I&#x27;m a Gen Y living in Sydney - I&#x27;ve been planning to leave for a while  because of the adverse conditions for young people here. Rent is very high, everything is expensive, you get fines all the time for silly stuff like parking your car facing the &#x27;wrong&#x27; way, staying in a parking spot for 10 minutes too long or not waiting for a full &#x27;3 seconds&#x27; at a stop sign, etc... Also, in some parks, you can get fined for having a picnic without a permit. I had to pay a $300 traffic fine for driving in a &#x27;bus-only lane&#x27; once. It&#x27;s a police state.<p>Also, the tax system is complicated and favours people who own houses (In Australia, you get tax deductions if you lose money on a rental property which you own). There are actually a lot of (older) people in Australia who own like 10+ houses (with 10 mortgages) and rent them out to young people and get huge tax deductions (and capital growth).<p>Older people own everything. To make it worse, the older generation in Australia doesn&#x27;t really want to invest in technology - They prefer just investing their money into real estate (which has been growing an an impressive rate year-over-year for the past 20 years or so).<p>The idea of &#x27;investing in yourself&#x27; is mostly a foreign concept in Australia - The only thing worthwhile investing in is a block of land with bricks and concrete on top.<p>There are many people who dropped out of school, became construction workers and bought a house on a mortgage and are now wealthier than most university-educated students thanks to the insane real-estate growth and labour shortage (due in part to tough immigration laws).<p>Some recent changes in laws suggest that conditions might be improving but it&#x27;s too late for me.<p>I&#x27;m looking forward to living in San Francisco - Yes the rent will also be high; but at least it seems that everything else is cheaper, taxes are lower and it&#x27;s generally a good place to build a career in technology.