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Ask HN: Moving Out of Silicon Valley because of housing? Where to?

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Re: Ask HN: Moving Out of Silicon Valley because of housing? Where to?

#171

Post by whoa-duder »

mikekij wrote: post #108

San Diego is awesome. The cost of living is probably 30% less than the bay area (I rent a 4 bedroom single family house for $2495), I live 3 miles from the beach, and there are a fair number of tech companies in the area, focusing primarily on healthcare and defense. And I love the outdoor activity opportunities. Direct flights to SFO are about $140 round trip, or less.

San Diego is cool, but I don't agree with the "fair number of tech companies". I think there are very limited opportunities and a lot behind-the-curve thinking in San Diego tech.

Re: Ask HN: Moving Out of Silicon Valley because of housing? Where to?

#173

Post by kelukelugames »

calbear81 wrote: post #154
kelukelugames wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up in Cupertino and live in Seattle now. I used to live in an apartment with very little natural light, that was awful. Now I live in a condo with tons of light and feel better. Also fly down to Bay Area once a month for work. Seattle weather isn't that bad. During June through September it's the best in the country. Just gray in the winters, doesn't really rain much. Some other cons. Negligible start up scene…

Where are you going for Indian and Chinese food? There's Din Tai Fung / Facing East in Bellevue and some of my old haunts in the International District are passable. Not as familiar with the Indian food scene outside of some places in East Bellevue/Redmond but you should also try Edmonds/Lynwood for Korean food.

hello fellow Cal Alum. Go bears!

DTF is overpriced. Facing East is standard Taiwanese which means tons of sugar.

I used to drive to Lynwood and Federal Way for Korean, but my girlfriend doesn't really eat meat so we don't eat Korean as much.

The only good Indian restaurants are in Renton.

Re: Ask HN: Moving Out of Silicon Valley because of housing? Where to?

#174

Post by placeybordeaux »

hosh wrote: post #157
shostack wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how do you cope with the weather and lack of sun? One big draw for me about the Bay Area is the weather. I realized how important nice weather was for me to be happy, so I consider the sunshine tax a sunk cost for my mental and physical well-being.

I lived there for a year. I'm living about an hour and a half north of Phoenix, just below the Rim. Sometimes, I miss those dreary storm-grey clouds of the Pacific NW. "Nice weather" is subjective, and it isn't necessarily "sunny". I have a friend who burns badly in any kind of sunlight -- Seattle is where she makes her home. Flagstaff, AZ, oddly, is like a miniature Seattle, though the tech scene isn't as happening.…

Nice weather is certainly subjective.

Seattle doesn't really freeze and it stays below the temperature that you have to buy an AC unit. It rarely deals with substantial flooding and it rarely rains enough that a simple rain coat/umbrella won't deal with.

Re: Ask HN: Moving Out of Silicon Valley because of housing? Where to?

#175

Post by placeybordeaux »

kelukelugames wrote: post #131
shostack wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how do you cope with the weather and lack of sun? One big draw for me about the Bay Area is the weather. I realized how important nice weather was for me to be happy, so I consider the sunshine tax a sunk cost for my mental and physical well-being.

I grew up in Cupertino and live in Seattle now. I used to live in an apartment with very little natural light, that was awful. Now I live in a condo with tons of light and feel better. Also fly down to Bay Area once a month for work. Seattle weather isn't that bad. During June through September it's the best in the country. Just gray in the winters, doesn't really rain much. Some other cons. Negligible start up scene…

So far the food scene in Seattle hasn't been all that people have made it up to be.

Re: Ask HN: Moving Out of Silicon Valley because of housing? Where to?

#176

Post by Osiris »

Denver/Boulder (Colorado) has a really strong technology and startup environment. There are some well-known technology companies based here.

In fact, Denver recently ranked as the #1 Best Places to Live[1]

[1] http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_29585428/denver-no-1-u-s-n...

Re: Ask HN: Moving Out of Silicon Valley because of housing? Where to?

