141–150 of 592 posts
Frustrating to see an interesting HN headline, only to be presented with a paywalled article. Such as this. I wish there was a way to avoid even seeing them. In addition to the dashed expectations, half the comments will be from people who could not read the article (like this one)
I find it very educational to read what people have to say about living in the various parts of the country.
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> Is this not the dream that is often touted on hacker news? Work at a FAANG and "retire" somewhere more affordable? Practically, probably not. Few people talk about that, most dont. Most will move for affordable, but wont necessary like abrupt change from FAANG and big city to small city and not much to do. They will need to adjust to different culture, new hobbies, find new friends, everything. And that is not even…
You’re ignoring the fact that many people that move to SF do so despite the high cost, poor government, traffic, etc. No doubt plenty decide to stay but for many it was always a temporary move.
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> Is this not the dream that is often touted on hacker news? Work at a FAANG and "retire" somewhere more affordable? Practically, probably not. Few people talk about that, most dont. Most will move for affordable, but wont necessary like abrupt change from FAANG and big city to small city and not much to do. They will need to adjust to different culture, new hobbies, find new friends, everything. And that is not even…
Hasn’t exactly been “much to do” in San Francisco over the past year...
Looking back, personally I don’t regret my choice. The direction remote work is taking us in is one where there is more pressure coming from high earners in what used to be low cost markets.
Right now, this is painful if you live in one of these places. What could have been the first homes for a lot of folks living in these areas are second/weekend homes of folks who live in major cities within driving distance. It pains me to say this, but I think putting the time into a high-earning career up front has left me in a better position to live the life I want to live in one of those towns vs. my friends who have been there all along and are starting to struggle.
On the flip side, a shift toward remote work will hopefully open the playing field somewhat for them to find their way into higher earning roles. The unfortunate side effect is that there’s more pressure to embrace the change and get into the rat race for the highest possible income you can find.
As someone who lived in a small city in the American Mountain West, the boom does have consequences. Sleepy farming towns are becoming endless suburbia, hiking up prices as developers spill over from the Lehi 'Silicon Slopes' area. Midway, for instance, a town on the Wasatch back situated in a location that feels similar to Switzerland, has gone from about 150 diaries to 2, as expanding housing developments buy out t…
> As much as I'd love to work for a FAANG, retire early, and buy a large house in an idyllic mountain town, I'd hate for that same town to loose its historical roots and what makes it that special idyllic mountain town in the first place. It's already arguably happened; fruit orchards and irrigation turns were big part of the milieu in Orem/Provo a few decades back, and they're all but absent now, and in general the…
Using fat paychecks to lay waste to small towns is one of the few things tech yuppie and oil pipeline workers have in common.
Best (i.e. least worst) case scenario you end up as a rich people playground like Tahoe or Cape Cod where everyone without a conscience runs a business skimming easy money off the wealthy (or becomes a plumber and does it with an extra abstraction), everyone with ambition leaves and everyone else winds up with a substance abuse problem. Worst case the money leaves for good and you wind up like coal country.
For those outside of these bubbles, it’s almost unbelievable how much the housing market has completely exploded the last two years. My family is squarely in this situation - bought our home a few years ago in an extremely fast - growing area, and watched prices climb to levels that we didn’t believe at first. Imagine purchasing a home in 2019 for $500k and selling it today for $1.2M. That’s the reality in some of th…
The bubble is back. Look at the housing market and the valuations of do-nothing bullshit companies. People don't learn.
There seems to be a lot of negativity in the comments so far. Is this not the dream that is often touted on hacker news? Work at a FAANG and "retire" somewhere more affordable? I'm personally doing just this. I was lucky enough to land a good job out of college, buy a house in a desired area, and see it appreciate in the last 10 years. This increase plus the birth of my kids left me wondering if there wasn't a better…
> I understand this is not for everyone and I understand the negative perception of 'outsiders' pushing the price up for locals, but at the end of the day I'm optimizing for my own quality of life. I'm sorry, is that supposed to be an excuse? I mean, on the whole, some displacement of locals isn't that big a tragedy, but "it was good for me, so fuck you" isn't exactly the best moral reasoning I've ever heard.
I envy the folks who are able to do this. If I had the means, I'd probably have already fled back to the country. I can't help but think that it is unsustainable though. Supporting a large, rural population is less efficient than urbs or even suburbs. Global warming, increasing global competition... I can't help but think the people fleeing the cities will be forced back by incentives and economics in a decade.
> Supporting a large, rural population is less efficient than urbs or even suburbs. Whenever I see statement like this, it makes me wonder if you know where your food comes from. Because for the most part, the rural populations are supporting the cities. If the supply chains in this country were to fail, it is not the rural communities who would be scrounging for food and water. We'd be just fine.
To avoid arguing semantics, supporting a large population in low-density is less efficient than in high-density.
Yet while there is climate change we're seeing urban sprawl of low-density communities continue.
Meanwhile, they're pushing out the original farmers due to price increases, more than anything, the food argument doesn't hold up.
By the way, plenty of suburbia is just as bad or much worse than similarly low-density rural areas. Living spaces should aspire to be walkable, that requires some level of density.
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You're seeing negativity because it's getting harder and harder to deny that this "dream" involves the locals getting screwed when tech monopoly money turns their local economy upside down. Sure the guy who had the foresight to start a brewery wins but everyone else loses. You know what the end game of this looks like? It looks like Vail CO, Cape Cod MA, coastal Long Island and CT, the Hamptons, wealthy retirement ar…
Locals wouldn't get screwed if they advocated for better zoning policy and allowed more housing to be built. This doesn't happen because those same locals that are homeowners love the value of their house exploding upwards
Complete zoning and policy failure is a uniquely California problem. Nobody has a structural, and likely unconstitutional inequity in taxation that California does. Some rando Bay Area suburb being more expensive than Manhattan is not the same problem.
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You're seeing negativity because it's getting harder and harder to deny that this "dream" involves the locals getting screwed when tech monopoly money turns their local economy upside down. Sure the guy who had the foresight to start a brewery wins but everyone else loses. You know what the end game of this looks like? It looks like Vail CO, Cape Cod MA, coastal Long Island and CT, the Hamptons, wealthy retirement ar…
I guess the question is, is quality of life zero-sum? I want to say no because I feel like I can improve my QoL in ways that don't harm others, but all these examples are telling me that its really that I don't (or maybe even choose not to) see the negative consequences until its compounded by a large enough group and it ends up being another one of your examples.
The best example is land & desirable real estate. It only takes a few people with "outside" money to drive up prices in the market or to purchase land and sit on it in perpetuity, driving up prices by taking it out of the local supply.