London: everybody reviews countries constantly as there’s people from all over the world! But reviews only make sense in context of one’s life. London is 10/10 if you speak English (underrated parameter as you can’t really assimilate if you don’t speak the language), enjoy large cities with lots of work and things to do, free healthcare, mild weather with sunny summers and river sports, lots of flights to everywhere, art and culture, dogs, road trips.
"Nobody reviews countries..." allow me to introduce (and recommend to) you to Geography Now, every single country in the world, reviewed: https://www.youtube.com/@GeographyNow
(Hilariously he approached this project alphabetically so the A's and B's are a few minutes long while the very last one - Zimbabwe - is 50 mins.)
I should probably re-listen before I comment, but I fear you missed the most important part of a review?? The rating??
Also, while Andy Daly's reviews are genius, I also have a soft spot for John Green's The Anthropocene Reviewed. To me they're ideal partners.
And last, reviewing where I live: close to zero public transportation infrastructure, but bolstered by scenic views and idyllic dining destinations down windy roads that you can drive your personal vehicle on. Love hate relationship with both engineers and lawyers. Biased review, 4 out of 5 stars
The CONS: It's boring. No one is from here. It's not pretty. It's Texas, and you know what that means. No major body of water or mountains, just flat. Spread out. No character. Anyone who doesn't like Dallas will spit out these facts.
The PROS: It's home. Anyone who knows what it feels like when you're home knows that that automatically gives a location an advantage. I'm from here. I know how it works. You get a lot of house and property for your money. We have EVERYTHING available. We have an outstanding selection of art and cuisines. People, even people who you wouldn't like if you met them on Reddit, are just nice here. They smile. They talk to you in public. For the most part, they would bend over backwards to help you. We have outstanding public colleges and universities. We have city. We have country. We have SKY. We have jobs. So many headquarters here. Fall and winter are delightful seasons. And it does have character if you know where to look.
Many years ago I lived in Micronesia, a former US colony, still very closely tied to the US. This "lawyerly" nature of the US was incredibly visible. There were deep levels of the legal system, there was a national Attorney General and their office, and then the 4 states also had an attorney general each. Then there were lots of other lawyers. The country's population is 100,000. In the meantime there was one qualified (local) doctor on the capital island, and no engineers. Meanwhile on other island nations that had been British (such as Kiribati) there were doctors and engineers and almost no lawyers. It was incredibly tangible (and I'm showing my bias here to say that I think developing nations need doctors and engineers more than they need lawyers. None of which is to say that I think the British Empire was, in any way shape or form, a force for good)
Springdale, Arkansas is a smallish city (90,000) in Northwest Arkansas. Centrally located between the bigger cities of Fayetteville to the south and Bentonville to the north; it's an hour's drive from beautiful camping spots at the Buffalo River, and not too much longer to get to the Ozark National Forest. Beaver Lake in nearby Rogers offers open water swimming and boating, although accessibility to natural spaces within Springdale itself are limited.
The population is roughly 40% white, 40% Latino, and 10% Marshallese, with the remaining 10% being a mixture of Thai, Lao, African-American, and other. Given these demographics it's not surprising that there are dozens of Mexican restaurants and quite a few Thai and Salvadoran places too. Central American panaderías and supermercados abound, and it's a great place to practice speaking Spanish. At the time of writing, there are unfortunately no Marshallese restaurants operating.
Despite the abundance of well-planned cultural and social events in the quaint downtown area, it can be hard making friends here, though that's not unusual in the U.S. these days. Like other cities in the region, Springdale has seen a lot of improvements over the past few years--due largely to corporations like Tyson Foods and Walmart--and the downtown area is growing. These corporations have also brought plenty of job opportunities to the region. There's a large poultry processing plant in Springdale, and some people say that on humid summer days the air smells of dead chickens. I cannot speak to this odor personally.
I enjoyed the episode but one thing struck me - at 34:45, Dan Wang says that Guizhou Province, which has roughly the same population as California and an average annual wage of $13,315, has 15 airports. PJ interrupts him to say "Wait, sorry, 15 airports?!" Like, this is so impressive, how could it have so many?
Except California has 214 General Aviation Airports, 14 times the number in Guizhou. And the average annual wage in California is $75,000, a mere 5.6 times the income in Guizhou. So California has a lot more airports per person, and also more airports when adjusted for the size of the economy. Maybe the infrastructure in California is actually kind of impressive in its own right?
City of "Villejuif", southern Paris (France) suburbs : 3.5/5
Cheap enough, well connected with old and new lines of subway to the center of Paris (the Louvre is 25 minutes away).
City hall is in the hands of the French Communist Party (almost without interruption) since 1925, and we don't even have to sing for Karl Marx's birthday. The "Yuri Gagarin" public swimming pool is located on "Karl Marx Avenue" though. Great market on wednesdays and saturdays, with a large selection of local vegetables and no less than 3 GREAT cheesemongers.
Architecture is quite depressing, especially if you compare to Paris nearby. Too many empty cans of "laughing gas" in the morning, indicating a recent rise in the consumption of this drug.
Re: the topic of manufacturing between these 2 countries, I recommend the documentary American Factory (2019) on Netflix. It's about a factory opening in the midwest US hiring several thousand American workers, and also brings Chinese workers from overseas due to the factory being owned by a Chinese billionaire.
It's interesting in the context of work and labor and their histories in these 2 cultures.
I have three children and I love crafting, but only one of the three can have a homemade costume each year (I know my bandwidth; there are only so many hours in a day). This year, my son wins the lottery and I have crafted him a Minecraft Steve costume from cardboard boxes. It is my magnum opus.
