Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: How to find a small town to relocate for remote work?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

461–470 of 582 posts

Re: Ask HN: How to find a small town to relocate for remote work?

#461

Post by trcarney »

The first place that came to mid is Northwest Arkansas, especially Bentonville. It still has a small town feel but has much nicer amenities than a town of its size normally does because of all the money brought in by Walmart being headquartered there. The surrounding towns, Fayetteville especially, are also nice. This place is especially awesome if you are into doing things outdoors, especially mountain biking.

Another place to expand your search are these YouTube channels, From Here to There (https://www.youtube.com/c/FromHeretoThere/videos) and The World According To Briggs (https://www.youtube.com/c/WorldAccordingToBriggs). They might help find places your aren't currently looking at.

Re: Ask HN: How to find a small town to relocate for remote work?

#462

Post by codethief »

tallanvor wrote: post #215
grapeskin wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first year, yeah. After that, people start moving out. I don’t know anybody who lived in a dorm from the third year onward. But yeah, what poor college students trying to get a start on life and grad students making pocket change really need is some 400k/year tech workers to flood into their town, say “wow! Only 2500 a month!” and make it impossible to live anywhere. Also, dorms are insanely expensive. And wantin…

Residence halls are generally competitively priced, and is often cheaper than comparable housing off campus. Residence halls are more expensive than they used to be, but a lot of that is due to the type of housing that students are demanding. University-owned housing isn't a profit center, it's only priced to cover the costs of providing it.

> University-owned housing isn't a profit center, it's only priced to cover the costs of providing it.

That's news to me. The university charged me three times as much as I ended up paying off campus later (in a much better location).

Re: Ask HN: How to find a small town to relocate for remote work?

#463

Post by KennyBlanken »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #248
interdrift wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly looking into his issues, seems like he's getting dealt some bad cards after investing into a city that is letting him down.

Honestly, it looks like he isn't going about trying to work with the city very well. He also has videos on there of him lecturing public officials about how slow they are. At the same time, he is trying to build a fusion generator, a science museum, an industrial space, and a few internet businesses that seem to need a secure facility. The planning commission probably has no idea what to do with him, and it doesn't s…

The "benforbars" site has all the hallmarks of a free-energy nutjob complete with comic sans font and MSpaint images.

Between that and the tweet whining about how hard email is to set up (!) this dude isn't qualified to run a Subway franchise, certainly not multiple internet companies.

Re: Ask HN: How to find a small town to relocate for remote work?

#464

Post by geraldwhen »

tallanvor wrote: post #215
grapeskin wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first year, yeah. After that, people start moving out. I don’t know anybody who lived in a dorm from the third year onward. But yeah, what poor college students trying to get a start on life and grad students making pocket change really need is some 400k/year tech workers to flood into their town, say “wow! Only 2500 a month!” and make it impossible to live anywhere. Also, dorms are insanely expensive. And wantin…

Residence halls are generally competitively priced, and is often cheaper than comparable housing off campus. Residence halls are more expensive than they used to be, but a lot of that is due to the type of housing that students are demanding. University-owned housing isn't a profit center, it's only priced to cover the costs of providing it.

No? In the “college towns” described, rent is far cheaper than dorm costs.

15 years ago, dorm costs were >$1100/mo, and rent was $550 where I lived, 10 minutes from the university.

Re: Ask HN: How to find a small town to relocate for remote work?

#465

Post by vineyardmike »

closeparen wrote: post #74
cortesoft wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really depends on the atmosphere you want. College towns are great in many ways, with lots of interesting things to do and a lot of cultural events. However, a lot of people move to college towns and don't realize/remember what college kids are like... they will be noisy at night, sometimes destroy property, throw parties, do stupid pranks... it isn't for everybody

You can always organize with the other homeowners to curtail the college's operations! Seems to be a popular strategy.

Slowly suffocate the golden goose! Ever popular indeed.

Re: Ask HN: How to find a small town to relocate for remote work?

