Life for your average Joe: which city is better?

Hi guys, I hope you're having a nice festive break! One of the main reasons why I love blogging is because of the intelligent responses I get from my wonderful readers. Allow me to begin this story back in Tallinn, Estonian where I was last week: I was in a Bolt (the local equivalent of Uber or Grab) when I started chatting with my driver who got curious as to where I am, I told him that I was from Singapore originally but had spent the last 22 years in London. The response surprised my driver, who told me that whilst he had never been to Singapore, he has read many articles on the internet and viewed many videos on Youtube praising Singapore as this amazing miracle city of Asia where there are so many rich people, so why would I give that up for London? I then gave a cynical response: I said the only thing that mattered was whether or not you had money. If you're a rich man, then you would have a good life whether you're in Tallinn, Singapore or London. But if you're a poor man unable to make ends meet, then your life is going to suck no matter where you live in the world. I then repeated myself in Russian (as he was a Russian speaker) just to make doubly sure that he understood me and he simply replied, "Да, конечно." (Yes, of course.) Perhaps I was stating the obvious, but my reader Sandra pointed out the following when I raised that incident here on my blog. Allow me to cut and paste her reply below.

"When your Estonian friend (well, he was actually my Bolt driver) was asking whether London or Singapore was better, he would have known that a rich person would have a good life in either country. Using the same logic, you would have a pretty good life in Saudi Arabia if you are a Saudi prince or a very rich man (but no one I know wants to live in Saudi Arabia regardless). What he probably wants to know was whether London or Singapore was a better country for the average Joe; however this also depends on your definition of 'better' i.e. if your idea of success is driving around in a big car and living in a freehold house with a garden, London is obviously better for the average Joe because there are parts of greater London where you can buy a house for the same price as a flat in zone 1-3. And of course cars are cheaper, you could have 2-3 cars which is not attainable in Singapore unless you are a multimillionaire. But if you are happy with apartment living and just want to own a home (HDB is generally much cheaper than buying a flat in London), maybe Singapore could be better for you. London is much more vibrant than Singapore but conversely Singapore is much safer. You could live anywhere in Singapore and it would be safe but the same cannot be said about London *gulp* south London. People do find it interesting to compare where they live i.e. Singaporeans are always interested to know my work hours in London. Singapore might be a good place to live for a rich person but I guarantee you that the rich person in Singapore (doctor, lawyer, banker etc) would be working longer hours than his or her counterpart in London. So if someone prioritizes sleep, I would say London is more suitable and would provide better quality of living over Singapore."

A massive thank you to Sandra for that brilliant summary - indeed, I had missed an opportunity to compare the cost of living in Singapore vs London with my Estonian driver, I had instead dodged the question like a politician. So in this post, I shall compare various important aspects of life for your average Joe in these cities and just for the hell of it, I'll throw in Tallinn for comparison as well since the original question was raised by an Estonian. Let's imagine we have three guys, all by the name of Joe living in London, Singapore and Tallinn: Joe in London is an Uber driver, Joe in Singapore is a Grab driver whilst Joe in Tallin is a Bolt driver. Same jobs, different cities but which would offer Joe would enjoy the highest quality of life? I will run through eight categories that will fundamentally affect the quality of life for our three Joes.

Q1: What kind of housing can your average Joe expect? What is the housing situation like for a taxi driver like Joe?

London: The housing situation is not too bad in London but not great either. Like most major cities, central London is notoriously expensive when it comes to housing, so young people are forced out into distant suburbs where rent drops dramatically. My friend Eliza who commutes in from Northampton to her office in London, but that means waking up at 6 in the morning for a journey that is about 1.5 to 2 hours to the office in central London which isn't too bad, given she gets a seat on the way in but if she wants to get home after she leaves the office, she usually has to stand for much of the way in the evening. Furthermore, any savings Eliza made in paying less rent is offset by the rather expensive train tickets - but if she wants to get on the property ladder, well she has little choice. There's just no way she can afford to buy anything in central London on her modest salary, but property in Northampton is far more affordable. Young people are thus stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea here: either they have super long commutes like Eliza, or they spend a big proportion of their salaries on rent in central London. But at least people like Eliza do have options to make things work and she is willing to make the sacrifices to do so, unlike the young people in Singapore who have far fewer options.

