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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32065 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022

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The rest of Britain, at least excluding London’s extended suburbs and a handful of wealthy university towns/cities (Bristol, Oxbridge, Brighton, maybe Edinburgh) feels more on the level of wealth of Poland, Greece, Portugal or the poorer Baltics (and indeed often worse than them).

Which parts of Poland/the Baltic States? E.g. Warsaw has a lot of opulence, but it's insane to compare all but the poorest UK neighbourhoods to Jar country. For example, I have been in rural villages in the UK that have a wide range of restaurants and many, many shops. I have been to rural villages of equivalent size in Poland that had one shop, and it was only open for a fairly small fraction of the day. And I've been to parts of rural Greece that really were poor in ways that I have never seen in the UK.

I can understand comparing Edinburgh to Warsaw in terms of wealth. I can't imagine being uncertain about Edinburgh vs. Łódź or Kaunas.

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