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Why do developers who could work anywhere flock to the most expensive cities?

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Re: Why do developers who could work anywhere flock to the most expensive cities?

#221

Post by 55555 »

Muromec wrote: post #141
prostoalex wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're a fantastic developer in Ukraine, India or China and have very limited needs (compared to a guy with a family and kids), your disposable monthly income net of taxes, rent and commute expenses is still likely to be higher in Silicon Valley than Ukraine, India or China. A rational decision then would be to move to Silicon Valley arbitraging the costs as much as you can (living with roommates, commuting by Cal…

>If you're a fantastic developer in Ukraine, India or China and have very limited needs (compared to a guy with a family and kids), your disposable monthly income net of taxes, rent and commute expenses is still likely to be higher in Silicon Valley than Ukraine, India or China. No it would not. Nothing can beat sub 500 USD apartment, 5% tax rate and 3 cents for subway ticket

5% tax rate? Where?

Re: Why do developers who could work anywhere flock to the most expensive cities?

#222

Post by yitchelle »

adrianratnapala wrote: post #146
anovikov wrote: post #24

LOL it is the other way around, cities become most expensive because developers flock there and spend cash. This happens now in Limassol, Cyprus: crowds of developers, most having their own startups, started to flock there since 3 years ago from Russia, Belarus and Ukraine - it was always a country to keep offshore companies/accounts, so every rich developer in ex-USSR already been there and knew the place, but since…

My town, Sydney is not expensive because there is a handful of Googlers like me live around here. Google here because Sydney is the kind of place that people pay lots of money to stay in. And so I have to pay too much rent. I love Sydney, it is (spiritually) my home town. But I wish the company would move to Wagga Wagga. I mean the place even looks like Mountain View.

Ex-Aussie here. I wish that Australia would adopt a more de-centralise strategy on tech hubs. I live in Germany now and have seen multinational companies setup their European HQ is small cities or towns. This is equivalent to having Atlassian setting up their HQ in Bathurst.

Re: Why do developers who could work anywhere flock to the most expensive cities?

#223

Post by noarchy »

glitch003 wrote: post #29

I work remote, and I like living in SF. I've lived and travelled to many places, and SF is my favorite, despite how expensive it is. I live in a 40 bedroom "hacker house", where else am I gonna find somewhere like that? I can discuss the latest javascript framework in the kitchen. I learn about new cryptocoins in the common room. I like living in the Mission, where new restaurants are popping up all the time. It's al…

>I live in a 40 bedroom "hacker house", where else am I gonna find somewhere like that?

A university dorm?

Re: Why do developers who could work anywhere flock to the most expensive cities?

#224

Post by cylinder »

geff82 wrote: post #130
rahimnathwani wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2m for a limited time visa. 5m if you want to settle

And I personally there is nothing wrong with being able to buy a visa. Many people in a country don't pay few taxes in their life. So when someone comes and invests a good amount, it is ok to honor this with visa or passport. Would just be cool if every country would allow easier immigration for ordinary people, too.

No, it's not okay, it reduces citizenship and community to a dollar value, which is just more neoliberalism. It doesn't pay the government anything either - for eb5 investor commonly makes a profit, and only has to employ ten Americans at full time minimum wage (not much tax there). The immigrants income is usually left back home (mainly China) and they don't declare it in the US since it's out of reach of the IRS. Mainly they send the spouse and kids to use top public schools and down the line they get social security and Medicare too. It's a complete scam

Re: Why do developers who could work anywhere flock to the most expensive cities?

#225

Post by sjg007 »

I think the answer is that you have to be close to the money. The VCs in the case of SF. Hedge funds and finance HFT in the case of London and NYC (speed of light limitation). Then you get a local network effect of consolidated industries.

Re: Why do developers who could work anywhere flock to the most expensive cities?

#226

Post by LifeQuestioner »

septimus111 wrote: post #139

Here in the UK the difference between London vs the rest of the country is insane: I would love to live somewhere with a better quality of life but it's much harder to find a good job outside London. I wonder how much of the resistance to setting up offices in smaller cities is due to senior managers and engineers not wanting to move away because of kids / partners, or because at their level of income they can pretty…

Hmm, there's quite a few places in the UK I think you'd be surprised. The salary's are not as high - but they're still really high and outside of london you save mega moneys.

Moved to Glasgow for a higher salary than I had in London, and where rent is 1/3 of the price.

There's Edinburgh, Manchester(home of the bbc) (ranked as two of the best cities for tech in the UK, manchester for media city), Bristol, Bath, Newcastle, Cambridge. All good salaries and likely to save more money than in London.

Re: Why do developers who could work anywhere flock to the most expensive cities?