Singapore: The housing situation is far worse in Singapore because of its geography. Just like London and any other major city, housing is expensive because of the high population density - Singapore is a small island with 5.8 million people fighting for space, so property prices are extremely high compared to less densely populated cities. Eliza has the option to commute in from Northampton which is approximately 100 km - the equivalent of that from Singapore would be the town of Ayer Hitam in Johor, Malaysia. Whilst property in Ayer Hitam is certainly a lot cheaper, the possibility of commuting in from Ayer Hitam to Singapore simply isn't there given that it would take far longer having to cross the border everyday and you would require some kind of residency permit to purchase property in Ayer Hitam. The Malaysian government certainly would be wary of these towns in Johor having their property prices driven up by desperate Singaporeans trying to get on the property ladder, squeezing Johor locals out of the market - so that's just not possible. Instead, Singaporeans just end up living with their parents as adults, way into their 20s, 30s and 40s if they are unable to become rich enough to get on the property ladder. Culturally, this has become the norm so it somewhat masks the problem - nobody in Singapore would bat an eyelid if a man in his 30s was living with his parents but in the UK, people would be like, what's wrong? Are you unemployed or really that poor? Why are you still living with your parents?

Tallinn: Actually the clear winner in this category is Tallinn because the population density of both Tallinn (the capital city) and the entire country of Estonia is extremely low compared to both London and Singapore. The population density of greater London is 5,625 people per km², in Singapore it is 8,055 people per km² but for the metropolitan area of Tallinn it is just 2,515 people per km² and that figure falls dramatically to 28.7 people per km² for the country of Estonia. One of my colleagues told me that her parents have bought a cottage in the countryside which they use once in a while when they feel like escaping the city. She then added, "but these cottages costs so little, because the countryside is empty - we're a very sparsely populated country, so much land, so few people, so you can pick up a holiday cottage in the countryside for very little money". Furthermore, Estonia has a very modern and fast railway system, so the equivalent of Eliza's commute from Northampton to London (100 km) would be the town of Rakvere to Tallinn - in Rakvere, a two bedroom house with a garden starts from just around €11,000 (£9,345 or S$16,590). At those prices, even a Bolt driver can afford a very nice house in a place like Rakvere! Even in Tallinn city, an apartment starts from about €20,000 in some of the older Soviet era blocks but once you go beyond the €50,000 mark, you can then buy far nicer apartments in newer buildings. By the time your budget reaches €90,000, you can then afford to look at a nice house with a garden still within Tallinn city limits.

The winner in the housing category: Tallinn, by a long way. (+1)
The loser in the housing category: Singapore (-1)

You know the saying, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence? The ironic thing was that my Bolt driver was already living in the city that best suited his needs as an 'average Joe' on a modest income. Yet somehow, my Estonian driver was under the impression he might be better off in a much bigger city like London or Singapore. Given how very cheap housing is in Tallinn, he probably can afford to buy his own apartment or house even on his modest salary. If he was an Uber driver in London, he would see a lot of his earnings going on rent and likewise if he was a Grab driver in Singapore, he would be stuck living with his parents indefinitely. Tallinn is the kind of place where an average Joe can do a job like that and still get on the property ladder whilst having enough money to have a pretty decent life.

Q2: What kind of pay can your average Joe get for a modest kind of job like driving a taxi? We're not talking about geniuses who are the top 1% of the cohort, are our average Joes able to make a decent living driving a taxi? Furthermore, we're not talking about the actual amount of money they earn, but what they can buy with what they earn.

London: There's no doubt that London is the land of opportunity if you want to reach for the sky, but what about your average Joe who is never going to become the hot show lawyer or the celebrity actor in London? Well, interestingly enough, I did write a blog post earlier this year about my friend John who is probably in that category - he isn't a graduate, he moved to London many years ago and did a number of jobs in retail. So imagine if you're shopping in London and you asked the shop assistant the price of something you liked that you saw in the display window, yeah John would be the guy who would be helping you out in that situation. I'm afraid people like John simply don't earn that much money in a place like London - I'm sorry to be harsh but it is true. Furthermore, the problem is compounded by the fact that London is an expensive city: we've already looked at the housing situation, practically all other aspects of life in London are expensive too. People like Joe have a painful choice: if they work about 30 to 35 hours a week, they simply don't earn enough and they will be very poor - if they want a decent living, they end up driving for over 50, 60 even 70 hours a week. So the same can be said for anyone from shop assistants to waiters who are paid by the hour in London. So I'm afraid London really sucks when it comes to your average Joe, he will constantly be looking at the rich people living a kind of lifestyle that he would never be able to afford on his rather modest income (which will mostly go on rent).

