Best place to live in 1969?
- Thread starter Quintuplicate
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Riain
Banned
NZ was as wealthy as Australia at the time, the relative decline started a few years later. Australia and NZ were great but somewhat of cultural backwaters in 1969 and a long way from such centres. For this reason I'd suggest the US or UK in 1969 and move to Australia a few years later once these places turn sour in the 70s.
marathag
Banned
A lot of places in California.
Home ownership was easy, the median price was $24,000, vs the US median of $17,000.
Your College was $120 a semester, so you could work your way thru if you had to
Median income was $8,700 , minimum wage was $1.45 and with a McDonalds burger 15 cents or you could get that new Whopper from Burger King for 37 cents
Pack of Cigarettes was a Quarter, because everybody(well 42% of adults) smoked, and a Beer was a Dime at Happy Hour
gas was 32-36 cents a gallon, and a new Ford Pinto would set you back just under $2000
Color TV would set you back around $400, they were big money back then
Home ownership was easy, the median price was $24,000, vs the US median of $17,000.
Your College was $120 a semester, so you could work your way thru if you had to
Median income was $8,700 , minimum wage was $1.45 and with a McDonalds burger 15 cents or you could get that new Whopper from Burger King for 37 cents
Pack of Cigarettes was a Quarter, because everybody(well 42% of adults) smoked, and a Beer was a Dime at Happy Hour
gas was 32-36 cents a gallon, and a new Ford Pinto would set you back just under $2000
Color TV would set you back around $400, they were big money back then
You could make a strong case for Sweden given this was the peak of the social democratic Folkhemmet. I second California for the United States given the extreme affordability of the UC system and the ability to enjoy one of most beautiful and climatically ideal places in the world for relatively low living costs. I love Sixties (not so much hippie but Ye=Ye girls etc.) aesthetics, so it would be an ideal time for me to find a girlfriend too lol.
1969, probably southern Oregon near the coast. You're in one of the safest spots for the whole Cold War getting nuked thing in the US and fallout patterns largely leave you alone. Also, Oregon has 6 months of good weather, which is more than most place in the US (Florida also has 6 months of good weather, Hawaii has 12). Employment opportunities are pretty good in a wide variety of fields. California in the 1960s-70s is also really nice---it was thought of as a working man's paradise in those days.
Real estate that will massively appreciate? Any major city in the US and Canada will cover that.
Good schools to send the kids to? Ok, scratch all the American cities from that list.
Peace and stability? Ok, scratch the cities in Quebec from that list.
Calgary, Vancouver, Toronto. Pick your favourite flavour of Canadian super city.* Buy an average sized house, sell it during the COVID house buying boom and retire to the countryside as a millionaire.
*Calgary gives you cow boys, oil money, and traditional morals. Vancouver is a left coast city that actually bothered to take its syphilis medication and is now a lot less seedy than its southern sisters. Metro Toronto is the entire world in one place (or rather will be in a couple decades' time).
Good schools to send the kids to? Ok, scratch all the American cities from that list.
Peace and stability? Ok, scratch the cities in Quebec from that list.
Calgary, Vancouver, Toronto. Pick your favourite flavour of Canadian super city.* Buy an average sized house, sell it during the COVID house buying boom and retire to the countryside as a millionaire.
*Calgary gives you cow boys, oil money, and traditional morals. Vancouver is a left coast city that actually bothered to take its syphilis medication and is now a lot less seedy than its southern sisters. Metro Toronto is the entire world in one place (or rather will be in a couple decades' time).
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West-Berlin. No draft and the Berlin tax financed many great cultural attractions in the part of the city.
Riain
Banned
How easy was ot to access the rest of West Germany and the world from West Berlin in 1969? I'm guessing you couldn't jump in the car or on a train for a weekend in the country.
marathag
Banned
In the United Kingdom, well, England:
- Lancashire if you wanted somewhere with access to the countryside - Preston (perhaps areas like Fulwood, Avenham or Lea) or Wigan (in what's now Greater Manchester); areas like Orrell, Billinge Higher End, Haigh, Aspull, Ince-in-Makerfield or Tyldesley.
- Stockport was also pretty good - Cheadle, Gatley, maybe even Reddish if you wanted to be near Manchester
- Tameside - Denton, suburbs of Ashton-under-Lyne
- Glodwick near Oldham (apparently a Welsh place-name in Oldham); right near the valleys, the town's pronounced glodd-ick.
- Radcliffe, Greater Manchester if you wanted a middle-class town.
- Higher Folds near Leigh, within Wigan borough.
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Agreed. That's where my mother studied and she tells me that life there was excellent because the authorities didn't want to take any chances at West Berlin defecting to communism.
Do we not have to ask more than that, what person might matter there are other things than class that might affect it?
Riain
Banned
Crossing the inner German border during the Cold War - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Doable but a bit of a pain the the arse, which for me would take the shine off.
Riain
Banned
Out of interest I looked up what 'middle class' income was and found a definition that it was 67-200% of median household incomes. In the US in 1970 this was ~19k to ~118k with the median being ~54k for a 3 person household.
This struck me as a hell of a lot when a 69 Corvette cost ~5k and the average house cost ~27k, but then again it's pretty well known that the middle class had lost ground relatively since then while real estate had skyrocketed.
With that sort of household income widespread domestic and regular international travel wold be on the table as well as things like a holiday house and reasonable investments which I'd say is similar to middle class people today more or less.
This struck me as a hell of a lot when a 69 Corvette cost ~5k and the average house cost ~27k, but then again it's pretty well known that the middle class had lost ground relatively since then while real estate had skyrocketed.
With that sort of household income widespread domestic and regular international travel wold be on the table as well as things like a holiday house and reasonable investments which I'd say is similar to middle class people today more or less.