Europe’s New Culture Capital Is Lisbon

http://elevatedtoday.com/2015/03/06/europes-new-culture-capital-is-here-and-its-not-berlin-barcelona-or-paris/

by pmcpinto • 11 years ago

35 42 11 years ago

pjmlp3• 11 years ago

Nice to see my home country and one of the cities I have spent a great deal of my life on HN.

marvel_boy• 11 years ago

Unfortunately Lisbon will not have a future. No bright american, english or french will go to a city where wages are 20.000 euros per annum. No way.

mhomde• 11 years ago

Au contraire, that's the perfect cities for startups since they bring the work with them. Why do you think Berlin is becoming the Silicon Valley of Europe? Because for a long time there were not many jobs and rents were low, making a perfect vacuum for tech companies to move into.

On the other hand Stockholm is struggling because despite world class tech talent and high salaries apartments are almost at New York level.

kordless• 11 years ago

I think you should stop speaking for others. Also, the digital nomad lifestyle appeals to me, and apparently others: https://nomadlist.com/lisbon-portugal#v=grid

bsaul• 11 years ago

Some people don't need wages. Freelance can move there and live confortably, with customers elsewhere in Europe.. This article made me seriously think about spending a few weeks working from there.

eis• 11 years ago

You dont have to work for a local company to enjoy life in a certain place. Especially when you are a programmer or similar which allows for telecommuting.

davidw• 11 years ago

In some ways, it's better to at least be cheap: Italy, where I (an American) am is not cheap any more, but it still doesn't pay well, so you feel kind of trapped in the middle.

pjmlp3• 11 years ago

Yes, sadly I have to agree with you.

I am living abroad since the first .com crash.

fmsf• 11 years ago

I am a software engineer and I no longer have friends in the city where I grew up (Coimbra), I would say that 90% of my friends are off the country working somewhere else (mainly UK and DE). Unless you want to work at a sweatshop consulting company, or a service provider, Lisbon is not the place to go.

CrLf• 11 years ago

Tech people are moving elsewhere in Europe not because there are no interesting jobs but because the euro crisis has made them into easy picking for international tech companies. Faced with uncertainty there are few who resist the lure of higher wages (even when that comes with higher cost of living).

There are, in fact, interesting things to do and interesting companies to work for in Lisbon. We even have startups working out of old derelict factories, so you don't even have to go abroad for that true hipster feel.

dharma1• 11 years ago

I don't think working for a Portuguese company is a good idea but I have a few software engineer friends (Portuguese and British) living in Lisbon working remotely.

It's a wonderful place to live if you can do remote work.

pmcpinto6• 11 years ago

The country is in this situation partly because a lot of portuguese people are like this fellow user. Only complain about the negative stuff instead of focusing in the positive parts of Portugal.

glaberficken7• 11 years ago

The country is in this situation partly because a lot of portuguese people are like this fellow user. Prefer to merrily bury their head in the sand instead of acting on the dramatic reality developing around them.

staz• 11 years ago

Mons, European Capital of Culture for 2015, would like a word with you ...(just kidding)

lutoma• 11 years ago

tl;dr: American goes to Portugal without knowing anything about it, realizes there's actually interesting stuff and culture in Lisbon, thinks that means it's a super special city or something.

marcusgarvey• 11 years ago

Well it is super special to be both affordable to live in and have the kind of culture and community that would appeal to young cosmopolitan people. It's not very easy to find this combo these days.

glaberficken7• 11 years ago

Lisbon is not affordable to live in for the locals . I make 800 EUR a month in a Business Intelligence role at a growing multinational company in Lisbon. My rent for a 1 bedroom flat in a very modest part of the inner suburbs comes out at 380 EUR.

Combine that with an unemployed wife and you have a pretty standard picture of what the average young couple with 1 child is faced with here. (not to speak about the thousands educated and younger than me who are being forced out of the country because they can't afford to start a family or even leave their parent's houses)

Just for comparison I lived for 5 years in London UK, made 3000 EUR a month and could save enough to travel frequently . While renting a 2 bedroom house with a small garden.

glaberficken7• 11 years ago

Agree, the article says more about the writer than about the city.

nols• 11 years ago

It's a nice article, and it certainly makes me want to visit; but it seems like a stretch to call Lisbon Europe's new culture capital, especially when it's "virtually unknown" like the author says.

glaberficken7• 11 years ago

36 year old long time HN lurker, born and raised in Lisbon.

