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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?

#141

Post by shostack »

rrival wrote: post #48
TallGuyShort wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is pretty garbage advice. There are a lot of tech companies especially just south of downtown Denver, and a reasonable start up scene in Boulder. I get 20-30% of the quantity of recruiter emails from Denver / Boulder / Ft Collins companies compared to what I used to get in the Bay Area. It's a lot less, to be sure, but still sustainable for a good career. Good meet ups too. There are pockets of stoners especiall…

He's kidding... You must not live in CO? It's the line out here. Anti-town building, too many people are moving here already because it's so great, so spread the word that it's buried in snow, full of potheads and hippies. These are not the towns your looking for. Move along, move along.

What are the best areas to live in these days if you want a smallish downtown in walking distance and a decent commute to the most job options?

I hear Boulder home prices rival the Bay (while pay does not), but not sure about the surrounding areas.

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

#142

Post by gravypod »

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 relatively nominal crime rates as well as some really cool food and people.

Edit: Forgot to mention Italy, but then you have to deal with the EU and VAT.

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

#143

Post by cylinder »

jason_slack wrote: post #103

I moved from Cupertino to very upstate New York about 15 months ago. I was able to buy a house, on a lake, forest on all sides of me and I spent less than $200,000 to buy the house, move, furnish a new place and remodel a bit to my liking. No startup scene here. For me, it was the slower pace of life, peace and quiet and more time to work on my personal goals.

What are you doing for income?

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

#144

Post by bkjelden »

relaunched wrote: post #4

Minneapolis. - Affordable, great culture / food, low unemployment, tons of public companies, rapidly growing startup scene (100 meetup groups)...If you have kids it gets even better. The suburbs are amazing, with great parks, schools, etc. Work life balance is the norm.

I don't live there right now, but Minneapolis-St. Paul is IMO the most underrated city in the country. It has all the things people love about Denver, Portland, Seattle, etc aside from mountains, but it's cold in the winter so people don't even consider it.

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

#145

Post by daodedickinson »

shawkinaw wrote: post #118
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…

> Traffic is horrendous all the time. I don't know where you got this, I live in Phoenix metro (Scottsdale) and traffic is generally great except for rush hour, and even then it's just I-10 that is really bad. It's true that stuff is fairly sprawled, but I can generally get _anywhere_ within 45 minutes, and the stuff I actually want to get to in less than 30. Plus the airport is right in the middle instead of out in…

PHX traffic is way better than LA and SF in my experience. And I much prefer PHX because it is so much more car-friendly than LA and SF. But yeah, if you don't like driving, avoid PHX and SLC.

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

#147

Post by dpc_pw »

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.

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

#148

Post by edwhitesell »

swozey wrote: post #133
edwhitesell wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree Austin has had great growth. However, compared to Dallas, I don't believe it will sustain. That's just my perspective of what I see/read in the Dallas area and what I read about the Austin area.

If Austin stumbles and our market isn't based on Oil/Banking like Houston/Dallas then I'm not sure that bodes very well for either of those cities, unfortunately. I think our failure if any will be due to poor public transportation and traffic.

> If Austin stumbles and our market isn't based on Oil/Banking like Houston/Dallas then I'm not sure that bodes very well for either of those cities, unfortunately.

Dallas is not based on Oil/Banking. Tech is leading (depending on where you look) [0].

Then there are the lists of companies with headquarters in Dallas [1]. And the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex [2].

Those lists also don't include State Farm (8,000 employees) [3] or Toyota [4].

I don't see much of the same very-large "diversification" happening in the Austin area. But, again, that's just based on what I read. I don't actually "see" anything in Austin, as I don't live there. I have watched the new State Farm towers in Dallas (Richardson) being built from my house 3 miles away.

[0] http://www.city-data.com/us-cities/The-South/Dallas-Economy....

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org /wiki/List_of_companies_in_Dallas

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_in_Dallas/Ft...

[3] http://www.telecomcorridor.com/latest-news/state-farm-coo-ne...

[4] http://money.cnn.com/2014/04/28/autos/toyota-moves-headquart...

Edit: formatting

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

#149

Post by grimberg »

bkjelden wrote: post #25

Seattle's housing costs are definitely rising but Washington's lack of an income tax is a boon for software engineers. Also, many of the big players in tech will pay within 10-20% of their bay area total comp packages in Seattle, so your take home pay might be almost the same, but of course your dollar is going to go a lot further. I ran some numbers comparing Seattle, Denver, and Minneapolis, and found the descendin…

They say Seattle is like a beautiful women (or man) who is sick 9 months of the year.

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

#150

Post by bliti »

dpeck wrote: post #120
agentgt wrote: post #113

I'm particularly biased as I went to school at GaTech but Atlanta has greatly improved over the last decade or so. It obviously has a completely different social, ethnic and economic diversity than SF does as well as being far far more cost effective. It also has real BBQ as well as being not that far from Miami (my favorite city but not good to live/work in). I would recommend Boston (where I currently live) except…

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.

Chatanooga is very nice, and the tech scene healthy. Plan to visit soon!
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