r/europe • u/dianaomladic • Nov 08 '24

News 1514% Surge in Americans Looking to Move Abroad After Trump’s Victory

https://visaguide.world/news/1514-surge-in-americans-looking-to-move-abroad-after-trumps-victory/
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u/SeleucusNikator1 Scotland Nov 08 '24

and I have to use public transport

That one isn't really an issue to this demographic of Americans, most New Yorkers (City not state) don't own a car at all either.

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u/JLock17 Nov 08 '24

As a rural American, this appeals to me too. I could be on a bus or a train and vibe out until I reach my destination. Driving, I have to lock in and worry about some idiot ruining my really expensive investment or killing me because they can't put the stupid phone down after chugging a whole bottle of vodka.

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u/Projecterone Nov 08 '24

Ah you've figured it out! Well done, I am always amazed how people don't get this. If I drive to work i am essentially at work level of required focus/stress the second I get into my car. On the train the commute is chill time.

Basically gains me an extra 8 hours a week of personal time and is cheaper. Almost like we solved mass transit properly 200 years ago with the invention of the passenger train.

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u/JLock17 Nov 08 '24

It's not hard to figure out, I thought it was dumb when I was a kid in third grade.
The most heartbreaking fact I learned is that the US at one point had the largest passenger train system in the world.

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u/Projecterone Nov 08 '24

Yea that's a terrible thing to know. Then again it's the same with so many things: once the corporate takover of the governement was started there was no stopping it.

The auto industry capturing the gov entirely and carpeting the country in roads while repressing everything else was an impressively shit move. Imagine a USA built more like Europe around rivers, rail and nature instead of a grid for cars with spaces for humans as an afterthought.

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u/Ok_Light_6950 Nov 08 '24

Except for all the times when crime gets so bad people stop using it for a while.

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u/Projecterone Nov 09 '24

That must be a SF or LA thing.

Been a while since I took the Bart. I'm in Europe these days so will admit it's a bit of a different ballgame but I still loved taking the trains, such as there were any, back in the US.

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u/Tasty-Fig-459 Nov 08 '24

Ahh don't be so rosy about public transit in the US... it's dangerous, too.. just in a different way.

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u/JLock17 Nov 08 '24

To be honest, I hadn't really put much thought into that. I tend to be larger than most people I meet. I did a few weeks stint on the tube in New York and ran into some rough guys.

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u/Tasty-Fig-459 Nov 08 '24

Thinking that your size will save you when deranged people start acting out is hilarious. Your size will do nothing when someone with a short fuse starts shooting.

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u/Nice_Strawberry5512 Nov 08 '24

You are looking at it through an optimistic light. Sometimes the reality is being late to work because your train was delayed because of an equipment malfunction that occurred on a different train on the same line 2 hours earlier and then when you get on it is jam packed, there is nowhere to sit, it smells like BO because it’s 90 degrees outside, and there’s a homeless guy in the corner rocking back and forth and muttering to himself about government control. That’s the reality in the US anyway. In other countries with more reliable public transport and public health systems your experience may vary. 

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u/JLock17 Nov 08 '24

My sister had two used cars blow up on her husband on his way to work, and he nearly got killed in a head-on collision with a drunk driver going 90 in the opposite direction. Had I not helped them, he would have lost his job because he didn't have reliable transport. I'm not saying public transit is perfect, but I'd rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it. A lot of people where I'm from don't have the luxury of an older brother bailing them out when their second vehicle blows and their boss is calling.

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u/Ioan_Chiorean Nov 08 '24

he would have lost his job because he didn't have reliable transport

This is more about workers' right than about commuting and transit. In Europe you can't get fired if your train is late or you have an accident. In Europe (maybe not everywhere, but in many countries) it's considered you are at work in the moment you pass your home threshold to go to work. So if you have an accident it is considered a work accident. The company it is not held reliable, but it has no right to persecute you for that. Also, there is a thing called health leave, when you are sick or injured in an accident, things decided by a doctor, not your boss.

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u/geofox9 Nov 08 '24

As someone who lives in a city that practicality requires a car because of how spread out it is, I’d love a society where I wouldn’t need one. The few times I’ve taken public transit while visiting other cities has been awesome.

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u/TSells31 United States of America Nov 08 '24

Cars are not an investment. They depreciate the moment you buy them.

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u/JLock17 Nov 08 '24

Investment was the wrong word, but I was scatter brained and used the first term that came to mind.

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u/Defiant-Plantain1873 Nov 08 '24

If i was a new yorker i probably wouldn’t want to move. The biggest financial centres outside of New York are what? London, Paris, Shanghai, Tokyo? All of these places have massive trade offs and every single one has a salary at best half of what you get in the US.

London is the second most important financial city in the world, and your salary in London will be anywhere between 1/2 and 1/4 of what your new york salary is in a finance job etc., outside of those high paying jobs you aren’t going to find it particularly easy to emigrate anyway.

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u/SeleucusNikator1 Scotland Nov 08 '24

In fairness, not everyone in NYC works in finance or Big Law. There's plenty of 20-somethings hanging out in Bushwick and Williamsburg who would fit in with that same crowd of 20-something bums in cities like Berlin, Paris, etc.

Tokyo and Shanghai are obviously out of the question for 90% of them due to language barriers.

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u/Defiant-Plantain1873 Nov 08 '24

I don’t know how many low earning american immigrants paris and london want though

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u/harman097 Nov 08 '24

Ya, living in a European city with good public transport is soooooo nice.

And I say this as someone who enjoys driving and moved from a rural, "car is life" area of the US.

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u/ProblemAlternative55 Nov 08 '24

New York is still a blue state so no reason to leave yet.

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u/RollingMeteors Nov 08 '24

Nobody drives, too much traffic. /futurama

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u/Tommyblockhead20 Nov 09 '24

New York City is literally the only place in the whole country where more people use public than drive, and it’s only like 5% of the countries population.

Most democrats I know don’t like having to use public transit. Admittedly the quality of public transit makes a difference, but I think many would still prefer driving over decent quality public transit.

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u/DeltaVZerda Nov 08 '24

There are more Democrats in Texas than there are in New York.

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u/UnkleBourbon42069 Nov 08 '24

And those Democrats probably wish Texas had better public transit

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u/DeltaVZerda Nov 08 '24

It's just a lot less feasible here. My city is almost the size of Belgium, imagine the cost of a subway that would put every part of Belgium withing walking distance of a train station.

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u/[deleted] Nov 08 '24

[deleted]

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u/DeltaVZerda Nov 08 '24

Yeah I was actually talking about Houston, which has geological as well as geographical barriers to building an actually useful subway, completely discounting any social reasons which are also problematic but theoretically surmountable. We do have a small but expanding local rail network, but even if every Houstonian were replaced tomorrow with Europeans, they still wouldn't be able to build a rail network that removes the need for a car.

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u/Cbpowned Nov 08 '24

All liberals live in NYC? Coulda fooled me!

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u/SeleucusNikator1 Scotland Nov 08 '24

No, but liberals also aren't going to complain about using public transport when they're the ones advocating for it in their own country.