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Find a new city

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Re: Find a new city

#101

Post by Avshalom »

nostromo wrote: post #60
rpazyaquian wrote: post #34

This jumped out at me: > “I’m trans, so I need to live somewhere progressive so I feel safe day-to-day and don’t feel like I’m going to get beat up for using the wrong restroom.” This is a pretty damn good reason to live somewhere like Seattle or Boston, and a pretty damn good reason not to live somewhere like (edit:) North Carolina or Tennessee or Georgia. The reality is that many of us are limited by not wanting to…

Have you actually spent time in Raleigh or Atlanta? The idea that trans people are getting murdered in the street is just not correct. I'm gay and I've spent a lot of fun nights in Boise, Idaho because a gay friend of mine lives there with her wife. We always have a blast. She has a great career in Boise and I don't think she's experienced more homophobia there than when she lived in New York City. (I know she had at…

I believe you'll find that north carolina is on the coast.

Re: Find a new city

#102

Post by sdenton4 »

rpazyaquian wrote: post #54
wwwdonohue wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're a software engineer and live in the Bay Area and suddenly lose your job, depending on the economy you're probably in for a 1-6 month job search at local companies That long? Funny that we're always hearing about how difficult it is for tech companies to find software engineers. In any case, OP is expressly not talking about getting a job at a tech company -- he's talking about doing something interesting wi…

>I presume this means getting a 9-5 at a laundromat in Ohio and working on open source projects in your spare time. This doesn't sound like it'd be any more conducive to productivity on side-projects than a 9-5 at a tech job. Consuming 8 hours of the work day is bad for productivity no matter what. Also, nthing the sentiment that tech hiring is screwed up. I highly doubt that companies are having a hard time finding…

I had a friend in grad school who got a pile of good math research done while working the overnight shift at a hotel. There's a handful of these jobs where you just need a body present, and the mind is free to go as far as it wants...

Re: Find a new city

#103

Post by duaneb »

nostromo wrote: post #60
rpazyaquian wrote: post #34

This jumped out at me: > “I’m trans, so I need to live somewhere progressive so I feel safe day-to-day and don’t feel like I’m going to get beat up for using the wrong restroom.” This is a pretty damn good reason to live somewhere like Seattle or Boston, and a pretty damn good reason not to live somewhere like (edit:) North Carolina or Tennessee or Georgia. The reality is that many of us are limited by not wanting to…

Have you actually spent time in Raleigh or Atlanta? The idea that trans people are getting murdered in the street is just not correct. I'm gay and I've spent a lot of fun nights in Boise, Idaho because a gay friend of mine lives there with her wife. We always have a blast. She has a great career in Boise and I don't think she's experienced more homophobia there than when she lived in New York City. (I know she had at…

This is all oriented around metropolitan areas, which are often much more liberal than the surrounding areas. I'm not sure this speaks the region as a whole.

However, you're also understating the threat of violence against trans people[1]. My best friend in the world had their world turned upside down after a murder in Philly[2]—a city with a strong queer community, one of the strongest I've ever seen. I don't think you're truly safe anywhere at the moment as a trans person.

Finally, there's this super depressing article on wikipedia about trans murders specifically: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unlawfully_killed_tran...

[1]: http://www.thetaskforce.org/static_html/downloads/reports/re... (You really have to dig, but I recommend eyeballing the entire report to get a full idea to the extent to which trans people are subject to discrimination, harassment, and assault).

[2]: http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Transgender-Rally-...

Re: Find a new city

#104

Post by et-al »

mr_pink wrote: post #91
nostromo wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you actually spent time in Raleigh or Atlanta? The idea that trans people are getting murdered in the street is just not correct. I'm gay and I've spent a lot of fun nights in Boise, Idaho because a gay friend of mine lives there with her wife. We always have a blast. She has a great career in Boise and I don't think she's experienced more homophobia there than when she lived in New York City. (I know she had at…

> I think a lot of coastal elites have no idea what they're talking about when they speak about the extreme danger of being different in middle-America. Here's a counterargument (counter-anecdote, really): I'm different in other ways (foreigner), I found living in middle-America a nightmarish experience of prejudice and outright hate. Being cat-called once is child's play compared to living in the mid-west while fore…

Agreed.

One can be gay (and of the white majority) and not broadcast it, whereas when you're not-white, you're foreign. You can speak with a flawless accent, play varsity baseball, drink Bud at the bar and cheer for the home team, but in the eyes of the bigoted, you still aren't anything beyond your skin color.

This is not to discredit what other discriminated people have to undergo, but as someone who is not white, there's an extra burden to living in middle-America.

