81–90 of 318 posts
After reading the comments about rural vs suburb you'll probably find it in a suburb/smaller cities. https://www.ruralsourcing.com/development-centers/
One time they gave me an offer for exactly what I told them I was already making. I would not go there unless I had to.
Some of the Seattle 'suburbs' get fairly rural, lots of trees, at least some lots are a couple acres, a few working farms, lots of hobby farms, but still have a lot of tech workers. If remote work is important to you, check out internet options. There's a chance of Comcast and CenturyLink, but both get shifty about actually servicing homes in places (Comcast won't run a drop to my house even though their cable is on…
If you want to go farther out, there are plenty of parts of WA that are really rural - but you might not find things like high speed internet are very accessible.
The one thing you won't get moving into any of those places is lower housing costs, however. These are all priced with the fact that high-earners are living in these cities and commuting into Seattle/Bellevue/Redmond and getting paid those salaries.
> I've heard that people tend to be very different to those you find in a city In a lot of cases this is true - and it's not just about tech. Rural communities are often more religious, more conservative, lower income, lower educated, and have a lot less access to opportunity. Cities also mean that there's often a critical mass for many interests and minority groups. Are you LGBT? Are you a religious or racial minori…
It seems peculiar to me that there is no standard process for the winding down of city governance when population dwindles. It's probably just the human element. I don't mean to be promoting some sort of libertarian "self-governance is great!" philosophy, just thinking out loud. Imagine a city building game where city expenses increase with each population milestone (due to new positions in local government, new depa…
I think it's also not just about the emotions of firing someone. It's really hard to manage a downward trend - and not from a touchy-feely standpoint. If you're an uncaring machine and people leave, you fire a proportional number of government employees. But that doesn't solve the situation. Every business in the area now has fewer customers. At some point, those businesses close reducing tax revenue further and increasing unemployment more. It's not just the city that feels the pinch of a dwindling tax base - that dwindling tax base means there's also a dwindling consumer base.
An important thing to remember is that cities/towns/counties often take out debt for spending that will pay off over time. For example, you want to build a school so you borrow $X and you'll pay it back over the next 30 years. You need to rebuild some roads so you borrow and pay it back over the next 30 years. However, if your population is dwindling, that can leave the town holding debt it can't really pay anymore. If you built a school for 1,000 students and then the population dwindles by 30% over the next 20 years, you're stuck paying for way more school than you need with fewer people paying for it. Ok, layoff some teachers - but you have to lay off more then 30% of the teachers because you're paying for 100% of the school debt and maintenance costs. So you fire 40-50% of the teachers, class sizes go up, the people with the best options (the most educated with the best job opportunities and most money) leave your town eroding the richest part of your tax base and leaving lower income people on the hook for that debt while they escape it...which causes you to fire more teachers which causes more people to leave...
I think it's not just that there's a messy human side to it, but that it's hard to manage decline. Ok, you wind down a department. What about the building? Maybe you can sell it, but probably at a loss since you have a declining purchasing base. As you wind down a parks department or library, the richest people are likely to leave. Now your algorithm requires more cuts.
And the sad state of it is that it's often not a parks department. It can be things like roads or safe drinking water.
There is also a messy human side of it as well, for sure, but it's just hard to manage decline. I can totally see the game: you cut the parks department and the rich people complain, sell their house for 15% below previous market value and leave, and your tax base dwindles more. You cut after-school programs and more rich people complain about the town and schools and leave - and your tax base dwindles more. You try to attract new residents to YouVille and cartoon characters say, "I want a town that invests in its schools," and "everyone I know is talking about leaving YouVille."
Also I grew up in Havant, and basically all of the A27 is a thin strip of urban surrounded by fields — my childhood home was almost equidistant between Lockheed Martin and a horse farm/castle.
Outside of the U.K., a friend lives on the edge of Zürich[0], has fields with grazing sheep an arrow’s flight[1] from their flat.
[0] technically not in the city itself, but in a conurbation and you wouldn’t notice the boundary by looking at an aerial photo.
[1] a bit longer than a stone’s throw; specifically 100 meters.
Would there be a backlash from the local community? I think unless the said tech community makes a positive impact to the native society live there, the reception is not going to be welcoming, I think. Majority of the places I have seen tech people move to, the first thing to happen is increase in prices, be it housing or services.
Well, I moved to a village of about 250 people in rural Ireland, and I've met some other rural Irish tech workers online, but don't know of any concentrations of tech workers, we're all far apart. I do wonder if this will change over time as housing in cities gets less and less affordable. It's.... Fine. The locals are mostly bemused. I'd struggle to do it in rural US where the political divide is much wider. I'm onl…
How is the broadband? I'm in Dublin and often contemplate moving out but I run into connectivity issues in many of my favoured locations.
Not to plug but I built www.gaffologist.com to find my house. You can choose rural fibre routes as an overlay
* Fast and cheap fiber internet. Reasonably priced utilities.
* A reasonably sized and maintained home with a yard goes for under $200,000.
* Small airport with a connection to Charlotte on AA that I believe had federally subsidized aviation access.
* Small risk of natural disasters.
* I did a photography gallery and the mayor of that town stopped by to see it.
I enjoyed my time there but after friends slowly moved to bigger cities, I did too. I can't see myself happy there anymore. I probably wouldn't be married now and probably would have had a harder time forward in my career. Even if there was a tech scene there, it wouldn't be larger than 10 or so people, and the local tech companies were far less advanced.
But if I had a choice as a kid where would be more fun to grow up, I'd say back in Virginia. More room to roam, outdoor activities nearby without parking issues, yard for hosting get-togethers, and far less pressure in school/extra-circulars.
Hope this helps a little :)
> I've heard that people tend to be very different to those you find in a city In a lot of cases this is true - and it's not just about tech. Rural communities are often more religious, more conservative, lower income, lower educated, and have a lot less access to opportunity. Cities also mean that there's often a critical mass for many interests and minority groups. Are you LGBT? Are you a religious or racial minori…
Maybe rural doesn't capture what I'm looking for, but I'm not sure of a better word and it does capture the feeling. I would like at least 4 acres and some privacy at the very least. Then the question becomes what I'd have to give up to get that. It definitely means giving up living in a big city, but maybe it doesn't mean giving up a small city/town.
Why not look to small towns around state universities? Also, in the USA, look for micropolitan towns. Places that aren't tiny, but aren't major metro areas along with those kinds of challenges. Smaller towns can be easier places to afford homes, shorter distances to truly rural places. The people can be - not always though - challenging. May be more conservative politically and culturally. May be resistant to progres…
Any examples of micropolitan towns?