Quality of living,

[TreizeVents]

Hi WJT,

Not sure where you got your figures from, but according to mine, your comparison is a bit casual.  UK 93,000 sq miles.

Alabama 50,000, Montana 145,000, Mississippli 47,000, Arkansas 52,000, Kansas 82,000.  So the UK is not really the same size as any of them (Kansas is close).  Closer would be Idaho and Oregon, but I doubt that most Brits would really know them well enough to guess how big they are.  In comparison to the UK's 60,000,000 people they have 1.4 million and 3.6 million.  Empty!  Suffice it to say that England (not Wales and Scotland) is about the fifth most densely populated country on earth, not including the titchy ones that are like cities (Singapore etc).   The only country that is close to England in Europe is Holland.  So its a good point to make that it would be nearly impossible to find a coutnry more densely populated than England.  Most visitors to England find its more like a garden, and the idea of wilderness is pretty much out of the question.  Bangla Desh, Taiwan and South Korea are the top three in case you wondered.  Bangla Desh WAY denser.

[TreizeVents]

Hi WJT,

Texas 262,000 sq miles  France 210,000.  Close, and you are right, its quite a bit smaller.  Or a fair bit anyway.  But who would ever want to live in Texas, when they could live in France?  And there are "only" 23,000,000 people living in Texas.

[WJT]

Hi TV, I have just seen your post and yes my comments were very casual.  I was just trying to make a point that many states in the US are about the same size of the UK, I have never actually looked up the stats so thank you.

As you pointed out it appears many are larger and many are smaller. Perhaps a better comparison with some of the smaller ones you mentioned should be compared to England instead of the UK. England is 50,356 square miles (I looked it up just for you  [:)]). However , instead of 58 million people many will have perhaps 3 million (I didn't look this up but probably a good guess [:)])

I was just guessing again but felt that France was a bit smaller that Texas so happy I was correct on that account. By the way, I agree with you, I would much prefer to live in France [:)].

It was just an example and I felt the comparison of size can put things into perspective on how vast America is. It is hard to compare rural France with the farmers being surrounded by tourists and Internationals and rural England where I would imagine there aren't too many country bumpkins left simply because of the population. In fact the entire country of England appears to be turning into a large city with it's population being savvy city folk [:)] Obviously, this can be incomprehensible for many Europeans particularly for ones that have never been to America, it can be shocking how vast and how isolated some areas are there.

[Russethouse]

[quote user="Bob T"]If you compare living in a little village in the UK to living in one in France there is one big difference, Coucil tax. Even if you live on the top of a mountain in mid Wales, you will pay a fortune, here in rural France you won't. That may not be the experience of everyone but I love only paying a quarter of what I paid in the UK.
[/quote]

And are the facilities comparable ?

 

 

[cooperlola]

[quote user="Russethouse"]

[quote user="Bob T"]If you compare living in a little village in the UK to living in one in France there is one big difference, Coucil tax. Even if you live on the top of a mountain in mid Wales, you will pay a fortune, here in rural France you won't. That may not be the experience of everyone but I love only paying a quarter of what I paid in the UK.
[/quote]

And are the facilities comparable ?

 

 

[/quote]My findings on costs of council taxes etc reflect Bob's although I'm comparing rural Kent to the rural Sarthe.  We had our dustbins emptied but that was it.  No mains drainage, no street lighting, no pavements... yes very similar to here (except that they mend the road, dig the ditches, pick up the litter and mow the verges here!!!)

[Will]

[quote user="cooperlola"]...(except that they mend the road, dig the ditches, pick up the litter and mow the verges here!!!)[/quote]

I had to have a little laugh at that - the road at the front of our house is a départemental route so it gets looked after reasonably well, but the road to the side is the responsibility of the commune (and with 55 inhabitants and an average income per head of just 9045€, as we found out in these discussions the other day) it doesn't have exactly France's biggest budget for such things.

The verges do get cut once a year, but the chap doing it managed to drive his machine into the side of our house, knocking out a 60cm square of stones - the discussions about this between the deputy maire and the contractor were so protracted that I ended up cementing it back together myself after a few months because had I not done so the rain would probably have washed the mortar out and the whole wall collapsed. (Yes, in a 55-head commune we still have a mayor, a deputy and a council consisting of about 25% of the population.)

And we did have the potholes in the road repaired. Trouble is, rather than 2cm deep holes, we now have 5cm high lumps of black tarmac. So I am not too sure where our (comparatively high) local taxes actually go - probably on troisième age outings for the local council.

[cooperlola]

Yes, I'm sure it's an unfair and localised comparison (and I am on a D road) - Kent is famous for its potholes.  We lived on a major A road in the UK (albeit in the middle of nowhere).  We had the equivelant of a permanent swimming pool in the entrance to our driveway because the ditch was never dug in the 28 years we lived there. On one famous occasion they finally resurfaced it but did it (for the first time in 5 years) in  a heatwave and the roadstone didn't "take" - they scored about 50 windscreens in one hour alone!! Happily, the ditch digger here would have to come a fair way to hit the side of my house.  Poor you.

[Russethouse]

In the past people have complained about the lack of libraries, public transport and adult education. ( Although much of GB is not well catered for by public transport either IMHO)