Aosta Valley Autonomus Region(en.wikipedia.org)
en.wikipedia.org
Aosta Valley Autonomus Region
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aosta_Valley
36 comments
why is this on hacker news? In italy we do have 5 autonomous regions apart from Val D'Aosta (Sardegna, Sicilia, Trentino Alto-Adige, Friuli Venezia Giulia)
Ahah I was expecting more hype in see an article about Molise =)
My first thought when seeing this was "E allora?!"
Italy's regions are pretty interesting in their linguistic and cultural variety, I guess. The broad range of languages spoken is fascinating: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Italy#/media/File...
Italy's regions are pretty interesting in their linguistic and cultural variety, I guess. The broad range of languages spoken is fascinating: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Italy#/media/File...
> Trentino Alto-Adige
An autonomous region that only contains two small autonomous provinces (the only two autonomous provinces of Italy), with big differences between the two
An autonomous region that only contains two small autonomous provinces (the only two autonomous provinces of Italy), with big differences between the two
Because it's interesting. Evidently, others agree otherwise it would not have been upvoted to the front page.
Perhaps, it's because a large portion of the HN audience is in America, where autonomous regions are more or less alien to our understanding?
Edit: Puerto Rico, the Native American reservations and a bunch of islands. I'm ready for vacation, folks. Thanks for the corrections. This article is still neat, though.
Perhaps, it's because a large portion of the HN audience is in America, where autonomous regions are more or less alien to our understanding?
Edit: Puerto Rico, the Native American reservations and a bunch of islands. I'm ready for vacation, folks. Thanks for the corrections. This article is still neat, though.
Autonomous regions (regioni a statuto speciale) have much less prerogatives than American states. They receive more transfers from the central government and can legislate on some limited matters.
Imagine Kentucky receiving twice the fiscal transfers of Ohio and being able to legislate on fishing and museums, while Ohio can’t. That’s the gist of it.
Imagine Kentucky receiving twice the fiscal transfers of Ohio and being able to legislate on fishing and museums, while Ohio can’t. That’s the gist of it.
There is an analogue that exist in the US; the Native American reservations.
Most Americans would prefer not to think about them too much.
Most Americans would prefer not to think about them too much.
You have autonomous states, [edited out: A mild oath of exasperation, annoyance, frustration, anger, or surprise]. And Puerto Rico and the Northern Mariana Islands.
Please edit swipes out of your posts to HN. We're trying to avoid that kind of thing here.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
This strikes me as an unnecessarily antagonistic reply.
FWIW, I'm the parent he was replying to and I was fine with and appreciative of his correction. It seemed the appropriate amount of antagonism, given my error.
Some cool spots here for sure.. and interesting geopolotics: https://www.wsj.com/articles/italys-alpine-border-melts-and-...
Turns out the city in the state of Georgia is named after this region. I don't know much about the city, except that a handful of friends from my university days are from it, so I was surprised, to say the least, to see this pop up on HN. Haven't thought about the city in years. [1]
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valdosta,_Georgia#:~:text=Trou....
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valdosta,_Georgia#:~:text=Trou....
Great views, great skiing, great food. Prices are high and economic opportunities low.
Piedmonte is far more affordable with all of the benefits of Aosta valley, and the bonus you can work in Turin or even commute to Milan.
Piedmonte is far more affordable with all of the benefits of Aosta valley, and the bonus you can work in Turin or even commute to Milan.
interesting to see this on hn.
I grew up there.
It's the smallest region in Italy with roughly 130k people living there.
It's always surprising to meet people abroad why come from Aosta. Even fellow Italians often tell me I'm the only one they have ever met who's from this tiny little region.
I come from the other side of the mountains in Switzerland. Aosta is an occasional destination people on that side. There is great local food, a cute town, and of course the beautiful scenery.
Aosta Valley is a really bad place to live in: people are not friendly, food is not so good compared to other regions and job opportunities are very low
For food, off the top of my head there is the famous Fontina cheese, Carbonade Valdostana – a delicious beef stew, Vapelenentse soup and of course Fonduta. And for sweets there is tegole. Aosta also has great viticulture. It has Europe's highest vineyards and a wonderful indigenous grape called Prie Blanc as well as wonderful petit rouge is grown there. Aosta wines are often spectacular and worth seeking out. Besides this there is amazing scenery and great skiing close by.
I guess it really depends on your tastes, I have a couple friends who moved there because they loved the mountains and nature, and got jobs pretty easily (in IT and in Healthcare).
I think food is quite nice too, but obviously it's completely personal.
I think food is quite nice too, but obviously it's completely personal.
There's more to Valle D'Aosta than a random murder, even though it's been exploited so much by the Italian media for so long everybody still knows about it.
Since there isn’t much of a topic here to get sidetracked from… HN community, has anyone here looked into getting a second home or entirely moving to Italy? Any experiences to be shared? I have the ability, but wonder if anyone has any success stories or high recommendations.
Italy is a very nice country that offers a high quality of life, but if you naively show up there you will quickly find out why literal millions of young educated Italians are emgirating all over Europe: there are no jobs. By all means, if you manage to land a gig there, enjoy it.