Singapore: Singapore shares many similarities with London in this aspect: the rich in Singapore will shop in places like Marina Bay Sands and dine in the fine restaurants there whilst the working class average Joe will shop in Ang Mo Kio central whilst eating in the hawker centers there. Now I know a lot of Singaporeans may think, hey come on, that's exactly what I do and there's nothing wrong with that - if you're very happy doing that, then congratulations, not enough people in the world are happy and I'm glad you're content with your life. But if you want to something that requires a lot of money, say if your son gets married and he wants to get on the property ladder, your average Joe isn't going to have enough money to help his son with that - the only thing he could do is to point his son towards the waiting list for the next available batch of HDB flats and provide free housing for his son in the meantime. Unlike London and Tallinn, there's absolutely no help for those who are on low income -  in the UK, poor people who are struggling to make ends meet get far more help from the government from housing benefit (ie. the government helps pay part of your rent) to free meals at school for your kids if you can't afford to pay for their lunches. I'm not saying that there's zero help for people in such situations in Singapore, but there's much less than in the UK or Estonia. Add to that the massive influx of foreign talents from China to India to Myanmar in Singapore, then it is a pretty grim situation for Singaporean Joe, plus the total absence of any kind of safety net is what makes this situation in Singapore a lot more precarious for your average Joe.

Tallinn: Wages in Tallinn are the lowest when you compare the three cities, but then again, the cost of living there is also the lowest. So this does restrict the things that the local Estonians can do - so if average Joe wants to send his daughter to a top university like Harvard in America, then he simply would not be able to find the money to do so and hope that she can win a scholarship instead. But if he is trying to put his daughter through a local Estonian university, then suddenly that becomes extremely affordable because the tuition fees at Estonian universities are very cheap - this is because the government is determined to invest in education, to create a highly educated and highly skilled work force to make the Estonian economy very robust in the long run. However, if your average Joe in Tallinn is looking to spend his money locally rather than try to take long holidays in America, then his somewhat salary is going to go much further compared to his 'average Joe' counterparts in London and Singapore. Housing is super cheap in Estonia and that's the one thing we can't do without - we all need somewhere to live. So if Estonian Joe is spending far less on housing compared to his counterparts in London or Singapore, he would have far more money to spend on other things like leisure activities or food (which are all also pretty darn cheap in Estonia as well). The only time he is going to feel relatively poor is when he leaves Estonia and goes on holiday to London and Singapore - but that is just for a few days!

The winner in the wages category: Tallinn (+1)
The loser in the wages category: Singapore and London (-0.5)

Again, Estonian Joe comes out tops again when you take into account just what he can buy with his salary in a place like Tallinn - clearly, even though his wages are somewhat lower, his money goes a lot further because of the stunningly low cost of living there. I had a tough time deciding between who was worse off, Londoner Joe or Singaporean Joe - but in the end, it boiled down to the lack of a safety net in Singapore plus the massive influx of foreign workers in Singapore competing with locals for the same jobs, but between Singapore and London, it is hard to pick a loser so it is hence a tie.

Q3: What about education? What kind of education would our Mr average Joe have had growing up in his respective countries? And if our average Joe has a daughter, in which country would her educational needs be best served then?

London: Oh England, people think of Oxford, Cambridge and many other fine universities when they think about English education. Well wake up and smell the coffee, that's not for ordinary folks like your average Joe. If average Joe was Oxford/Cambridge material, then he would be super Joe, not average Joe! I'm afraid the education system in the UK tends to serve the top end extremely well, but for your average Joes, oh it is a completely different story. The average tuition fees for a degree course is about £9,000 a year for local students and that is just the tuition fees - it doesn't include everything else you need to pay for from housing to food to books to utility bills to clothes. A degree is useful if you can get into one of the top universities in the country to prove that you're indeed extraordinary and not average - but if average Joe has average grades that can at best get him into one of the universities in the middle of the league tables, I'm afraid the net benefit of a degree at one of these mediocre universities wouldn't justify the cost and that is why many average Joes in the UK do not bother with a degree and directly enter the workforce as they simply do not see the benefit of getting an expensive degree. As for Joe's daughter, either you can send your child to the local state-funded school and it doesn't cost much, but the quality of the education is often low to average and your child's classmates would be other poor kids. Rich parents would send their kids to expensive private schools like Eton and Charterhouse (which just to confuse you, are called public schools in the UK but they're anything but "public", au contraire they are very exclusive). As Joe's daughter wouldn't get a good education and thus she wouldn't get a good job. #socialmobility

