digital creature comforts now are, I would argue that it makes scant sense to live in the US if your job is fully remote and/or you don’t need constant access to professional or cultural networks that can only really be found in the requisite density in specific American cities (e.g. the SF Bay Area technosphere or NYC’s literary scene).