Where to live: Air Quality, Elevation, Mine-water pollution, Volcanos

[mem]

Hi All,

I have been going over the map of chile, trying to balance a number of factors for setting down roots to live

My main concerns are air quality (clean), elevation (over 750ft above sea level), no water pollution from mining.

Of course a ton of people live on the coast in big cities, elevation is too low there for what we want so that is all out
Most of the reasonable areas of Santiago have nasty air, including Los Condes and Providencia, I know there are some outskirt areas of Santiago that are higher in elevation and literally "above" the blanket of smog, but then I have read that these same areas have river/water pollution from mines, such as the fancy pants communes on the east side of Santiago.

I looked at San Felipe/Los Andes, but it seems to have a lot of mining industry so I expect polluted water there.
However, really like there are not many volcanos nearby, mostly just mountains

Looking south of Santiago and inland of Los Angeles and Victoria. Of course proximity Santiago is a plus

These are some areas starting south from Santiago.

Can anyone shed insight on these as far as confirming/rejecting that they have clean air, clean water, high elevation, etc?
Looking for a place to buy an acre or two of land and build a house in a place that is semi-rural, but within an hour of driving to a somewhat big city to get stuff

-San Fernando
-Molina/Casablanca/Rio Claro
-Tucapel
-Santa Barbara
-Victoria/Curacautin and east?

Other areas that should be considered?

[nwdiver]

Visit and look around.............. stay a winter, then you can make a choice.............

[jamie_m]

Potrero Grande, Upeo El Yacal are 30/60m drive from Curico, South of Santiago. Suits us.

http://www.fallingrain.com/world/CI/11/Upeo.html

[Rhodolite]

Isn't there a sometimes smoking volcano southeast of Curico?

[jamie_m]

Nah, that's me you can see

[hlf2888]

I have an animal sanctuary in central Chile and the location meets most of your criteria. If you love animals (there are 3 horses rescued from the animal auctions, 6 dogs, 2 cats, chickens, a pair of ducks and one rooster) and can live peacefully in nature, a furnished and equipped one level 2 bedroom wood frame house with wood and ceramic floors, skylights, covered terrace and exceptional mountain vistas is available for up to 6 months. It has high speed internet access and excellent well water. Very picturesque private setting. There are full time caretakers who can drive you to town bi-weekly for the farmer's market, freshly baked bread bi-weekly, fresh organic eggs from happy free range chickens daily and wildflower honey from the bee hives. PM me for more details. No nearby volcanoes

[admin]

Think most of your concerns are overblown. The places those are issues, are pretty reflected in the property price / total lack of people living there. don't buy down stream of a mine, and / or upstream of an active volcano.

I actually have come to the conclusion that owning around a volcano, with a respectable distance (20-30 km), is actually kind of fun.
http://www.allchile.net/chileforum/view ... t=volcanoe

if you buy just a regular old mountain view, the dam thing just sits there and does nothing for millions of years. With the volcano you get some action.

[Wiggum]

if you buy just a regular old mountain view, the dam thing just sits there and does nothing for millions of years. With the volcano you get some action.

Was there any outbreak with casualties in the last few decades ?
Are there other common natural disasters in Chile ?
Hurricanes or Tornados (I always wanted to see a tornado) ?

[hlf2888]

Think most of your concerns are overblown. The places those are issues, are pretty reflected in the property price / total lack of people living there. don't buy down stream of a mine, and / or upstream of an active volcano.

I actually have come to the conclusion that owning around a volcano, with a respectable distance (20-30 km), is actually kind of fun.
http://www.allchile.net/chileforum/view ... t=volcanoe

if you buy just a regular old mountain view, the dam thing just sits there and does nothing for millions of years. With the volcano you get some action.

Admin...Yours and Patagoniax' posts contributed to me moving here.

[HybridAmbassador]

Think most of your concerns are overblown. The places those are issues, are pretty reflected in the property price / total lack of people living there. don't buy down stream of a mine, and / or upstream of an active volcano.

I actually have come to the conclusion that owning around a volcano, with a respectable distance (20-30 km), is actually kind of fun.
http://www.allchile.net/chileforum/view ... t=volcanoe

if you buy just a regular old mountain view, the dam thing just sits there and does nothing for millions of years. With the volcano you get some action.

Admin...Yours and Patagoniax' posts contributed to me moving here.

hlf288-san, so you liked some posts from patagoniax? I haven't heard from him lately. Is he still banned from this marvelous forum? admin, how about it, I think he's been reprimanded long enough I think, care to give him a slack, some of his posts are very useful for this forum's lurkers and also to those visible members?

[admin]

if you buy just a regular old mountain view, the dam thing just sits there and does nothing for millions of years. With the volcano you get some action.

Was there any outbreak with casualties in the last few decades ?
Are there other common natural disasters in Chile ?
Hurricanes or Tornados (I always wanted to see a tornado) ?

If you think where you are living is safer, your fooling yourself.

Let's see, lived in Las Vegas for many years. We had earthquakes, nuclear test zone a few miles outside, and water pollution coming out of the tap from mining, nuclear tests, chemical spills, and who the hell knows what else. Lived in the Mid-west united states. Tornados were a dime a dozen, and sometimes by the dozen. Never mind the the super volcanoes, hurricanes, whatever Everywhere in the world has natural disasters.

The dangers in Chile are at least well telegraphed in advance as known dangers, and are relatively manageable. We had a couple hundred people die from the tsunami from an earthquake (government error in letting politicians use the alert system that was mostly corrected by making it mandatory, without any political involvement). Don't think anyone has died from a volcano eruption in a very long time.

The number one greatest danger to you (your personal existence) where ever you are in the World, is other people. Walk outside right now, cross the street. Your statistical probability of making it to the other side of the street is much much lower than any natural threat in Chile, ever. Your odds are low, because of people.

So, less people. Less danger. Chile has a lot, lot less of those dangers. Which makes all the natural dangers, much more manageable, when they do become a problem. Less people in danger, less problems.

about 2/3 of the population of Chile lives within about 200 km of Santiago. Get out of that danger zone, and your odds go up dramatically. Although, granted, even has high density populace places on the planet go, the central region is not all that bad; still, most of the people are there, and thus most of the danger is there.

[Wiggum]

The number one greatest danger to you (your personal existence) where ever you are in the World, is other people. Walk outside right now, cross the street. Your statistical probability of making it to the other side of the street is much much lower than any natural threat in Chile, ever. Your odds are low, because of people.
So, less people. Less danger. Chile has a lot, lot less of those dangers. Which makes all the natural dangers, much more manageable, when they do become a problem. Less people in danger, less problems.

Oh, i agree 100% with you here.
And in that case i think Chile will be much safer then Germany (because of the high/insane population density everywhere).
Also, the political and social climate in Europe and especially Germany is worsening fast now, from that perspective Chile looks like a good place to be.

Yesterday i had a discussion with a co-worker about my plan to migrate to Chile, he thought i was crazy because Chile...isnt that a 3rd world country in Africa...?