Singapore: Is the situation in Singapore any better for Singaporean Joe? Well the circumstances are certainly different: what are the prospects of your average Joe from a neighbourhood secondary school who would not have the grades to get into a good course at NUS? Actually, the answer to that question depends a lot on Joe's parents. Singaporean Joe would be a lot better off if his parents had the money to pay for more unusual options - so for example, Joe can't get into NUS but there's a course doing artificial intelligence and robotics in a university in America and let's say Joe can get into the course: whether or not that option is actually open to him depends on how rich his parents are. If his parents are not rich, then Joe would be doomed to a life of low-paid work in a highly competitive society. Just like in the UK, the education system in Singapore serves the kids who fit the model of the ideal straight-A Asian student but little consideration is given to the average Joes who get very average grades and end up in neighbourhood secondary schools and instead of devising more practical career paths for people like Joe, they are shamed and blamed for simply being lazy, for letting down their parents, for not studying hard enough and the onus is then put on the parents to get private tuition to turn average Joe into scholar Joe. That's completely unrealistic of course, so the outlook for average Joe is awfully grim not, so much because of the education system but more because of the Asian culture in Singapore.

Tallinn: Estonia is a very young country - it was a part of the Soviet Union right until 1991. Since then, it has undergone a period of transition to become fully integrated into the European Union today. Some of those ex-USSR countries like Georgia are still very poor today, but not Estonia - the three Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are the three richest former USSR countries where their citizens enjoy a standard of living on par with any Western European country. The government investing very heavily in education is part of the reason why Estonia has a highly literate, highly skilled work force: three universities and 19 further education specialist institutions for just 1.3 million people and Estonian further education is heavily subsidized! But Estonian cities like Tallinn and Tartu simply don't have enough graduate-jobs for this new generation of highly education young Estonian graduates who have much higher expectations about what they want to achieve in their careers, so many have left the country altogether. It is not like the Estonian education system has any special, panacea for the average Joe in Estonia, but the one massive advantage Estonian Joe has is that he doesn't have to face a lot of foreign competition for the lower-paid jobs like driving a taxi or working in a fast food restaurant. Heck, the young lady who worked as the cashier in the health spa at my hotel in Tallinn spoke four languages fluently: Estonian, Russian, Finnish and English and she can't be paid that much doing that kind of job. In London, she would be considered a linguistic genius but in Tallinn, she was just plain average. So if intelligent and multi-lingual people like her are doing these kinds of jobs, then how is our average Estonian Joe going to compete with someone like her?

The winner in the education category: Tallinn +1
The loser in the education category: London -1

Actually there wasn't a clear winner in this category at all, none of the countries presented a clear model of how to provide for people who are simply average; Singapore and London are the kinds of places where the elite and high achievers are celebrated whilst those who are average are condemned for being lazy and stupid. I don't get a sense of that harshness when it comes to Estonian society - but then again, perhaps I'm not the best judge of Estonia as I've not lived there yet; I've been there a number of times over the years and have many Estonian colleagues. The culture that has emerged in the post-Soviet era is one that resembles Finland and Sweden, this Nordic confidence combined with a more laid back, relaxed attitude towards life. Estonian kids certainly aren't bludgeoned through the education system the way Singaporean kids are. Furthermore, remember the slate has been wiped clean relatively recently in 1991 after the break with the Soviet Union, that allowed Estonia to hit the reset button at that stage and decide what kind of modern education system they want once they ditched the old Soviet system. Thus Estonians still have this sense of "anything is possible", this sense of optimism and faith in their future, that the future of Estonia is bright as they have seen a incredible improvement in their living standards since 1991. This was all within my lifetime, so what the key thing that they have in Estonia that your London Joe wouldn't have is that optimism. hope and confidence that they will have a better life if they work hard. I've already talked about how messed up the UK is in a recent post about the 2019 general election - I'm afraid people here in London need more than just help, they need hope and the loser here in London Joe.

Q4: What about crime & safety?  What are the chances of Joe and his family being a victim of crime?

