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Ask HN: What cities have the best salary / cost of living ratio?

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Re: Ask HN: What cities have the best salary / cost of living ratio?

#21

Post by ThrustVectoring »

larrykubin wrote: post #7

If you are in tech, Seattle has high salaries and no state income tax. Housing costs are rising, but I had a nice 1BR in Capitol Hill for ~ 1700 before buying a 3 BR townhouse in West Seattle with the same monthly cost for mortgage and taxes combined. Walk scores > 90 in both neighborhoods I've lived in and have never had a car. The equivalent housing would cost at least double in the Bay Area. Unfortunately, the win…

Seattle pretty much a hard no if you've got any sort of seasonal affective disorder. It's number 1 in the US for number of cloudy days per year.

Re: Ask HN: What cities have the best salary / cost of living ratio?

#22

Post by fitzwatermellow »

Anyone else watching LeBron James' Cleveland Hustles on CNBC? It's pretty great. The lesson: energy and commitment trump geography and privilege every time. And $125K goes a long way in Ohio ;)

http://www.cnbc.com/cleveland-hustles/

Re-formatting mid-size post-industrial cities into thriving locally-focused entrepreneurial hubs provides an alternative to the NYC, LA, DC, SF model. Instead of seeking to re-locate, why not attempt to foster what you value in your own backyard first ;)

Small Tech Hubs: Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Nashville, and New Orleans want your startup

http://venturebeat.com/2016/06/26/small-tech-hubs-buffalo-pi...

Re: Ask HN: What cities have the best salary / cost of living ratio?

#23

Post by [deleted] »

remyp wrote: post #18
cbHXBY1D wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do any of the large tech companies (Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple) have offices in Chicago?

Google has a significant presence, though my understanding is it's mostly sales. Chicago has a well-diversified economy, so it's not dominated by any one industry or company. There are a ton of bigcorp jobs, but they're more likely to be for companies like Hyatt, Walgreens, McDonalds, United, Allstate, etc. Legal and finance (particularly quantitative & algorithmic trading) are big as well.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What cities have the best salary / cost of living ratio?

#24

Post by FT_intern »

cbHXBY1D wrote: post #16
remyp wrote: post #14

Chicago. Affordable rent[1], dense, car optional, highly walkable, good transit, best biking city in the country[2], phenomenal restaurants and beer. I've met several visiting New Yorkers that refer to Chicago as a "smaller, cleaner New York." I've been here 8 years and have never had trouble finding a new programming job when I wanted one. People will decry the violence (of which the vast majority is confined to the…

Do any of the large tech companies (Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple) have offices in Chicago?

No, the high compensation (and high head count) companies are HFT/prop trading firms

Re: Ask HN: What cities have the best salary / cost of living ratio?

#25

Post by FT_intern »

larrykubin wrote: post #7

If you are in tech, Seattle has high salaries and no state income tax. Housing costs are rising, but I had a nice 1BR in Capitol Hill for ~ 1700 before buying a 3 BR townhouse in West Seattle with the same monthly cost for mortgage and taxes combined. Walk scores > 90 in both neighborhoods I've lived in and have never had a car. The equivalent housing would cost at least double in the Bay Area. Unfortunately, the win…

This, especially if you work at a Bay area company paying bay area compensation in Seattle

Re: Ask HN: What cities have the best salary / cost of living ratio?

#26

Post by superuser2 »

remyp wrote: post #14

Chicago. Affordable rent[1], dense, car optional, highly walkable, good transit, best biking city in the country[2], phenomenal restaurants and beer. I've met several visiting New Yorkers that refer to Chicago as a "smaller, cleaner New York." I've been here 8 years and have never had trouble finding a new programming job when I wanted one. People will decry the violence (of which the vast majority is confined to the…

Be warned that only finance-related jobs tend to be downtown; most "Chicago" cost center IT jobs are in low-rise office parks around Chicagoland sprawl and are an hour or more away from the city under normal traffic conditions.

Re: Ask HN: What cities have the best salary / cost of living ratio?

#27

Post by zumu »

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #21
larrykubin wrote: post #7

If you are in tech, Seattle has high salaries and no state income tax. Housing costs are rising, but I had a nice 1BR in Capitol Hill for ~ 1700 before buying a 3 BR townhouse in West Seattle with the same monthly cost for mortgage and taxes combined. Walk scores > 90 in both neighborhoods I've lived in and have never had a car. The equivalent housing would cost at least double in the Bay Area. Unfortunately, the win…

Seattle pretty much a hard no if you've got any sort of seasonal affective disorder. It's number 1 in the US for number of cloudy days per year.

It is not significantly less sunny than many northern US cities also mentioned in this thread--Cleveland, Pittsburg, Buffalo, etc...

Re: Ask HN: What cities have the best salary / cost of living ratio?

#28

Post by zumu »

kspaans wrote: post #6

NPR had an excellent blog post about this last year: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/05/20/313131559/how-f... Doesn't show tech salaries, but instead avg income adjusted for cost of living in that city. It will help you gauge which cities are more expensive.

DC always looks good in these because they never take into account all the cheap rents are in neighborhoods your average young professional is not going to wanna live in. I don't care how progressive you are--you're not moving to Anacostia.

Re: Ask HN: What cities have the best salary / cost of living ratio?

#29

Post by zumu »

alexbanks wrote: post #15
larrykubin wrote: post #7

If you are in tech, Seattle has high salaries and no state income tax. Housing costs are rising, but I had a nice 1BR in Capitol Hill for ~ 1700 before buying a 3 BR townhouse in West Seattle with the same monthly cost for mortgage and taxes combined. Walk scores > 90 in both neighborhoods I've lived in and have never had a car. The equivalent housing would cost at least double in the Bay Area. Unfortunately, the win…

Is 1700 for a 1BR considered "Low COL" ?

Capitol Hill is the absolute trendiest part of town. A lot of people live on the north or west sides of town. Some friends of mine split a house for $500 a piece about a single 30-45 minute bus ride from their office downtown.

Re: Ask HN: What cities have the best salary / cost of living ratio?

#30

Post by hellofunk »

remyp wrote: post #14

Chicago. Affordable rent[1], dense, car optional, highly walkable, good transit, best biking city in the country[2], phenomenal restaurants and beer. I've met several visiting New Yorkers that refer to Chicago as a "smaller, cleaner New York." I've been here 8 years and have never had trouble finding a new programming job when I wanted one. People will decry the violence (of which the vast majority is confined to the…

Chicago culture is nothing like New York, however, so the comparison is a bit moot. Chicago is very much a Midwestern city with a Midwestern culture. And in my years living in Chicago, I didn't know a single person who didn't own a car, and most of them spent lots of time driving.
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