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A View of America From Scotland
Things are looking better, but I’m still not moving back
I’m an American living in Scotland for the past 18 months. I left the concrete-filled, traffic-jammed, farmland turned shopping mall Philadelphia suburbs and now live in northeast Scotland in a seacoast village of 3,000 people, just outside of Scotland's third-largest city, Dundee. For those that don’t know, Scotland is as far north as Norway. It doesn’t really snow in the winter and rarely gets below freezing. There’s plenty of sunshine and decent weather, despite what you might hear.
Most everyone in my town says hello to each other on the street. The air is clean. There are no billboards. There are wind turbines everywhere. Recycling is almost a religious experience. The target date for net-zero emissions of all greenhouse gases is 2045. We actually know most of our neighbors. I can walk to and play on the 13th oldest golf course in the world. I don’t worry about getting shot if I cut someone off inadvertently while learning to drive on the left side of the road.
There are no mass shootings. Handguns and semi-automatic rifles, and pump-action shotguns are banned. And, for all the gun lovers reading this, there are still plenty of guns for hunting and personal protection—over 277,000, in fact. Go through the licensing process, and you’ll have…