London: This is a massive city which has some very safe areas and some very unsafe areas. Of course there's a direct correlation between how rich you and how safe your neighbourhood is - naturally, rich people will choose to live in nicer and safer neighbourhoods whilst I'm afraid your average Joe who isn't raking in millions will be forced to live in more unsafe but cheaper neighbourhoods. Crime in a city like London affects the poor far more than the rich, having enough money can protect you from a lot of the crime in London. Here's an example: if you have to leave the office or a party very late at night, a rich man would simply take a taxi (or Uber) all the way to his front door. However, average Joe might find that to be extremely expensive and so he would then take his chances on public transport - that may mean a long walk from the bus stop down a deserted street in the middle of the night, making him vulnerable to be a victim of crime. I have already written about the issue of the link between crime and poverty on my blog before, it is a very complex issue.

Singapore: Singapore is one of the safest cities in the world, I'm not saying there's no crime (I was once the victim of a pickpocket when I was a teenager and I've had various things stolen from me in the army camp and at school), but otherwise Singapore is a lot safer than London, but how does it compare to Tallinn another city with very low crime rates?

Tallinn: Again, like Singapore, Tallinn is extremely safe. There is a problem with petty crime where criminal gangs target tourists in the old town: so as usual, you have to be careful with your wallet and phones because of the presence of pickpockets but any kind of violent crime is extremely rare. However, for your Estonian Joe, really it depends on where he lives and there are some run down, poorer neighbourhoods which are characterized by Soviet-era grim-looking apartment blocks where there could be some problems associated with crime. Like London, some neighbourhoods are safer than others but you would really have to be really penniless to be stuck in the very worst neighbourhoods in Tallinn.

Winner in the category of crime: Singapore, not perfect but in this comparison, Singapore is the winner. +1)
Loser in the category of crime: London, because London Joe would be living in a poorer neighbourhood. (-1)

Q5: What about Joe's average working hours then? How long would Joe typically have to work to make ends meet?

London: Working hours for your average Joe are pretty average, we're talking between 35 to 40 hours a week but that could involve shift work as well. So my friend John who used to work in a shop would either have the early shift which would involve a very early start, as he would have to arrive before the shop opened for business to get everything ready but then he would be able to finish in the early afternoon; or he would have to do the late shift, which meant a late start but he would have to stay back and clean up after the shop closed for the night. Thankfully, John wasn't expected to work from the first thing in the morning to the last night at night - no, that would be cruel but when I was in Fez recently, that was the kind of work culture that was totally normal in a much poorer country like Morocco. If you're working in the private sector or if you're self-employed, there's nothing to stop you from working more than 40 hours a week and some employers will gladly let you take on more shifts if you wish to earn more money, say if you are a waiter at a restaurant. But typically, even average Joe in London would enjoy a reasonably good work-life balance, mostly because (as mentioned previously) there is plenty of help from the government to help those on low-income. People often think of unemployment benefits when it comes to the welfare state here in the UK, but there is in fact plenty of help for those on low-income because the UK government wants to reward those people who are doing these low-paid jobs in our society.

Singapore:  Singaporeans work much longer hours than their counterparts in Europe but it comes to people who are self-employed, they have more control over their working hours. You may think, great, that means our Grab driver Joe in Singapore can work 30, even 25 hours a week like his counterparts in the West - quite unlike someone in my sister who has a boss who gives her such a huge workload that results in a 80 hour working week, right? Well, here's a thread on Reddit that gives you a pretty good idea about how much a Grab driver in Singapore can earn: the fact is those who are determined to make money will drive like 12, even 13 hours a day, 7 days a week and even after they deduct their costs (commission to grab, rental of the car, petrol, parking) they can make pretty good money. But imagine spending practically every waking hour in your car, having no social life, hardly any time with your family, no time to just chill or even have a lie in every now and then. The only way to make several thousand dollars a month this way is by putting in the insane hours which will add up to over 80, even 90 hours a week of driving and sorry to state the obvious, that's no fun, spending that many hours a week driving with few breaks. But as one Reddit contributor wrote, her father who is a Grab driver was a dropout and has no formal qualifications and this is one of the few ways he can make up to S$8,000 a month to support his family despite being poor educated. Mind you, S$8,000 a month is pretty respectable by Singaporean standards. But if you drove part time for just like 20 to 30 hours a week, your hard costs would eat into your profits: thus this is why once Grab drivers decide to go down this route, they work long hours to off set those hard costs.