As the other poster said, you also need to learn the language, and sometimes (if you really want to integrate and also depending on the region) the local dialect. (Note that the 'dialect' can be, like, French in the case of Aosta)
As the other poster said, you also need to learn the language, and sometimes (if you really want to integrate and also depending on the region) the local dialect. (Note that the 'dialect' can be, like, French in the case of Aosta)
You can work remotely - could be sweet to work for Meta or other FAANG and live in Italy. Jobs are portable now.
Jobs are portable, but not taxation and social security contributions :) :)
If you live there for more than 6 months (or have strong relations with the country, even if you spend less months there) you must pay taxes in Italy.
As a self-employed IT worker you have to pay (https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestione_separata_INPS ) 25.72% of social security which goes into the "gestione separata" (a fund that is well known to be crap, so don't expect anything back) and of course you have no benefit at all from paying this.
Then add income tax, which is another around another 25% (there can be some discount here, for the first years... but it is not that clear as usual in Italy)
So you 'loose' about 50% of your gross income: nothing attractive to me from this side.
If you live there for more than 6 months (or have strong relations with the country, even if you spend less months there) you must pay taxes in Italy.
As a self-employed IT worker you have to pay (https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestione_separata_INPS ) 25.72% of social security which goes into the "gestione separata" (a fund that is well known to be crap, so don't expect anything back) and of course you have no benefit at all from paying this.
Then add income tax, which is another around another 25% (there can be some discount here, for the first years... but it is not that clear as usual in Italy)
So you 'loose' about 50% of your gross income: nothing attractive to me from this side.
Italian here, living abroad. If you plan to move, you'll need to learn the language unfortunately. I think the average English knowledge of the population has significantly improved over the last ~10 years, but dealing with bureaucracy (with its own special/weird language) still requires some level of understanding of written Italian.
In terms of quality-of-life I'd recommend Tuscany, but as an expat Milan might be the best choice. Good luck.
In terms of quality-of-life I'd recommend Tuscany, but as an expat Milan might be the best choice. Good luck.
I asked parent's question to an Italian and got basically the same thing but with the rider that tech jobs in Italy are few and far between and generally not desirable. Can you comment on that?
Maybe parent was hoping for a visa surfing situation, I dunno.
Maybe parent was hoping for a visa surfing situation, I dunno.
I am not sure I fully agree, but the quality of the job really depends on the employer.
Italy is characterized by _lots_ of small/medium sized businesses (not startups, actual profitable businesses often decades old). Some of them producing state-of-the-art tech in many different industries (Aerospace, Defense, Pharma, etc). The issue with this highly fragmented industrial environment is that it might be difficult to know what it is like to actually work somewhere before spending some time there. Companies tends to be unique.
There are also offices from all the well known names (Google etc...), but usually these are sales oriented. I'd still call them "tech jobs" though.
About Visas, as an Italian citizen I don't have direct experience. I suspect it might be difficult to get one. Of course EU citizens can do what they want.
There might be (relatively) easy paths to citizenship for people with italian ancestry though.
Italy is characterized by _lots_ of small/medium sized businesses (not startups, actual profitable businesses often decades old). Some of them producing state-of-the-art tech in many different industries (Aerospace, Defense, Pharma, etc). The issue with this highly fragmented industrial environment is that it might be difficult to know what it is like to actually work somewhere before spending some time there. Companies tends to be unique.
There are also offices from all the well known names (Google etc...), but usually these are sales oriented. I'd still call them "tech jobs" though.
About Visas, as an Italian citizen I don't have direct experience. I suspect it might be difficult to get one. Of course EU citizens can do what they want.
There might be (relatively) easy paths to citizenship for people with italian ancestry though.
Small and medium sized employers are very bad places to work. The Italian definition of small company is one with less than 15 employees, these companies avoid much regulations and practically employ at-will, when they don’t use temporary contracts. A company is considered large if it employs more than 50 people. An Italian medium sized company, would be considered small everywhere else.
In small and medium sized companies, salaries are extremely low, unpaid overtime is the norm and career progression is close to impossible. They are usually family-run, and the only way to progress is to marry the son/daughter of the owner. They can't hire competent people because they can’t afford to pay what abroad would be the salary of an entry level engineer and working conditions are so bad that everybody who can joins large or foreign companies or becomes a public servant, so they can’t work on anything serious, in lack of a better word, and often end up being a sort of expensive Amazon Turk for larger companies.
In small and medium sized companies, salaries are extremely low, unpaid overtime is the norm and career progression is close to impossible. They are usually family-run, and the only way to progress is to marry the son/daughter of the owner. They can't hire competent people because they can’t afford to pay what abroad would be the salary of an entry level engineer and working conditions are so bad that everybody who can joins large or foreign companies or becomes a public servant, so they can’t work on anything serious, in lack of a better word, and often end up being a sort of expensive Amazon Turk for larger companies.
Milan being the exception, tech jobs in Italy are generally bad and low paid. Large consultancies tend to work on government projects (often useless or extremely boring), smaller companies still make websites for the baker down the road for 500€. If you are lucky, at the end of your career you may earn more or less what a 23 year old German or Briton earn on their first job. It is totally normal to look for experienced developers and offer 20K euros per annum.
I understand that the good jobs are generally only in Milan and that the cost of living there is not good in comparison to local salaries. Not an issue for me personally, though I understand it’s a major issue in the country.