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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?

#321

Post by dvorwak »

throwaway376183 wrote: post #62
spillihp wrote: post #8

Want to put in a quick plug for Sacramento. Great quality of life here, generally great weather (sometimes a little hot in summer, but sunny most of the year), affordable housing with rents between $500 and $1,000 (and affordable to buy a house - still good places available for under $300k), nice neighborhoods, great amenities, bars, restaurants, all that. Good access to awesome outdoors. And really easy to get to th…

Lately I've been very interested in moving to Sacramento. I like just about everything I read about the city (can't really say the same about SF/SV). My main worry is that searches for local dev jobs turn up almost nothing. I don't think I could handle a 2+ hour commute daily. Any advice?

Been working remote in Sacramento for the past year it's definitely the way to go. Sf wages but Sacramento rent prices

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

#323

Post by hosh »

vogt wrote: post #218
hosh wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

Your sentiments about Flagstaff are so funny to me because my wife and I thought the exact same thing as we passed through from TX on the way to Las Vegas. My whole life (originally from New England) I thought Arizona was all desert, so when we wound up in Flagstaff in July to 60 degree rainy weather I was taken aback. I plan on moving there as soon as I wrap up things here in NV. By the way unfortunately the tech sc…

When I looked around, they do have a small startup scene. So when I move up there, I'll be seeking them out.

NAU is not known for engineering or tech though. I walked around campus to get a good feel for it. The engineering building is a single building that covers all the engineering disciplines, including computer science.

What is big at NAU is forestry science. That makes sense. A lot of people come out there to get training to work as forest rangers, or in forest management. The forestry science building is larger than engineering building (in contrast with University of Washington, with that computer science edifice dedicated to Paul Allen). When I walk down the halls and look at the research projects of students, if there were computational projects, they were all geared towards forest management of one kind or another.

Northern Arizona is beautiful. The high desert there gives you a much better appreciation of this contrast between desolation and abundance. July was what the locals call "monsoon season". Both Sedona and Phoenix get hit by that during July -- but because of the presence of the San Francisco peaks, and being up around 7000 feet, you get alpine biomes around Flagstaff.

Add in the hipster culture and outdoorsy folks in Flagstaff, the people reminds me a lot of Seattle -- minus the passionate activism I see fired up in Seattle folks.

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

#325

Post by dpeck »

simple10 wrote: post #224
dpeck wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Atlanta has a lot of good stuff going for it, midtown area and the tech village up in Buckhead have some promising startups. Few other south eastern cities to add to OPs list: Charlotte isn't bad either and has a similar if less developed vibe, lot of financial business around there. People seem split on whether they like it or Raleigh more, seems like a toss up. For a smaller city Chatanooga has a lot going for it.

I've been really interested in Chattanooga ever since they installed citywide fiber and announced their tech incubator. One of the lowest costs of living and great outdoor activities. Just not too sure about the cultural infrastructure. Looking forward to visiting soon. I'm kinda obsessed with the idea of incubating a remote company in another city and then moving/expanding back to the Bay.

honestly I don't know why you'd ever do a move or expansion to SF. The rise in expenses would kill you. Starting things there certainly has a lot of benefits, but moving anything more that a handful of founders after you get going would be a very rough transition.

With the cost and ease of flights to SF you can get a lot of the benefit of your business being there if your founders and fundraisers are ready to fly out and hustle.

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

#326

Post by gonehome »

partisan wrote: post #304
gonehome wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I rent a three bedroom connected townhouse in Palo Alto for $6150. Not sure if that's normal, but San Diego sounds a lot cheaper than 30% (it is a nice townhouse though)

Wow. That is extreme. Is that normal for the area?

It's 2222sqft and 7 years old which is pretty nice (this price is a decent deal for this place).

Have to have housemates in Palo Alto - otherwise you end up living by yourself in an old run down apartment for $2800 a month. You can find cheaper if you're willing to live in a tiny studio for ~$2300 or if you're willing to live outside of Palo Alto itself (maybe as low as $1800 for a studio in East Palo Alto).

If you share a house with 4 other roommates and choose the tiniest room you may be able to get $1200 a month.

As a bonus, if you live in Palo Alto you don't have to worry about your roommates finding girlfriends and moving out - since that'll be pretty unlikely.

