Which of these cities offers the best way of life? what are the main differences.? (neighborhoods)

[nick1212]

SYDNEY vs. LOS ANGELES

- which offers the nicest way of life (welcoming/friendly people, diversity, weather, activities, food, culture in general...)
- which offers the best means to grow a world sized business
- which country (AU/USA) is the easiest to get in to settle there definitively? (I'm French)
- Which one do you prefer? why?

[Need2Leave]

I've lived exclusively in the western U.S. and can say with a great degree of certainty that L.A. is the proverbial armpit of all that is known as "American" to the world. Take that for what it is, just one opinion. That said If your "world sized business" is the next TMZ dot com or some other nonsense L.A. might just be the place for you.

[tourist]

Originally Posted by nick1212

SYDNEY vs. LOS ANGELES

- which offers the nicest way of life (welcoming/friendly people, diversity, weather, activities, food, culture in general...)
- which offers the best means to grow a world sized business
- which country (AU/USA) is the easiest to get in to settle there definitively? (I'm French)
- Which one do you prefer? why?

- which offers the nicest way of life (welcoming/friendly people [tie]
- diversity [LA]
- weather [Sydney - less smog]
- activities [tie]
- food [Sydney]
- culture in general...) [Sydney]

- which offers the best means to grow a world sized business [LA hands down: much larger market, easier access to capital]

- which country (AU/USA) is the easiest to get in to settle there definitively? (I'm French) [If you have the capital for your business already and can qualify for an entrepreneur-class visa, they're tied. On a skills basis, Australia is probably a little easier up to age 45 (age cutoff for skills-based visa), but neither country is exactly easy to get into without an employer sponsor.]

- Which one do you prefer? why? [Tie, given my own circumstances. But if I was looking to build a business, the choice would have to be LA.]

[minibrings]

Funny.. many Aussies pan Sydney as blah once you get out of the harbour area and I have had friends come from the US who were not impressed with Sydney. I much prefer Melbourne, but that is not being debated. This is IMO. As a dual Aussie-US national, I'd chose LA. Bigger market. People who say it lacks culture are wrong.. there is plenty of culture in LA. LA has more of a cultural mix. Market for business is larger. And there are good and bad neighborhoods in LA, much like Sydney. Both are car cities (Sydney outside the central core). From LA you can fly direct to Paris and its easy to get to other parts of the US. As much as I love Oz and my vegemite, I'd say LA. Now if the choice was MEL or LA.. could be a different story, but that's my bias.

And everyone has personal bias.. you have to figure things out for yourself, unfortunately.

[tourist]

I'd be curious to hear more about which aspects of a desire to build a world-class business can't be met in France (or more generally, in countries that are readily accessible to a French national), and why LA and Sydney are the two target cities on the short list.

There's no edge (negative connotation) to that curiosity, BTW. I do realize that nick1212 will not want to present his business plan on an open forum. And LA and Sydney are eminently reasonable choices as cities to launch businesses. But I'd still like to hear some of the thinking behind the thesis of this thread; almost any further detail would be illuminating.