Tallinn: To understand the attitude Estonians have towards working hours, you have to look at the history of Estonia as it was once part of the USSR. Back in the Soviet days, people weren't productive at all and your pay was determined by the state, there was little or no incentive to try to prove yourself by working harder if there's no way to earn more money under a socialist system. So people merely did the bare minimum and went home the moment it was time to finish work - this system persisted right until 1991 when the USSR broke up and Estonia gained her independence. So whilst that system is long gone, that mindset is still there with some Estonian people, particularly the older ones who grew up under communism - they would do the minimum amount of work, earn enough money to get by rather than be inspired to "get rich or die trying" mantra by embracing capitalism. But generally, working hours there are even shorter than the UK. Of course, we can't treat all Bolt drivers like a monolithic entity - some of the older ones will do the bear minimum and simply get by, live in a cheap Soviet era old apartment and have a far more relaxed lifestyle Other younger ones may do what many Grab drivers in Singapore do: they will work for very long hours in order to maximize their earnings. But of course, this is a ultimately personal choice and as a self-employed Bolt driver, it is up to the individual to decide how many hours they wish to work a week: those who choose to work longer hours are obviously financially rewarded for doing so, whilst those who choose to work shorter hours are rewarded with more sleep and/or leisure time with their friends and family.

The winner in the working hours category: Tallinn and London (+0.5 each)
The loser in the working hours category: Singapore (-1)

I had a hard time picking the winner between Tallinn and London because there are benefits to both systems: the UK welfare system does give a lot of help to low-income families and if you're an Uber driver struggling to make ends meet, well at least there is help available from the government so you're not forced to work 80 hours a week. The Estonian Bolt drivers receive far less help from their government but there's still something about the Soviet-mentality (particularly amongst older Estonians today) that keeps working hours short in these former Soviet states. Of course, the clear loser is Singapore, because the working hours there are just so much longer and that's part of the culture. It is crazy that some full time students are driving Grab to make ends meet and putting in as much as 30 hours a week driving on top of being a full time student - that's more hours than I work a week and I'm the middle aged man in London with a full time job in finance, good grief. Unfortunately in this case, sleep is often sacrificed and that does affect your health and quality of life.

Q6: Let's talk about healthcare - what will happen to Joe if he was struck down with cancer?

London: We have the NHS - well at least for now, no it isn't perfect, I'm not happy with the way the current government is running it, but for what it is worth, the NHS would provide Joe free medical care including cancer treatments if he were to get a cancer diagnosis. Yes cancer treatment does cost a lot, but the UK taxpayer will foot the bill, not the cancer patient - this is the British system. Of course we are still indirectly paying for it through the tax system and as long as you're a tax payer, part of your taxes are used for for healthcare in general. Nothing is for free of course, somebody (ie. the taxpayer) has to pay for the hospitals but at least our Joe in London wouldn't have to worry about paying for his cancer treatment.

Singapore: I had to do some research into what is covered by MediShield and MediSave and unfortunately, what I found was disturbing. Cancer patients are expected to use their MediShield and MediSave in the first instance to cover their treatment costs. If you have other forms of private health insurance, then you can use that too. But hey, Singaporeans have to put their own money into MediShield and MediSave, so that is still making you pay for your own medical bills. It is only when you are really broke, then the government would step in to offer some kind of financial assistance through Medifund and the Medication Assistance Fund - so one does wonder what will happen to our Joe in Singapore, say he is earning a decent amount of money like S$8,000 a month because he works so bloody hard and then he gets cancer, would the system see him as someone who is earning enough money and expect him to cover his own medical bills through MediShield and MediSave? Would Joe have to become too sick from the cancer to work, exhaust his savings before he can get any help from the government? Will Joe's children get any help from the government if that happens? When you get a cancer diagnosis, ideally you want to be able to just focus on getting better, not how you're going to pay all these medical bills. Granted the situation in Singapore isn't as dire as some other countries, but no it is far from ideal.

Estonia: Actually Estonia runs a system that is a mix of the Singapore and the UK systems called the Estonian Health Insurance Fund (Eesti Haigekassa), you can opt to join the EHIF when you live and work in Estonia and it is free for some people (such as children, the disabled, the elderly etc) but if you're a working adult, you're expected to contribute to it through a monthly payment (known as a social security contribution). So a freelancer like a Bolt driver or anyone who is self-employed will pay their social security contributions (the amount will be calculated based on how much you earn) and 13% of that will be allocated into the EHIF. Unemployed Estonians can still access free health care under the EHIF.