#227

Post by Nokinside »

OliverJones wrote: post #183

Steven Johnson, in his recent book Where Good Ideas Come From, pointed out that cities are more innovative the bigger they are, demonstrably according to a quarter power law. Aggregates of people are more creative than individuals. http://www.penguin.com/ajax/books/excerpt/9781594487712 But he ALSO points out that the internet has greatly reduced the need for physical proximity to get the aggregation benefits to crea…

I list agglomeration benefits from my study notes (Urban economics).

* Knowledge spillovers. This core idea for information-based agglomeration economies. Robotics researcher benefits from touching randomly elbows with metallurgy expert and vice versa. Random human contact happens in internet too, but you don't form deep connections as a rule. Has anyone had a hours long beneficial discussion with random guy in the internet?

* Labor market pooling allows labor to be more efficiently allocated following productivity shocks. Changing jobs is easier. The ability to switch into a new job is first order agglomeration benefit. When large number of similar jobs are located at the same area, its easier for people to change jobs and find the job that makes them most productive.

* Marriage multiplies the effect of labor market pooling. When people marry each other and move together they must find a two jobs within working distance. If they are both highly specialized, highly educated or both, only largest cities allow best job for both without sacrifice.

* Services and more choices. Even a Pizza delivery guy can be more productive in dense city. That justifies the little higher salary for pizza delivery guy. There is more different services available. Increasing the value of the location.

* coagglomeration. The tendency of industries to colocate with other industries and form tight networks that respond fast to new demand.

* Cost of moving people. Travel time reduces productivity significantly.

* Logistics in general is and faster and more efficient. Benefit of moving goods is now considered relatively second order.

* Congestion has costs. Pollution and expensive housing are results of failing urban development. Without congestion costs the concentration of people into the best cities would be even faster.

Re: Why do developers who could work anywhere flock to the most expensive cities?

#228

Post by 21 »

henrikschroder wrote: post #145
rubicon33 wrote: post #38

I used to live in SF. It was exciting, but also shitty. I felt connected and alive, which was great, but also drained of resources, which really sucked. Oh, and there were 6 of us, in a 3 bedroom apartment. I had the living room. Yea. I lasted 3 years, until I met my wife, and by then I was ready to move. We did. Now, life in the suburbs, is slow. I feel somewhat disconnected and like I don't really belong to this co…

> Oh, and there were 6 of us, in a 3 bedroom apartment. This is such a weird American phenomenon, the whole roommate thing. What on earth can make adults choose to share their home with a stranger? Why isn't there intense pressure for building many small apartments, rather than building larger apartments that are meant for roommates? Is it connected to the equally weird college dorm roommate system? Why are people ac…

It's funny, that I kind of did things in the wrong order.

When I was in my 20s, I lived alone in a nice place, as a developer I could afford it.

Now in my 30s I live in a shared apartment in London, I can technically afford to live alone, but I'd rather save the money (it would be twice as expensive).

It's not as bad as I had feared, and the community aspect can be interested, it can also be very bad if you end up with the wrong people (noise, ...)

All in all, I don't regret it.

Re: Why do developers who could work anywhere flock to the most expensive cities?

#229

Post by gdulli »

OliverJones wrote: post #183

Steven Johnson, in his recent book Where Good Ideas Come From, pointed out that cities are more innovative the bigger they are, demonstrably according to a quarter power law. Aggregates of people are more creative than individuals. http://www.penguin.com/ajax/books/excerpt/9781594487712 But he ALSO points out that the internet has greatly reduced the need for physical proximity to get the aggregation benefits to crea…

For me it's (1) that I get to live in a cool area (Boston/Cambridge) and (2) sitting by myself working remotely without being in an office full of coworkers would be unacceptably boring. Even putting aside the subtle ways that having in-person interactions benefits the work, I just wouldn't find the job fun anymore.

Re: Why do developers who could work anywhere flock to the most expensive cities?

#230

Post by captainmuon »

sporkenfang wrote: post #219
ssambros wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is relatively easy to get a software engineer job in Germany and couple of years later get a residency, so no, residencies are not the only reason people moved to Cyprus.

If a person theoretically spoke French and English but had not yet studied German, would that make such a leap more difficult?

From my experience, people get along pretty well in Germany even if they know only English. Especially in large cities like Berlin, where they are likely to get such a job. So many people speak good English here, that it is actually hard to learn German, because the natives don't want to speak German with you :-). I'm in research, and half of my institute here in Berlin are foreigners.

Of course, it still helps a lot to learn German - and I think you miss out on a lot if you don't learn the language of a country. Also, you'll need a friend or colleague to help you with administrative stuff in the beginning (which may be in German only).

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