London: everybody reviews countries constantly as there’s people from all over the world! But reviews only make sense in context of one’s life. London is 10/10 if you speak English (underrated parameter as you can’t really assimilate if you don’t speak the language), enjoy large cities with lots of work and things to do, free healthcare, mild weather with sunny summers and river sports, lots of flights to everywhere, art and culture, dogs, road trips.
"Nobody reviews countries..." allow me to introduce (and recommend to) you to Geography Now, every single country in the world, reviewed: https://www.youtube.com/@GeographyNow
(Hilariously he approached this project alphabetically so the A's and B's are a few minutes long while the very last one - Zimbabwe - is 50 mins.)
I should probably re-listen before I comment, but I fear you missed the most important part of a review?? The rating??
Also, while Andy Daly's reviews are genius, I also have a soft spot for John Green's The Anthropocene Reviewed. To me they're ideal partners.
And last, reviewing where I live: close to zero public transportation infrastructure, but bolstered by scenic views and idyllic dining destinations down windy roads that you can drive your personal vehicle on. Love hate relationship with both engineers and lawyers. Biased review, 4 out of 5 stars
DALLAS.
The CONS: It's boring. No one is from here. It's not pretty. It's Texas, and you know what that means. No major body of water or mountains, just flat. Spread out. No character. Anyone who doesn't like Dallas will spit out these facts.
The PROS: It's home. Anyone who knows what it feels like when you're home knows that that automatically gives a location an advantage. I'm from here. I know how it works. You get a lot of house and property for your money. We have EVERYTHING available. We have an outstanding selection of art and cuisines. People, even people who you wouldn't like if you met them on Reddit, are just nice here. They smile. They talk to you in public. For the most part, they would bend over backwards to help you. We have outstanding public colleges and universities. We have city. We have country. We have SKY. We have jobs. So many headquarters here. Fall and winter are delightful seasons. And it does have character if you know where to look.
Many years ago I lived in Micronesia, a former US colony, still very closely tied to the US. This "lawyerly" nature of the US was incredibly visible. There were deep levels of the legal system, there was a national Attorney General and their office, and then the 4 states also had an attorney general each. Then there were lots of other lawyers. The country's population is 100,000. In the meantime there was one qualified (local) doctor on the capital island, and no engineers. Meanwhile on other island nations that had been British (such as Kiribati) there were doctors and engineers and almost no lawyers. It was incredibly tangible (and I'm showing my bias here to say that I think developing nations need doctors and engineers more than they need lawyers. None of which is to say that I think the British Empire was, in any way shape or form, a force for good)
Springdale, Arkansas is a smallish city (90,000) in Northwest Arkansas. Centrally located between the bigger cities of Fayetteville to the south and Bentonville to the north; it's an hour's drive from beautiful camping spots at the Buffalo River, and not too much longer to get to the Ozark National Forest. Beaver Lake in nearby Rogers offers open water swimming and boating, although accessibility to natural spaces within Springdale itself are limited.
The population is roughly 40% white, 40% Latino, and 10% Marshallese, with the remaining 10% being a mixture of Thai, Lao, African-American, and other. Given these demographics it's not surprising that there are dozens of Mexican restaurants and quite a few Thai and Salvadoran places too. Central American panaderías and supermercados abound, and it's a great place to practice speaking Spanish. At the time of writing, there are unfortunately no Marshallese restaurants operating.
Despite the abundance of well-planned cultural and social events in the quaint downtown area, it can be hard making friends here, though that's not unusual in the U.S. these days. Like other cities in the region, Springdale has seen a lot of improvements over the past few years--due largely to corporations like Tyson Foods and Walmart--and the downtown area is growing. These corporations have also brought plenty of job opportunities to the region. There's a large poultry processing plant in Springdale, and some people say that on humid summer days the air smells of dead chickens. I cannot speak to this odor personally.
Overall rating: 8/10
I enjoyed the episode but one thing struck me - at 34:45, Dan Wang says that Guizhou Province, which has roughly the same population as California and an average annual wage of $13,315, has 15 airports. PJ interrupts him to say "Wait, sorry, 15 airports?!" Like, this is so impressive, how could it have so many?
Except California has 214 General Aviation Airports, 14 times the number in Guizhou. And the average annual wage in California is $75,000, a mere 5.6 times the income in Guizhou. So California has a lot more airports per person, and also more airports when adjusted for the size of the economy. Maybe the infrastructure in California is actually kind of impressive in its own right?
Is there a published list of all the music used in each episode?
City of "Villejuif", southern Paris (France) suburbs : 3.5/5
Cheap enough, well connected with old and new lines of subway to the center of Paris (the Louvre is 25 minutes away).
City hall is in the hands of the French Communist Party (almost without interruption) since 1925, and we don't even have to sing for Karl Marx's birthday. The "Yuri Gagarin" public swimming pool is located on "Karl Marx Avenue" though. Great market on wednesdays and saturdays, with a large selection of local vegetables and no less than 3 GREAT cheesemongers.
Architecture is quite depressing, especially if you compare to Paris nearby. Too many empty cans of "laughing gas" in the morning, indicating a recent rise in the consumption of this drug.
Re: the topic of manufacturing between these 2 countries, I recommend the documentary American Factory (2019) on Netflix. It's about a factory opening in the midwest US hiring several thousand American workers, and also brings Chinese workers from overseas due to the factory being owned by a Chinese billionaire.
It's interesting in the context of work and labor and their histories in these 2 cultures.
I have three children and I love crafting, but only one of the three can have a homemade costume each year (I know my bandwidth; there are only so many hours in a day). This year, my son wins the lottery and I have crafted him a Minecraft Steve costume from cardboard boxes. It is my magnum opus.
Switzerland: A bit pricey, but you can’t beat the scenery, and dang do the trains run on time! Five out of five: Highly recommended!