Re: Find a new city

#105

Post by mathattack »

wwwdonohue wrote: post #58
mathattack wrote: post #8

There's a difference between attracting artists, and attracting engineers. Both thrive in communities surrounded by like minded people. The difference is entry level artists can't live in high priced cities, so they must find new habitats. Otherwise art goes back to a hobby for the idle rich. Engineers can get by (if not save a ton) on entry level jobs in places like Silicon Valley or SF. It just takes a willingness…

I left Manhattan because you had to be in a hedge fund to have a good life. For all the talk of Silicon Valley being expensive, you don't need to add private school costs to a $6K rent. Manhattan vs. Silicon Valley isn't exactly a fair comparison.

My point is that engineers aren't priced out of Silicon Valley like artists are of New York City.

Re: Find a new city

#106

Post by ido »

nextos wrote: post #20
mkolodny wrote: post #17

I love the sentiment. Silicon Valley and NYC became what they are because of people hacking on things in garages / shitty apartments. Now those shitty apartments cost $2,000/month. The equivalent of those places, where things like Apple started, isn't Silicon Valley and NYC. It's places like Detroit. Or wherever people doing cool things decide to move and congregate. Then again, it is still possible to live cheaply i…

I can't agree more. But it's hard. I feel Silicon Valley and NYC became what they are because of cheap real estate and talent pool. I find it hard to find places with a lot of talent but undervalued real estate these days. Maybe all low hanging fruit is gone. In Europe, London, Oxbridge, Stockholm are somewhat similar. Insane prices. Berlin and to a certain extent Copenhagen are cheaper. Some smaller locations like C…

Copenhagen? I don't know how much real estate costs there but I doubt it's cheap. Last time I visited it was as expensive as Zurich (I.e. Double German prices).

Better examples might be Leipzig and Prague.

Re: Find a new city

#107

Post by thescriptkiddie »

bufordsharkley wrote: post #82
forgotuser wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Community Land Trusts are a great example of the sort of thing people should be looking into as an alternative to the current model. Don't see people talking about them much. The basic idea is that a nonprofit purchases the land in a community and holds it in perpetuity. It rents the land long-term to residents (and for the most part, they're required to be residents), instead of selling it. It's still possib…

I've wanted to look more into CLTs, but haven't yet-- What's stopping CLTs from existing today? Is it merely the novelty and relative complication of the CLT? Or is there policy that makes them impractical?

They do exist. What's stopping them from being more prevalent? Probably the lingering effects of McCarthyism.

Re: Find a new city

#108

Post by refurb »

initram wrote: post #37
rpazyaquian wrote: post #34

This jumped out at me: > “I’m trans, so I need to live somewhere progressive so I feel safe day-to-day and don’t feel like I’m going to get beat up for using the wrong restroom.” This is a pretty damn good reason to live somewhere like Seattle or Boston, and a pretty damn good reason not to live somewhere like (edit:) North Carolina or Tennessee or Georgia. The reality is that many of us are limited by not wanting to…

For me it's not only about being safe. I don't have to worry too much about that sort of thing because I blend in most places in my country. But I've lived where people had different values than me and it just gets exhausting. Constantly being bombarded with messages you fundamentally disagree with 24/7. Billboards; local TV; newpapers/web sites; overhearing conversations of the people around you; having odd things s…

But I've lived where people had different values than me and it just gets exhausting.

Really? I thought diversity was a good thing? I know I wouldn't want to live somewhere where everyone thought the same thing I did. Sounds boring.

Re: Find a new city

#109

Post by fowkswe »

SegFaultx64 wrote: post #95
fowkswe wrote: post #46

For people looking for that 70s NYC like experience, with proximity to NYC, I HIGHLY suggest checking out the Albany / Troy area. Both are gritty little cities with a bunch of interesting people living there doing interesting shit, all for next to nothing. You can rent a townhouse for under a thousand / month. Shit, you can BUY a gorgeous 19th century townhouse for under a 100k - the same thing that would be 3 millio…

I second Troy (I hate Albany but that is personal preference). They are also reasonably safe considering how improvised they have been in recent times. Prices in Troy are already starting to climb, so get while the getting is good. One thing I will say is that both are very small compared to a NYC feel, and public transit is awful.

For sure, they are very small places.

But they are old, dense cities and are very walkable / bikeable. You can even ride between the 2 on a nice path that runs next to the Hudson (they are about 6 miles apart).

Re: Find a new city

#110

Post by thescriptkiddie »

RussianCow wrote: post #14
startupdiscuss wrote: post #10

This view ignores the benefits of the large cities. The rents are high for a reason. You want to go there. And not just for the cultural opportunities. Most people want good jobs. You can't have everyone starting startups, or working remotely. To put it another way, almost everything important and interesting you do will require other people.

> You can't have everyone starting startups, or working remotely. Not everyone, but let's face it, a HUGE number of existing in-office jobs could be fairly easily made remote, which would cut down on the appeal of large cities. I think if even 10% of all currently in-office jobs became remote, you would see a significant movement away from the big cities.

Note, however, that a lot of people reverse-commute. They don't live in the city because their job is there, they live there because they want to. Some of my coworkers even reverse-telecommute, working from their apartments downtown rather than schlepping their macbooks all the way to an office building in the suburbs.
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