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Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.

He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.

In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.

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It's the starting point they use to build their respective social fabrics that really distinguishes Europe from North America. Europe with some prominent exceptions that only confirm the rule was built as bureaucratic project from top down; America since the first Northern Europeans settled down in early 17th century was designed as a bottom up experiment. Any of these two approaches has its pros and cons. Any of them can allow people reaching high living standards. They are both compatible with democratic values, although to a different degree. Yet they still don't converge into one comprehensive 'western' social model. Chances are that they will diverge even more by eliminating some intermediary options.

Two prominent American philosophers, John Rawls (A Theory of Justice) and Robert Nozick (Anarchy, State, and Utopia), advocate one or another of these two different social design approaches, trying to prove that one or another represent a solid basis for social justice. Rawls finds the highest moral authority within the state; Nozick looks rather at the individuals and their rights. To make their arguments a bit closer to us, Rawls will argue that it will be a good thing for the state to take from us more taxes if it considers this appropriate for achieving greater redistributive justice. Nozick will find such bigger government being completely opposite to the principle of justice.

Democratic North America and democratic Europe evolved from these two different principles. The big government is moral evil for many Americans and blessing for most Europeans. Instinctively in times of need many Americans are looking for their neighbors for help; the Europeans in similar situation would look to the government for support. This support may take different facets in different countries; e.g. it may be focused more on protecting jobs or on protecting those without jobs.

Despite its high ethnic, religious, and historic diversity, Europe tries to impose one comprehensive bureaucratic social model, a model that will eliminate the comparative advantage of one or another country in different fields. We may decipher this model's motto as 'more taxes as far as possible, individual initiatives only as long as necessary'. The pros of this model are obvious; once accomplished, people will live and work in a very uniform way across the European Union. Doing business is easy when the rules and thus economic expectations, costs and benefits look similar if not identical across the Union. This will be a paradise for the bureaucracy in Brussels. The cons are also obvious. Within this model either everyone swims or everyone sinks.

Across the ocean, a different world has evolved. For a visitor traveling from East to West, and from Florida to Canada, it's only the climate that apparently changes. In fact it's much more than that. Different states (in the U.S.) and provinces (in Canada) compete for attracting businesses and skillful people. Within this context even jurisdictions with higher taxes and more generous welfare (e.g. Quebec) are just following their residents' preferences. In North America there is no centralized authority aiming to eliminate the comparative advantages of any particular local jurisdiction.

How these two different models correlate to the real estate market? In Europe the market itself is only a byproduct of several prerequisites, only one of which is the supply-demand ratio. Vast housing programs here and there can disturb any investment project that has been conceived without sufficient care. Large financial transfers from Brussels to one or another country or region can artificially increase the value of the physical capital within very short period, thus tilting the investment calculations in one or another direction. Investment strategies done under artificial conditions can become irrelevant once the bureaucratic support vanishes.

In North America, much less in Canada than in the U.S., it's the market competition between jurisdictions that finally attributes the positions each one occupies in the list of players. The bigger vertical mobility allows individuals and states (provinces) to move up if they succeed, but also to go down if they fail, unlike Europe where uniformity is a desired goal. In America competing with those on the top usually requires finding new more efficient social models and more direct forms of citizens' participation in the common affairs, which will provide an advantage over the old and well-established economic centers. The phenomenally fast rise of many cities in Arizona, Nevada, California, and Texas is a sign that this bottom up model is still vital.

North American and European models lead to different redistribution of resources and power. In America it's the most efficient that finally takes a better position and imposes its values on less efficient jurisdictions. There is a missionary element in this model that finally leads to general improvement of living by attracting the best businesses and people where they may be most efficient. In Europe with its vertical redistribution it's mostly a struggle between Brussels and the nation-states. With none of these states allowed to go far ahead, if the EU survives this 'war', it will be the bureaucracy in Brussels that will wield the upper hand, deciding not only what the common rules should be, but also how they will be legislated. There will be no 'Arizona miracle' in Europe. It will either swim together or it will sink together.