#177

Post by HelloMcFly »

Xcelerate wrote: post #134
HelloMcFly wrote: post #52

Well, I'll give a plug for a different city: Atlanta. My wife and I moved from Atlanta to Seattle a few years back, and while we love the PNW we're definitely looking forward to moving back this summer. Seattle is wonderful, but the traffic has gotten noticeably worse since we've been here, and housing just never worked for us. Atlanta has a lot of opportunity, including in the tech space. It's no Seattle or SF, obvi…

I grew up in the metro Atlanta area (moved there in 1999), and spent four years in downtown Atlanta at Georgia Tech. For someone interested in technology, I think there are better places to live. - Compared to the downtown area of other cities, Atlanta is a ghost town. You don't see a whole lot of people walking around the city like you do in San Francisco, and to be honest, the downtown area has always been a little…

I disagree on the food culture, but won't belabor the point. Michelin Star restaurants aren't places I tend to go, so this may be a matter of what you're looking for. I do have to put my flag in the ground on this though: Fox Brothers BBQ is the best BBQ in the south, in my opinion, and I've had them all.

I think there's a lot of tech jobs available, but not the same level of tech-specific org.'s, you are correct. However, the opportunities in the tech space there started ballooning in the mid-naughts according to the labor and job data work we did at the tech company I worked for at the same (about this time I was transferred to the tech HQ of my company, which was in Atlanta). It's even easy for me to move back because my tech consulting firm that I work for has an office there.

I don't disagree on downtowns, but it doesn't bother me (and it's not that much worse than Seattle, frankly). All of the fun stuff is in all of the ITP neighborhoods (with a few OTP).

Re: Ask HN: Moving Out of Silicon Valley because of housing? Where to?

#178

Post by ChuckMcM »

I've spent some time in Denver and I could easily see moving there full time from the SF Bay Area. That said, I like camping and hiking in my spare time which Denver has in abundance, and it has Sparkfun just outside of Boulder for your tech toys urges.

Denver is more of a burgers and beer town from a culinary perspective, but it has lots of young people and downtown is very walkable. Also, unlike the bay area, they have a pretty functional transit system. You could totally live there without a car.

Re: Ask HN: Moving Out of Silicon Valley because of housing? Where to?

#179

Post by gravypod »

dpc_pw wrote: post #147
gravypod wrote: post #142

If you have enough money to start working remotely there are a few places that I want to move to. - Alaska: Pay you to stay, land is cheap, I like the cold. - PA: Land is cheap, I like the cold, next to Philadelphia - Poland: Everything is cheap: 1 zł is 0.25 USD, great food and amazing nightlife. - India: 1 USD ~= 70 rupies, amazing food and culture Every one of these places has its pros and cons, but they have all…

Poland is UE&VAT.

But Poland's local economy is so cheap that I don't even count that as a factor. There are few comfortable places to live where you can buy bread for .30 USD a loaf, and Poland is one of them.

I'm also Russian and a lot of Polish food looks familiar to me. That's why it's a in my top three.

Re: Ask HN: Moving Out of Silicon Valley because of housing? Where to?

#180

Post by hijinks »

JshWright wrote: post #163
shostack wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like this is the dream, but the reality for many people is that they need to be where the jobs are. For those who are not developers easily able to get remote work, that's a major consideration. What's the job market near you like? How long is the average commute? Those are both major considerations for a lot of folks. (PS I'm not criticizing you--major props for living your dream. I just think that people rea…

"Upstate New York" is a very large area. It would be tough to generalize... I'm in the Syracuse area (smack in the middle of the state), and the local scene is reasonably unimpressive (I work remotely, as do most of the folks I know in the area). There is a bit of a tech job market 45 minutes east of here in Rome, but that's mostly DoD related work (Rome Labs, etc). An hour and a half south is Ithaca, which is a 'hip…

I grew up 30 minutes outside of Syracuse and 15 years ago when I moved out there was almost zero tech except for the few large enterprise companies.

I wish the area the best and its a great place to live in for the 3 months of good weather they have :)

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