Why Uruguay?

Oct 03, 2010 13:02


Yesterday I wrote about how easy it is to emigrate to Uruguay, but my wife Leïla asked a rather obvious question: "why would anyone want to?" She wasn't trying to be mean; she genuinely wanted to know and I'm embarrassed to say that I knew nothing about Uruguay. So this morning I decided to do a little digging. If we're talking about, say, Somalia, then just because you can immigrate doesn't mean you would want to. What I found, however, was very pleasantly surprising. If Europe hadn't been an option for me, Uruguay may very well have been.


By interesting coincidence, my employer just released an article about Uruguayan immigration today. Bounded by an economically prosperous Brazil to the north and a struggling Argentina to the West, Uruguay is enjoying very low unemployment levels and very high rates of growth. It is today one of the most politically and economically stable countries in South America.


It's fair to say that Uruguay is a rather tolerant society. They've permitted gay civil unions and gay adoption (the first Latin American country to do so) and are known for being a rather secular country for South America. But they're not just open-minded, they're far-sighted, too. Did you know that every single primary student in Uruguay has been given a free laptop by the government?

Of course, they're also very green, have fantastic freedom of the press and extremely low corruption:

image Click to view


All things considered, Uruguay is a very tempting target. Great infrastructure, great economy, low corruption, very green, very tolerant. I think more and more Americans are going to start hearing about it and heading down there.

travel

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