Creating a low cost of living EA hub + co-living/co-working space for people trying to effectively change the world for the better seems, to me and many people I've spoken to, like a potentially unusually high value project. This is something I'm personally very interested in (though I've been prioritizing other projects recently), with the plan which seems most promising to me being buying and converting a hotel (with people who want more independant living space renting nearby). Simply picking a location as a schelling point is also an option, but having a place for new arrivals to easily get involved and a founding group moving together to focus on setting up a specific location seems likely to increase the chance of hitting critical mass.
I've created a spreadsheet of countries which have been suggested at some point or seem like they have potential from a glance, and would like to open up information gathering to other interested EAs, so we can to help narrow down the large list and start looking at a few specific locations. Helping out with this is something which anyone can do in a spare few minutes (or suggest to people who want a flexibly sized EA task), pick a box to fill in, check Nomadlist, Teleport, or google relevant things, read, add summary+useful links.
Additionally, Geordie and I created a survey to gauge interest and learn what people want from a new hub. I'd love some feedback on the survey itself (especially from people who've done surveys before and know the kinds of things that we'll probably wish we asked) before we try and widely publiscize it.
Suggestions for names and other countries which are worth investigating are also welcome.
Assorted links for background:
Slack (send me your email for an invite)
I don't think this counts as sufficient reason. You need to list all of the (major) pro-and-con-considerations and weigh them up against each other in order to show that a low-cost EA hub is better than another one in a developed country.
Evan's comments below are interesting, though.
It's not sufficient reason to think that low-cost hubs are higher value than additional high-cost hubs, but it is (I think) sufficient reason to think that whether or not EAs are working towards more hubs in higher cost countries, it would still be good to also be moving towards having at least one low-cost hub.
I have greater personal interest in low cost hubs, and I suspect that getting the first low-cost hub will be unusually high value (for reasons in some of the discussions on facebook/in person which I will write up properly at some point), so that's ... (read more)