Are there any (livable 🥺) countries that basically allow anyone to become a citizen? Specifically where an English speaker could get by.
Edit: by allowing anyone I mean poor people with no skills.
Are there any (livable 🥺) countries that basically allow anyone to become a citizen? Specifically where an English speaker could get by.
Edit: by allowing anyone I mean poor people with no skills.
Well, “liveable” is going to be somewhat-subjective.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_border
That’s not citizenship, but it’s living and working there without restriction, which is probably about as good as someone’s going to get in the present day. But it’s probably colder than most people would like.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard
EDIT: And income looks pretty solid, even by Western standards:
Converting to 2006 USD and then rolling forward inflation to December 2023, that’d be ~$110,463.54/year.
But part of the reason that they’re gonna be paying that is because the people living there are gonna have to be living in polar twilight for a hefty chunk of the year.
Most remote areas also have a lot higher cost of living since most things need to be shipped into the extreme environment.
That’s a good point. I know that in the US, pretty much everything costs more in Hawaii. Though…hmm. I’d bet that a big chunk of that might be the Jones Act, which requires any shipping from a US port to a US port without intermediate stops abroad to be done on a US-flagged ship with American crewmen, which is quite expensive. Net result, as I understand it, is that a lot of shipping between US destinations will do an intermediate stop at a port abroad. That works for, say, the Caribbean. But there isn’t any non-US territory anywhere near Hawaii, so a shipper won’t be able to readily use that approach.
googles
Yeah, it sounds like it’s a factor and a bit of a touchy point for Hawaii.
https://www.grassrootinstitute.org/jonesact/
So I dunno if it’d be as bad for Svalbard.
Also, Svalbard’s gonna be cold – even if it’s warmer than places at a similar latitude, it’s still in the Arctic – so heating costs will be higher there than most other places that people live.
I follow a youtuber who lives there, and Svalbard is really pricey. Food and anything else consumer goods wise as anything has to be flown in or paid to ship via freight ship. Also, housing is extremely limited, and it’s hard to find without a job already secured, which may or may not be easy to get depending on who is looking
What kind of jobs do people work up there? What kind of jobs pay $110,000 in Svalbard?
Yeah but do they have highspeed internet?
When it isn’t being cut, they have submarine cables to Norway.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard_Undersea_Cable_System
There’s apparently 5G service:
https://www.lifeinnorway.net/5g-norway/
I don’t know whether Starlink orbital paths can cover that far north.
googles
Apparently so, and they started service about five months ago.
https://satprnews.com/2023/07/09/starlink-launches-in-svalbard-a-new-era-of-internet-connectivity-in-the-arctic/
Hmm. Though that being said, global warming will cause glaciers to retreat, so it’ll probably be more-ice-free in the future than it is now.
googles
And it looks like Svalbard, in particular, is warming up quickly.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63387233
Well, everything is terrible when you subject it to the realities of our modern world. Just turn off that part of your mind for a few moments and enjoy the idea.
I’d guess that warming is probably long-term advantageous in terms of human habitation of Svalbard. We’re not really glacier-dwelling critters. Probably sucks if you’re a polar bear, but…
Also, in general, if you have legal residence long-term in a country, most countries do permit a route to obtain citizenship. Norway does appear to do this too (though it’s not a guaranteed right, and you need to learn Norwegian as part of that process). Thing is, I don’t know whether legal residence in Svalbard – which is a Norwegian territory, but not part of Norway proper – counts as legal residence in Norway for naturalization purposes, and I could very much believe that that is not the case.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_nationality_law
Thinking of an analog, I know that in the US, American Samoa is unusual in that while it is a US territory, American Samoa wanted to run their own immigration policy (because there are people in (non-American) Samoa who they wanted to be able to move in). Both the US and American Samoa were willing for American Samoa to be a US territory, but the US wasn’t willing to have American Samoa just be a back door to general entry to the US if they had different immigration policy. Normally, in an American territory – like Puerto Rico, say – the residents are American citizens. However, because of this independent immigration policy that American Samoa runs, based on the arrangement that the US and American Samoa worked out, American Samoans are not actually American citizens – they are American nationals. While generally they can live and work in the rest of the US, just the fact that American Samoa is okay with someone moving to American Samoa and has the right to let people in as they choose doesn’t necessarily mean that the same person can use that status to just bounce from there to legal status in the rest of the US.
It wouldn’t surprise me if Norway has similar restrictions on people bouncing via legal residence in Svalbard to broader Norway, because the situations are somewhat-similar.
EDIT: Yup.
https://www.lifeinnorway.net/living-on-svalbard/
Iirc, if you die there, your body has to be evacuated to somewhere else.
googles
Apparently, they don’t let people be buried there anymore, because it’s all permafrost, so the bodies don’t decay. This says that they sometimes permit people to be cremated and have their ashes kept in the graveyard there.
https://www.iflscience.com/it-is-against-the-law-to-die-in-this-town-for-very-good-reason-46724
I plan to visit Svalbard. Avoiding the spanish flu was missing from my checklist, though. I guess no digging up unmarked graves for me… :D
They don’t say it, but reading further, apparently there are polar bears up there that have sporadically attacked humans. If you leave town, you apparently normally go armed:
https://www.sysselmesteren.no/en/weapon/
Given that, my guess is that another factor might be that Svalbard’s polar bears might be interested in digging up non-cremated human corpses.
Well, I now know more about Svalbard than I thought possible, just from reading this whole thread. Thank you for your service 😅
If you are really interested, Cecelia Blomdhal (spelling may be slightly off) is a youtuber who lives there and shares all kinds of interesting stuff and gorgeous scenery. You can visit without having to brave the cold and polar bears that way
searches
https://www.youtube.com/@CeciliaBlomdahl
skims
I’m not really into her style, but she does have a lot of footage of the landscapes and the kinds of buildings they have and stuff.
I’m kind of surprised that her house has so much glass in it – I kind of expected houses in the Arctic to have a lot of thick wall – but I guess if you get fancy-enough windows, you can probably get decent insulation.
googles
https://glawindows.com/triple-pane-window-r-value/
It looks like new exterior walls in the colder parts of the US use R10 insulation (in addition to the siding itself and drywall, which I’d guess doesn’t contribute much):
https://www.energystar.gov/saveathome/seal_insulate/identify_problems_you_want_fix/diy_checks_inspections/insulation_r_values
…so in theory, if you have really high-end triple-glazed, exotic-gas-filled windows, they can insulate about as well as a wall.
Cool, I’ll check out her channel