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San Diego Struggles to Keep Its Young Tech Talent

nytimes.com

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Re: San Diego Struggles to Keep Its Young Tech Talent

#61

Post by ihsw »

Many MANY cities are struggling with this -- business parks outside of the city core and the only way between is commute via car.

Frankly this blows pretty hard and the only remediation is reliable public transit between the two, or more to the point, some form of light rail (with frequent all-day every-day service) or even heavy rapid transit. Sadly many municipalities find this unappetizing as the time-frame for such a project stretches past a decade and the cost into the billions, so such cities will inevitably be left to languish.

I can only hope that they start to see the writing on the wall sooner than later.

The complete and total lack of attention to bicycle infrastructure is an issue too, but that is a whole different can of worms.

Re: San Diego Struggles to Keep Its Young Tech Talent

#62

Post by maxsilver »

djKianoosh wrote: post #12
ikeyany wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem in San Diego is that although traffic blows, there's no strong public transit like you have in DC.

wait what? DC has one of the worst public transit systems of a major city in the world. portions of it are constantly shut down for maintenance. there was a week this summer with 2-3 fires in the system. "strong" it is not. carry on

> DC has one of the worst public transit systems of a major city in the world. "strong" it is not.

But DC does have a real public transit system. Even if the train catches fire 2-3 times a day, you at least have a train that runs. That alone puts DC above 90+% of American cities.

Re: San Diego Struggles to Keep Its Young Tech Talent

#63

Post by Grishnakh »

gist wrote: post #41
Grishnakh wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only that, but isn't there a massive shortage of single women there? I guess the Millennials aren't interested in dating....

If you are a man (dating wise) it's better to be in NYC (Honestly don't know anything about San Diego). If you are a woman it's better to be in SV or SF.

>If you are a man (dating wise) it's better to be in NYC

Yes, but then the problem there is there aren't a lot of tech jobs in NYC that aren't soul-crushing finance jobs.

Re: San Diego Struggles to Keep Its Young Tech Talent

#64

Post by FT_intern »

honkhonkpants wrote: post #49
rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple, depending on traffic or how you get there.

^^^ exactly! People just don't understand how bad the traffic and transportation systems around here can be, especially the northbound evening commute hours. My choice would have been IBM though, being as far as I can recall the most distant major tech campus from San Francisco. It's 90 minutes by car or 3 hours by train.

nobody moves to the bay area to work for IBM

Re: San Diego Struggles to Keep Its Young Tech Talent

#65

Post by amyjess »

logfromblammo wrote: post #59
Grishnakh wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no strong public transit in DC either. There's the Metro, which occasionally kills people due to terrible maintenance, but it's only really useful for DC proper. There's not many tech jobs in DC, they're all outside in northern VA or southern MD, quite some distance from downtown DC. And those places are not well-served by Metro at all; basically there's some giant park-and-ride centers where commuters can dr…

Seeing firsthand what adjacency to a large military base does, I wouldn't want to be young tech talent near Coronado or Camp Pendleton, either. Defense jobs are terrible, soul-crushing nightmares that nevertheless pay you enough that it isn't really worth running back through the tech hiring gauntlet, which somehow manages to be worse. My soul is already nearly squashed flat, but it's not too late for you to save you…

> Defense jobs are terrible, soul-crushing nightmares

> My soul is already nearly squashed flat

Can you elaborate? What, exactly, was soul-crushing?

I worked for a small defense contractor from January 2015 to March 2016, and it didn't feel soul-crushing to me. In fact, I liked the fact that we were mostly forbidden from working overtime. Mind you, I don't miss the timekeeping policies one iota (including how we handled snow days), but it was tolerable...

Re: San Diego Struggles to Keep Its Young Tech Talent

#66

Post by niels_olson »

I'm in San Diego and have visited SF many times on business and pleasure. I used to think I would want to live in the City and retire in the Bay area. Today, I'm not so sure. It's just too crazy. Driving from my friend's studio 3rd floor walk-up near AT&T Park to Mountain View convinced me that drive is crazy. I could get anywhere in San Diego in the time it took me to make that commute.

And the article didn't seem to mention this, but a lot of these SV companies are in office parks. Google, Apple, office parks with flair (and I use flair in the Office Space sense of the word). The future is falling from the sky like rain, but like rain, a lot of it is lost down the drain.

Also, Google is opening a pretty good-sized building in San Diego, just down the street from Green Flash.

Also, I'm on the Navy side of government tech transfer. I have to say, the government gives developers a pretty sweet deal on their IP rights.

Actually, y'all just go up to SF. Please. Enjoy it. I'll slum it down here. I'll visit you.

Re: San Diego Struggles to Keep Its Young Tech Talent

#67

Post by draw_down »

cylinder wrote: post #23

Who cares? Where are the articles about San Antonio losing its "young oil and gas talent" to Houston? How about Philly losing its "young finance talent" to New York? Also, I'm pretty sure biotech counts as "tech." Hey, it even has it in the name. Too bad they don't have more on demand laundry startups, since apparently that's the key to success as a city.

Shhh

Re: San Diego Struggles to Keep Its Young Tech Talent

#68

Post by niels_olson »

roadnottaken wrote: post #52
RCortex wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Meanwhile the housing is still affordable compared to the Bay Area, if not cheap on a national basis. And the Valley is an hourlong Southwest flight away. I see lots of >$1 million homes and >$1500/month rents for apartments, in the suburbs. Do you have any specific areas in mind? I'm thinking about moving.

In north county, places like Rancho Penasquitos (92129) have great schools and you can find decent single-family homes in the low $600's these days. It's about 15 minutes from the coast without traffic -- 25 mins from downtown. Nearby areas like Mira Mesa and Clairemont are cheaper but the public schools aren't as good.

Shhhhh! Just shhhhhusshh!

Re: San Diego Struggles to Keep Its Young Tech Talent

#69

Post by makecheck »

ihsw wrote: post #61

Many MANY cities are struggling with this -- business parks outside of the city core and the only way between is commute via car. Frankly this blows pretty hard and the only remediation is reliable public transit between the two, or more to the point, some form of light rail (with frequent all-day every-day service) or even heavy rapid transit. Sadly many municipalities find this unappetizing as the time-frame for su…

The weird thing for me is how many companies resist working from home (permanently) as a solution. Screwed-up office and housing locations become a lot more palatable when you never have to make that commute.

I’m not sure how it became a thing to distrust employees so much that teams can’t even conceive of somebody that is never in the office. The silliest situation I encountered was one a few years ago where a manager couldn’t see how ridiculous it was that he disallowed working from home for employees in his own city even though half the people on his team were in another state and he could never keep tabs on them anyway.

Re: San Diego Struggles to Keep Its Young Tech Talent

#70

Post by niels_olson »

roadnottaken wrote: post #58

I can see the appeal of places like SF and NYC for 20-somethings, but I'm in my mid-30s with 2 kids and in San Diego I can afford a nice single-family house in the suburbs with good public schools and (relatively) affordable daycare. When I hear about the crowding and cost of living in places like SF/Boston/NYC it makes me shudder. I love it here, but I work in La Jolla not Sorrento Valley (I'm in biotech, not IT). B…

Also, our brewery scene is way better! Wait, you mean biochemists, geneticists, and molecular biologists might know something about yeast? No.....
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