When I first moved to the US I had the exact frame of mind as Newtone. I thought the exact same things. I lived there for a very long time. I was a young 21 year old with all my dreams and an ironclad life plan. Fresh from college. I worked hard. Very hard... like 18 hour days hard because my thought process was in that 'American Dream' bubble. When it hit me that i was jaded and my frame of mind changed to that of kwwatt was one day in 2006 when I fell down at work from exhaustion and had to be taken to the hospital by ambulance. I paid a hefty $94 every 2 weeks for medical insurance from my paycheck so I thought if I paid almost $200 per month all would be well. I stayed in the hospital triage for about 6 hours getting morphine and stuff for dehydration etc. I couldn't go to work for about a week after that. A lovely set of letters started coming in the mail.... $ 500 for ambulance ride to hospital (i lived about 7 mins from work. The hospital was in between work and home. So about 3/4 mins). The hospital bill was $3600. The actual doctor who who popped in twice to look at me to see if I was dead billed me $500. All this after deducting what my health insurance through my job covered. Where was I going to get this money I needed all of a sudden? No idea. I had to pay rent, phone bill etc. I saved what little I could but I don't just have $5000 laying around. I was a manager at a bank so I got paid enough. But when something like this happens there is hardly any room for contingency. In order to pay this off (and the late fees because I'm going to pay my rent before I pay the hospital) I had to park my car and cut out the car insurance payments. I walked or took the bus everywhere. I was so stressed and unhappy. I realized I was regressing and I kept having to readjust and reasses my ironclad life plan. All of a sudden my life derailed because I was tired and couldn't work anymore for just a week. When you fall down in the US you have to work 3 times as hard to get back on your feet if you are even able to. And people do kick you when you're down. Yes a car may be marginally cheaper. Yes there may be more to do in terms of entertainment. Yes there may be more opportunities in a particular field of work. I used to think America was just the best place to live period. Turns out it's not. I did not become a mover and shaker. I did not make millions. I did not have a corner office with a view of any downtown city. I am not anybody more than who I went there in the first place. I have no idea where my tax money goes because the schooling system in general is terrible. (I did pre-cal in the 9th grade in high school in the 3rd world country I came from. I graduated high school at 15. When I went to US for college I tried to tell me I had to get a GED and I couldn't get in til i was 17. They were just now doing pre-cal in university. I was bored out of my mind.) There is no centralized healthcare (even the third world country I came from I've never had to pay a dime at hospitals). Oh and what infrastructure?? What work / lifel balance?? Also I was black in the farthest south you can go so that's like 3 strikes against me. The racial profiling was out of control sometimes.
I couldn't see myself raising children there. In all my years of living there all I've ever done was worked. Someone else's pockets were lined. I started to feel like it was a place for big Corporations and people who are already rich/old money.
When I came to Canada it was like I woke up from a really bad dream. The time that I spend with my family is invaluable. Not one of them are bums. They are living out much of thier dreams. We do a lot of things together. More than I could ever afford to do with anyone in the US because we all worked so much. I've never had so much fun or felt so fulfilled. I can go for a walk and leave my door open (no i didn't live in the ghetto in the states). I haven't been sick not once and a lot of my health issues seemed to just vanish. The level of stress I had at home from everyday life was severe, not so here. In my opinion the quality of life in Canada is 100 times better. No country is perfect and everywhere will have thier troubles. My peace of mind is worth more than any dollar could buy. My family is more important than the price of a car or the tax I have to pay to afford me healthcare or my children good education. No money or wanting to go someplace exciting on a Friday night is worth my life. I have Indian friends who moved from Canada to California and Florida. They work like slaves to make sure their business places are in order. They have no life. Their work is thier life because they're trying to 'make something of themselves'. They still come here when they need a break from it all - whenever they can find the time. I wonder why...
Even though I'm a US citizen I'll probably never live there again. I'll vacation there because there are some lovely places there. But living there and going there are two vastly different things. When I used to visit I loved it. When I moved there it was just.....

Anyway Canada has places that are just as lovely

I vote Canada for the people who want to maintain thier sanity!