The winner in the healthcare category: Tallinn
The loser in the healthcare category: Singapore

I struggled to find a clear winner - none of the systems are perfect and they all have their flaws. However, the one reason that Tallinn emerged as the winner is because it is a very small country which has made massive improvements to its healthcare system in recent years. The concept of the NHS is brilliant but the execution of it is poor and many patients in the UK are faced with long waiting lists. The system in Singapore is flawed because the government expects people to make every last effort to pay their own medical bills before any kind of assistance is given, even in cases where the patient is suffering from terminal cancer. However, the execution of the healthcare system isn't inferior compared to the UK when it comes to patient care so it is not without its merits. But overall, once again, Tallinn is the best - but only just.

Q7: The natural environment and weather: what kind of city are you living in?

London: Whilst we do have four seasons, the winter months are cold, dark and very wet - snow is rare unfortunately and that's a bad thing. Trust me, between beautiful fluffy white snow and pouring rain, you want snow but in London, we get a lot of rain in the winter months. There are parts of central London that are really pretty and that's where the tourists like to visit, making London a very popular tourist destination but in reality, this is a huge city of nearly 9 million people and most of them live in the sprawling suburbs, which are not really that interesting or pretty and that is where Joe will be driving.

Singapore: Call me biased, but the weather in Singapore is too hot. Grab drivers have the benefit of working in an air-conditioned environment by that token. Like London, sure Singapore has some pretty scenic spots which are very popular with the tourists, but most Grab drivers will end up spending more time on expressways plying between the HDB heartlands and the CBD, not exactly the nicest part of Singapore. You'll get to gaze out at identical blocks of HDB flats as you drive up and down those many expressways. Singapore is after all one of the world's most densely populated cities.

Tallinn: Tallinn is one of those cities that actually does have four seasons: winter is a double edged sword. Unlike London, Tallinn tends to get snow in the winter months as the temperatures drop below zero and again, call me biased, I think that's really pretty. Bolt drivers are not working out in the cold but sitting in their cars where they are nice and warm. Tallinn is a much smaller city compared to both London and Singapore - there is an old town and a city center which are right next to each other and really compact, the international airport is only 4 km from the city center! But apart from that, there are sprawling suburbs which are actually very green. This is not so much a matter of urban planning but simply a reflection of the fact that Estonia is very sparsely populated, so there's no real need to build loads of high-rise buildings right next to each other in the suburbs when there's just no shortage of land. Then there are four huge lakes within the city limits and a stunning Baltic coastline, the natural environment and weather are pretty good: again, mostly due to the fact that this isn't a congested city. This also means that Tallinn is unpolluted and pristine, quite unlike London which unfortunately can be rather polluted at times but that is nothing compared to Singapore during the horrific haze season!

The winner in the weather & environment category: Tallinn +1
The loser in the weather & environment category: Singapore -1

Q8: The conditions of the roads and driving experience (an important factor for Joe!)

London: London is not a pleasant city for driving - the problem is that this is a very old city that was built way before motorcars came along, so the streets of central London often contain narrow streets that were built with pedestrians and horses in mind, rather than big trucks. Then you add 9 million people into that city and the traffic that comes with it and you get pretty bad traffic jams at peak hours. This is why most Londoners don't want to drive because of the traffic congestion: we would cycle if the weather is good or use the train/tube instead, anything to avoid the roads. You may think, "oh taxi drivers love traffic jams right? They get to charge more if you're just sitting in traffic for freaking ages." Yeah, that's true even for Uber - they can revise the original charge if you encounter heavy traffic during your journey but that's hardly a pleasant experience even for the driver who may be able to charge you a bit more for it and some Uber drivers may hesitate to do that given that this might piss off the customer who would then give them a rather bad rating.

Singapore: Singapore faces a lot of the same challenges as London because it is a crowded, congested city with 5.8 million people. However, the Singapore government has gone to great lengths to try to limit the number of cars on the crowds through the COE scheme, making cars very expensive to own and thus it is far more economical to use a taxi when you don't want to use a bus or the MRT. Furthermore, given that many of the HDB estates were built in the 1960s through to the 1980s, the conditions and quality of the roads are very much adapted for the modern era, unlike London.