Lisbon in some sense is like a tourism start-up. The number of visitors has exploded in the past few years and like other mass tourism capitals in Europe (ie: Barcelona) the flood of tourism is bringing with it a loss of identity.

Eventually, like most successful start-ups its culture will be ruined by its own success.

Regarding the low-cost aspect, it's purely related to the low salaries that derive from the way we were fucked over on the Euro deal. Simple as that.

gnclmorais4• 11 years ago

Stop blaming the Euro… It was not its fault. We are just awful at managing money we lack a strong moral sense. Simple as that.

glaberficken7• 11 years ago

Have you ever tried researching the factual rational counter-arguments to that idea?

I think you owe yourself that, because repeating what you hear on the news is not going to make you a better [+edit] informed [/edit] citizen any time soon.

You can start here for example: http://esquerdaalternativa.bloco.org/documentos/18-a-chantag...

gavinsan• 11 years ago

We had the lowest wages before entering the Euro. And we lowered the Escudo value to compensate the weak economy. Blaming the Euro is a lame excuse.

smackay• 11 years ago

The best of both worlds is living in Lisbon while working remote for at least a European company and even better an American one. Since I arrived here in 2004 I've worked for British, French and now Swiss-based companies. I have only worked for one Portuguese company (the somewhat well-known one from Coimbra) and I'd never do it again.

fmsf's comment about the sweatshop environment is accurate, but only because the skills of Portuguese management are spectacularly bad. All management decisions are based on a single variable: cost and cheaper always means better. Having said that there are some spectacularly awesome, world-class, engineers here.

If there was more money floating around, Lisbon would be an awesome center for startups (there are quite a few already) - great beaches, decent night-life, plenty of culture and awesome weather (though a little too warm for my tastes).

rmvt3• 11 years ago

well, i moved recently to london (from porto) and, tbh, i'd love to know that i could have the opportunity to work remotely from portugal... (how do you people find these jobs??)

i've seen bad and good management. i've been under bad management from german managers as well, whilst in portugal, and i've been under bad management here. let's cut the crap, it's not only in portugal that you find bad managers. you find them EVERYWHERE. they do thrive especially well in portugal due to the weak economy. people put up with crap that they wouldn't otherwise.

i would just add that anyone could say just about the same things about porto. probably with the advantage of the city being a bit more cheap/less expensive than lisboa.

gnclmorais4• 11 years ago

https://weworkremotely.com is a good start to find remote jobs. http://careers.stackoverflow.com as well.

I worked in London for one year and I prefer working there. Waaaay more stuff to do in London, and you have a lot of great developers over there.

mping• 11 years ago

Instead of reading and jumping to conclusions, come here and take a look. I'm gonna borrow some french and say there's a certain je ne sais quois in Lisbon. If any HN'ers want to come here and visit, I'll be happy to show you around. Lisbon really shines, specially in the summer

Oh, and if you want to hire tech people, we have some good people over here who are wasting talent on sweatshops and the like.

pmcpinto6• 11 years ago

Is not even spring and Lisbon is already shining. More than 23C of temperature today ;)

hiringcat2• 11 years ago

Lisboa? Really? Even the chap who tried to pick my pocket last time I visited there asked me how things were in my home country.

We employ a lot of folks from Portugal here, and none seem to miss the employers back there.

patroqueeet• 11 years ago

Hey, I've been working for the Samwers in Berlin, for US based companies and recently in Lisbon. And yes, the vibrations and creativity of the ciy is still unique and not yet overun by hipster crowds. I believe it will stay like that for quite a while because there is no giant rush of international masses to the city to live and work like in berlin. thats good for staying a creative landmark, thats bad for driving business and startups forward. most stuff here is dominated by local people or international enterprises and as long no international strong interest si driving knowledge and skill into the city it won't change.

Lidador• 11 years ago

This is Portugal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4cyNK3BW7Q

Europe’s New Culture Capital Is Lisbon

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