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San Diego Struggles to Keep Its Young Tech Talent

nytimes.com

81–90 of 226 posts

Re: San Diego Struggles to Keep Its Young Tech Talent

#81
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.

I love PQ.

Guys PLEASE don't come to San Diego.

I like it the way it is and would hate to see it turn into another Bay Area.

On a more serious note I still have no idea why people haven't figured this out and all flooded the place... You could have some killer startups here..

Re: San Diego Struggles to Keep Its Young Tech Talent

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

$600,000 is affordable? How about smart? I don't mean to chide, but $600,000 for a cookie cutter tract-home is down right absurd. California is nuts.

If you live in rural Kentucky, housing in many parts of Florida would be considered absurd. Comparing costs of living in wages against locations is apples and oranges. You can get a home with 2000sgft in Montana with 50 acres for the same price as a cookie cutter home in a subdivision in North Carolina. Housing is based on numerous economic factors including wage and comps (what other people have been willing to spend on similar homes in the area)

Re: San Diego Struggles to Keep Its Young Tech Talent

#83
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 hand…

It has its ups and downs. The general lack of overtime is nice, and from what I've seen of it the work pace is pretty lax and it's not hard to keep your job. The problem with it is that it seems to be a big make-work jobs program for engineers. Defense projects these days just seem to drag on forever and rarely bear any fruit. It's not like working in the commercial sector where your work has a decent chance of actua…

To be fair, my company was a little unconventional. We made NLP systems for defense clients, and as such we were working on interesting problems and had some real scientists on our payroll. I actually felt kinda out of place because I came from a systems and platform background and wound up being immersed in academic CS stuff and computational linguistics, while also being surrounded by experts on the subject with lots of experience, when I've never been good at the academic side. As much as I liked working at that company, I'm glad I'm now doing NMS engineering at a telecom instead, because what I'm doing now actually matches my skillset.

Personally, though, I've never cared that much about working on something that's fulfilling in and of itself. As long as I'm getting paid enough to fund my life, the hours are good, the work environment isn't abusive (I learned that lesson from a startup), and I'm doing something I'm actually competent at, I'm content. If I want to work on something that tickles my fancy, that's what personal projects are for.

Re: San Diego Struggles to Keep Its Young Tech Talent

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

$600,000 is affordable? How about smart? I don't mean to chide, but $600,000 for a cookie cutter tract-home is down right absurd. California is nuts.

McMansions are pervasive in all states/cities. And their overpricing is a common. It's not California, it's the American economy, built upon housing.

Re: San Diego Struggles to Keep Its Young Tech Talent

#85
To upgrade challenging neighborhoods in New York, developers along with the city politicians created spaces for artists with reduced rents for a specific amount of years. By bringing in artists in the neighborhood would become "trendy" and draw more development. Perhaps San Diego can do the same thing with developers?

Tom Wolfe on "artists are usually at the forefront of neighborhood revitalization..."

https://books.google.com/books?id=o8GEcPiiKjcC&pg=PA184&lpg=...

Re: San Diego Struggles to Keep Its Young Tech Talent

#86

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…

This! For real, swimmable beaches almost all year round? SoCal FTw!!!

Re: San Diego Struggles to Keep Its Young Tech Talent

#87
post #31

I grew up in San Diego before spending 20 years in the Bay Area. While I totally understand why a fresh graduate would want to head north to the bay, I think as a place to CREATE a startup, San Diego has tremendous potential. The weather is beautiful and actually beats SF. It's close to 70 year round, nice and dry, with great beaches and mountain and desert hiking. As the article notes downtown has been evolving in a…

> The computer science program at UCSD is typically ranked about 15th globally, CalTech is not terribly far north, nor is UCLA and UC Irvine and UCSB and UC Riverside, and SDSU, though it has a reputation as a party school, is no slouch.

Also USC and Harvey Mudd.

Re: San Diego Struggles to Keep Its Young Tech Talent

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

I don't think you have to worry... there is a NET outflow of people living in California[1]. Why? My mother always said if you don't have anything nice to say about a group of people, don't say anything at all.

[1]https://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/great-california-ex...

Re: San Diego Struggles to Keep Its Young Tech Talent

#89
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.

Sounds like similar prices and commute to Daly City. Can anyone who knows both regions distinguish them for me?

Re: San Diego Struggles to Keep Its Young Tech Talent

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$600,000 is affordable? How about smart? I don't mean to chide, but $600,000 for a cookie cutter tract-home is down right absurd. California is nuts.

If you live in rural Kentucky, housing in many parts of Florida would be considered absurd. Comparing costs of living in wages against locations is apples and oranges. You can get a home with 2000sgft in Montana with 50 acres for the same price as a cookie cutter home in a subdivision in North Carolina. Housing is based on numerous economic factors including wage and comps (what other people have been willing to spen…

The difference between the housing market in the Bay and almost anywhere else is an extreme caricature of your analogy, though. At some point all analogies fail to provide an adequate description, but yours fails almost out of the gate here, in my opinion.
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