Tallinn: Whilst Tallinn isn't as well planned as Singapore, it does have a major advantage: the much lower population density. The road system is pretty modern, with the government having spent a lot of money on since independence. Traffic jams are just pretty darn rare in Tallinn given that it only happens when there are a lot of cars all wishing to make that same journey at the same time and no there just are not enough people in Tallinn to make that happen all that often.

The winner in the driving experience category: Tallinn (+1)
The loser in the driving experience category: London( -1)

So in conclusion, if we were to put the scores together over all eight categories, the final picture looks like this:

Category	London	Singapore	Tallinn
Housing	0	-1	1
What you can buy with your earnings	-0.5	-0.5	1
Education	-1	0	1
Crime & Safety	-1	1	0
Working hours / work life balance	0.5	-1	0.5
Healthcare	0	-1	1
Environment / weather	0	-1	1
The driving experience	-1	0	1
Total score	-3	-3.5	6.5

At this stage, it does seem like I am a big fan of Tallinn and you may be wondering why I haven't relocated there already, given that my company has essentially shut down my London office and moved most of the vital functions to our huge office in Tallinn. But note that in this article, I was dealing with a very specific question about how good life would be for your average Joe who may be driving a taxi for a living. Most of the categories as discussed above don't affect me: I am rich enough to afford quality housing in an expensive city like London. I earn enough to be able to afford to buy nice things that I like without worrying about how much I have earned this month. I am already a highly skilled and experienced professional in my field, so I am done with my formal education. I am rich enough to be able to live in a rather nice neighbourhood, so crime & safety doesn't concern me as much. I am self-employed, so I get to determine my work life balance. And likewise for healthcare, I have the NHS and if things don't work out, I'm rich enough to get private healthcare. And whilst the weather in London isn't great, I have the money to go traveling - if I want to go skiing in summer, then I can by heading to Chile. And no I don't have a car, I just use public transport or taxis/Uber if necessary. So actually, I stand by my original answer I gave to my Bolt driver in Tallinn simply because sorry, unlike him, I'm not your average Joe. Ironically of course, my Bolt driver was thinking that the grass was greener on the other side of the fence.

Tallinn isn't perfect: the one thing that Tallinn lacks would be opportunities for highly skilled, highly talented young people. In a small city like that, there just aren't enough opportunities for those who are super talented. I met a young entrepreneur in Tallinn who was extremely frustrated by the lack of opportunities for people like him in Tallinn, so he started his own company but for the company to grow in the long run, he is thinking of relocating the company to somewhere like Sweden or Germany. There were only so many customers he could access in a small country like Estonia, so for the business to grow, he needed to be in a much bigger city to access a bigger market. This is probably why my boss has experienced so much success in Tallinn - in moving a highly successful company in corporate finance to Tallinn, he was able to attract the very best talents in Estonia to come and work for him; unlike London, where he was competing with so many other companies for the best and brightest young people. But of course, I digress, this article was about average Joes who are neither highly skilled nor highly talented, just average people who would end up driving a taxi and making a modest living and I suppose for them, Tallinn is a wonderful city to build a decent life for them and their families mostly because it is not densely populated. Perhaps the key lesson we can take away from this exercise is that for your average Joe who cannot compete with the super geniuses from the top universities, settling down to a modest, simpler life is so much easier in a smaller, less densely populated town works out really well because there will be far less competition for limited resources like housing, education and healthcare, so even with their modest earnings.

Oh and just one last point: yes both London and Singapore do suck if you're an average Joe who isn't earning a lot of money, but our Joe in London can simply pack his bags, leave London and pick any of the hundreds of small towns far away from London in the countryside, where he can experience many of the benefits of living in a far less densely populated small town, such as very cheap housing. Our Joe in Singapore doesn't have that luxury I'm afraid and even a country like Estonia wouldn't give our Singaporean Joe a work permit to do a lowly skilled job. So at least London Joe has far more options than Singapore Joe, which does make Singapore a really bad place to be an average Joe. Ouch. So that's it from me on this topic, what do you think? Have you ever been to Tallinn and what did you think of it? Am I perhaps seeing Tallinn through rose-tinted lenses because I always have fun when I visit Tallinn? Or is this simply a matter of me comparing two huge, congested cities with a smallish town and the results are somewhat misleading? So do leave a comment below, have your say on where you think average Joe would be better off. Many thanks for reading!