#466

Post by rlawson »

gee_totes wrote: post #449
rlawson wrote: post #288

Let me give you the scoop on the Carolina's. I'm a developer living in the upstate of SC. I am an agnostic liberal which makes me a rarity but I was born here so I can go under the radar thanks to my deep melodious southern accent. Pros - Great climate 10 out of 12 months - Friendly people - Lots of outdoor activities - Beautiful beaches (Fripp Island and Kiawah especially) - Low cost housing (altho going up rapidly)…

You fool! I'm moved to Cola from Seattle three years ago and absolutely love it. I see more and more people moving to South Carolina every day. We need to shut the door behind us before too many people come here! In Seattle there was an attitude called K.B.O. which stands for Keep the Bastards Out. It mostly means when talking to outsiders, you should complain about the rain so they don't get any ideas about moving t…

:)

Re: Ask HN: How to find a small town to relocate for remote work?

#467

Post by honkdaddy »

braingenious wrote: post #442
honkdaddy wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you please be more clear with what you're trying to say then? You obviously feel very strongly about pontifier and his past, given the amount of time you spent digging into his background, what is the point you are actually trying to make here? Be as direct as possible, please :)

I asked if the OP was the same person that was posting on Twitter, as what was posted there was a different tone from what was posted on HN. He answered in the affirmative. I did not spend much time “digging into his background”, I clicked a link and read a few posts. Why do you care? Be as direct as possible, please :)

I’ll bite - I only care because I think it’s important for others to see what your intentions are here. Now that I’ve answered your question, can you answer mine? :) If I wanted to, I’m sure I could Google some of your online identities and find a post your made in the past and then asked in a public forum if you’re the same person. I wouldn’t do that because I think it’s a bit creepy and impolite, but if I had a very specific reason for doing so, I might consider it. So I’ll ask again - what was your intention in connecting his identities here in such a direct way? You said something about “bought a town” and it being “political”, can you expand on what that means?

Re: Ask HN: How to find a small town to relocate for remote work?

#468

Post by sneak »

refurb wrote: post #275
sneak wrote: post #52

Without a symphony/opera, theater, decent concert venue, and some art museums, life is going to get real boring, real fast. I did a stint in a cheap culture wasteland through covid. It may be economically cheaper but the toll it takes on your soul is real.

People do realize that other people might like different things than they do…right? At least I hope they do.

It’s not just those things; it is the set of people in society that require at least some of those cultural elements.

If you live in a place without any of them, you can be sure it also doesn’t have any of those kinds of people as full-time residents.

Re: Ask HN: How to find a small town to relocate for remote work?

#469

Post by prennert »

Find data sources and optimise for your objectives. For me it was:

- travel-time, via connections like airports, train stations, motorways, etc. You will need them when you want to travel, or your spouse needs to get to an office

- weather. Now and predictions of how it will change in the future

- water levels and flood risks and how they are predicted to change over your lifetime (especially important of you like the coast, rivers, etc.)

- forest fires, draught etc might be a factor depending on your climate

- proximity to industrial or academic centers

- general social-economic situation of the place that is interesting to you

Most of this data is likely freely available from public / state sources.

If you don't know the place, rent first, buy when you are happy. Data is unlikely to provide the full picture and you need to live in a place to get a full picture of it's quirks. Make sure to use the facilities you care about to get an idea how they work in practice.

Re: Ask HN: How to find a small town to relocate for remote work?

#470

Post by honkdaddy »

throwaway787544 wrote: post #320
Gigachad wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just skimming the Wikipedia page for that place shows red flags all over the place. The population has been sharply declining since 1970 and the homicide rate is 56 per 100,000 vs the national average of 6.5. Clearly something is very wrong with the local government and population.

It's called poverty. Welcome to rural America. Went down the shitter when industry left and the rest of the country ignored it for decades, so now we have MAGA, drugs and crime, and a whole lotta cheap land.

The poorest towns in America don’t have the highest crime and the richest towns don’t have the lowest. Attributing violent crime to poverty alone does a disservice to the people living in places with violent crime.
Post reply on HN