> cost of living is 70%-80%, especially in the Vancouver area.
If you check housing prices, the picture gets even worse. Even with seeing how crazy Seattle housing market is, Vancouver beats us easily with their residential property pricing.
Speaking for Vancouver, it's really not. Here are the differences:
- Weather is much worse in Canada than in SF (comparing with this because Balaji tweet did)
- 20% foreigner tax on home ownership
- crime in Vancouver is about as bad as SF
- rent to income ratio is higher, so less disposable income
- lower tech in general, less fiber penetration, worse wireless telecom
- job switching is harder because of sparse job market
OP described Indians so mentioning that there is a massive backlash in the mainstream against Indian immigration. Long healthcare waits and overall poor patient experience isn't a problem since doesn't apply to emergency care in either place and Indians can get better care in Indian private system for elective.