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

#327

Post by totalrobe »

mikestew wrote: post #19
eorge_g wrote: post #3

Here's an HBR article talking about New Orleans push to become a relevant hub and the difficulties of stealing mindshare from "the big three": https://hbr.org/2016/03/what-makes-new-orleans-a-startup-cit...

They're not trying very hard to steal mindshare with only a half dozen jobs (three of which are actually dev jobs) listed on Craigslist. Seattle has page after page of software jobs on CL. I'd totally consider a move to NOLA, but I'm not packing my bags just yet. I mean, seriously, is the article just BS? Even my old stomping grounds of Indianapolis (a.k.a., "Naptown", a.k.a, "you'll be writing code for an insurance…

NOLA is oil, food, and booze. No tech options unless you're in Chem/Process Engg.

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

#328

Post by mjonas »

hosh wrote: post #159
jseliger wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Phoenix is often not included when discussing tech cities, and I think it's a shame I've spent time in Phoenix. It's the land of enormous roads and parking lots. It's almost impossible to get anywhere without a car. Traffic is horrendous all the time. There is barely a functioning downtown. The urban layout isn't conducive to the density necessary to really sustain light rail. Yes, I know about the line that goes fro…

I lived in Atlanta for 5 years, and live in Sedona, AZ for the past 2 years. I sometimes visit Phoenix. Phoenix is not where I want to live. The tech scene is kinda anemic -- and granted, I'm used to Atlanta and Seattle. Traffic isn't bad all the time, just the times when you want to go anywhere. Much of the city doesn't have good drainage, kinda poetic that the flow of traffic in Phoenix resembles the flooding that…

Obviously there are a myriad of arguments against Phoenix that are present here, but I would at least like to add that the tech communinty in PHX has come a long way in the past few years. From the outside I could see how it is still seen as anemic, but there is plenty of activity happening here on the ground.

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

#329

Post by lastofus »

jlaurend wrote: post #187

Been in Milwaukee for the past year and I have to say -- Milwaukee is underrated. We came from Boston to do an accelerator, gener8tor, in Madison (also a great city worth looking at) and ended up here. * Cost of living is low and quality of life is high. * People know how to have a good time and there's always something to do (sports are huge - Packers, Brewers, Bucks, college sports, etc). * Summer is AMAZING. There…

If coming here as a software developer, something to keep in mind is that a majority of the dev jobs here are .NET.

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

#330

Post by vermosi »

horv wrote: post #230

I haven't seen anyone specifically comment on Nashville so I figure I'll chime in and give you my $.02. I did my undergrad at Vanderbilt in Nashville, moved to Mountain View for two years to work at Google and moved back a year ago after realizing living in California didn't work for me. Pros: - No state income tax in Tennessee - Tons of stuff to do. There's way more than just Honky Tonks and country music. Professio…

As someone who was born and raised in Tennessee, I wholeheartedly agree with the above. I myself was raised about an hour south of Nashville, and currently am a relatively new developer, but the dev culture here is very vibrant, especially in the Hillsboro area, or The Gulch.

To comment on some things from the above:

Yes the weather is wonky here, one minute it might be snowing, the next it'll feel like spring/summer. (Like it has the past couple of weeks here.)

Traffic? Not terrible by any means, just have to give yourself extra time if you're having to go anywhere during rush hour (7-8am / 5-6pm).

Job market? We've got some great startups popping up, but mostly medical from what I can tell, most of my development work has been for something involving medical or a startup.

Environment? Tennessee is absolutely beautiful, we got everything from Mountains in East TN, the delta and Mississippi River in West TN, we have caves, lakes, rivers galore, beautiful state parks, and a pleasant parkway called the Natchez Trace running from the bottom of Nashville all the way to Tupelo, MS. The only thing missing for us is a beach, which is normally why a lot of Tennesseans go to Alabama or Florida, typically, for that.

TL;DR: Nashville and Tennessee are indeed awesome! I highly recommend people come and visit and check a few things out, cost of living here is extremely cheap compared to Silicon Valley / San Fran, and a lot of other major cities are far away, as horv mentioned above.

10/10, would live here indefinitely if able.

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