Come to Australia. It is fucking awesome here.
It is. Despite having numerous things hiding in the undergrowth that will bite or sting you and cause all sorts of discomfort just for the lulz. Oh and of course being the home of Sir Percy The Pedantic.
Also if any Australia based members could see their way clear to pop in to Toowoomba Town Hall on their way to the shops and check that the two photographs of mine that were on display there are still up on the wall I'd be most gratefull.
Dude what. There's pretty much no dangerous wildlife in cities (bears aren't particularly common in Vancouver and they're a lot laxer than the Aussies) and other than that and the bushfires (there's not much bush in the cities either wink wink nudge nudge the women are well-groomed) it's pretty much a paradise. I'd move to Australia if there was any sort of serious academia to be had there.
As for the UK, either live in London or Glasgow. The other cities are either shit or tourist traps (I'm looking at you, Edinburgh and Cambridge) and there's no point ever living in the country here: it's an hour's drive/train away from the city if you want to visit and shit enough that you only visit once.
The tourists avoid Glasgow because of its shitty reputation from the 60's and since the massive push to correct that, it's no longer deserved. There's plenty of cheap housing to be had in nice areas because Glasgow University is sprawled throughout the West End and there's really no point going anywhere not covered by the existing subway system.
North side is for rich families, city centre for rich individuals, South Side for moderately rich families, and the East end is for scum like me. There's no point going west of Kelvingrove or east of Glasgow Green (even then it's a peninsula of niceness into the Gorbals, you can make do with Kelvingrove if you're park-y).
Don't know much about London, spent a total of four days there on strictly pre-defined trips so I didn't get to explore. All I know is you can get nice places for while it attracts oodles of tourists, it's still too big to rely on them.