Any city that is developed fully will be polluted,
Mediums,
As far as pollution is concerned, I have been to a lot of "Fully Developed" cities in this world. Outside of cities in Mainland China, Hong Kong is one of the most polluted I've been to as far as air quality is concerned. Sydney - beautiful fresh air. Rome - Fantastic. Moscow - COLD, but still much cleaner than Hong Kong. Seoul - Better. Taipei, mmm now you're getting close. Again, as was pointed out before, this post was mainly directed to westerners because they come from much cleaner, organized and efficient places.
we chose to move here for the oppurtnuties that this city provides you not saying there werent oppurtunities back there but the pay and benefits are nothing even close.
As far as opportunity is concerned, how do you define opportunity? If an increase in pay and benefits put you in a smaller house, with greater pollution, how is that an opportunity? Also, if you came for opportunity, why would you be so willing to take low pay? I don't fully understand your logic.
Because I am humble enough and know that if it means it puts a few more extra meals on my family's table then why not?
Because that isn't enough to also pay for your kids education, or the occasional trip to Disney, and keeps you from building the wealth necessary to handle life after retirement. That's why not. I'd really like to see your budget.
If you are willing to make sacrifices and can cut costs to save up for a year or two live through hell... You can and will make it. The down payment is 10% on property and if you cant make that with CX pay then manage your money better, learn to adapt.
I did make plenty of sacrifices. I shared a flat for the first year. my wife lived out of the country so we could save money. I missed a large part of the first year of my child's life because we were apart. I have sacrificed plenty. Again, my finances ARE in order. We were able to purchase a place before the new 15% stamp duty law came out. We count ourselves lucky in this respect, but most of our friends and course mates were not so lucky. They are finding themselves in a real bind where they cannot afford to purchase anything for at least 7 years. Prices may very well double by then. Anyone joining now will be completely out of luck as far as buying a *decent* place to live is concerned.