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The Great Decentralization? Geographic shifts and where tech talent is moving

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Re: The Great Decentralization? Geographic shifts and where tech talent is moving

#91

Post by BlargMcLarg »

squaresmile wrote: post #78
usrn wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God only knows why we still have net immigration. I guess despite the way minorities and lower classes are "oppressed" we're still better than everywhere else somehow?

Like Swizec said, the pie is unfathomably large in the US compared to developing countries. There are many nooks and crannies you can slot yourself into. Sometimes I feel like on HN people can't fathom how to live in the US if you make less than double the median salary lol. It's not a walk in the park but it's manageable. It should also be noted that very few people immigrate even among people who have "plausible" p…

Even on the remainder of the net, it's pretty difficult for others to get an idea what a modest living in the US is. On the flip side, many (less fortunate?) American anecdotes lament the lack of safety nets in America compared to Europe.

Most anecdotes I read are either "I earn 200k+ and work 40 hours", "My job is my life and I do great love the American Dream" or "I can barely make rent and work 60 hours a day". I don't doubt average people survive but it sure would be nice to get an idea what "average" actually entails across an entire year. Especially someone who doesn't have a house or an inheritance on their name.

Re: The Great Decentralization? Geographic shifts and where tech talent is moving

#92

Post by lllkgxsgnc »

Victerius wrote: post #63
zucked wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the housing is, by-and-large, a lot cheaper, but the cities are not super walkable (if that's important to you) and the weather is often the opposite of cold and wet - it's hot and muggy. I don't do well with humidity, so a huge swath of the US is out for me. Plugging this tool again because it ate up an hour of my day last time it was posted: https://www.movemap.io/explore/us

Cold and wet weather is great. When climate change renders the southwestern United States and large parts of Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia uninhabitable, people will be ready to kill for the right to live in a cold and wet weather.

[dead]

Re: The Great Decentralization? Geographic shifts and where tech talent is moving

#93

Post by bombcar »

mhzsh wrote: post #70
zucked wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the housing is, by-and-large, a lot cheaper, but the cities are not super walkable (if that's important to you) and the weather is often the opposite of cold and wet - it's hot and muggy. I don't do well with humidity, so a huge swath of the US is out for me. Plugging this tool again because it ate up an hour of my day last time it was posted: https://www.movemap.io/explore/us

Well, thanks for eating up a bunch of my time, too. It feels like some of the data its using for hazards is wrong. My current county gets excluded by "avoid hurricanes" and "avoid tornados", where I don't remember there ever being a tornado (definitely nothing major), and hurricane risk is very low (not directly coastal).

"Tornado" is way too wide - there are some places where they're more common, but even there the chance a tornado hits where you are is still low.

Where I am we had a big tornado 120 years ago and we're still talking about it. So we're in a "tornado danger area" but ... snow is the much bigger danger.

Re: The Great Decentralization? Geographic shifts and where tech talent is moving

#94

Post by rjsw »

bin_bash wrote: post #76
angarg12 wrote: post #4

This year we finally moved to the US after 2 years of Covid-induced delays. We moved to Seattle because it's where my team is based. I'm far from impressed. The housing market is so inaccessible that we had to rent a house about 1 hour commute from the office. I have hardly visited the offices a handful of times since we moved, and every time there is maybe 1 or 2 people there. Also this spring seems to be one of the…

I've lived all over the west coast my entire life but moved to the Dallas area (a place I'd never been to) somewhat recently. We're incredibly happy. The schools are outstanding, I've never seen a single homeless person in our town, and the crime rate is nonexistent. We bought a 4000sqft palace for half of what our last house cost. Cost of living generally is far lower. There is virtually never any traffic. People we…

I turned down a job in Dallas 30 years ago because I felt that I wouldn't be able to do outdoor stuff, I had been there on business before this.

Re: The Great Decentralization? Geographic shifts and where tech talent is moving

#95

Post by kurthr »

bin_bash wrote: post #76
angarg12 wrote: post #4

This year we finally moved to the US after 2 years of Covid-induced delays. We moved to Seattle because it's where my team is based. I'm far from impressed. The housing market is so inaccessible that we had to rent a house about 1 hour commute from the office. I have hardly visited the offices a handful of times since we moved, and every time there is maybe 1 or 2 people there. Also this spring seems to be one of the…

I've lived all over the west coast my entire life but moved to the Dallas area (a place I'd never been to) somewhat recently. We're incredibly happy. The schools are outstanding, I've never seen a single homeless person in our town, and the crime rate is nonexistent. We bought a 4000sqft palace for half of what our last house cost. Cost of living generally is far lower. There is virtually never any traffic. People we…

Dallas (and Fort Worth) is a huge metropolis (especially in area because it's not dense). There is definitely easily visible homelessness and crime in the downtown (got to DeepEllum) and actually surrounding many nicer neighborhoods (Turtle Creek, or even NorthBranch ). That you say there is no traffic implies to me that you are outside the Loop12 (and the Interstate ring) and don't ever take Central or I35 through Dallas.

I'm guessing Richardson... Arlington? Those are really satellite suburbs.

Re: The Great Decentralization? Geographic shifts and where tech talent is moving

#96

Post by TooKool4This »

hwbehrens wrote: post #10

I feel like the dataset they've chosen is extremely noisy at the tail, but they've obscured this in their analysis. An 11% increase in Portland should be a lot more impactful (in absolute terms) than a big decrease in El Centro, which I can imagine could be caused by a single company moving. I guess it's probably unrealistic to expect P-values in a blog post, though...

Agreed! The list of highest growth and highest decline cities by page view is almost entirely small cities. This is a pointless stat because of course the small cities are going to see the largest change from even the smallest of trends.

I’m skeptical of the rest of the analysis if simple things like that are not considered.

Re: The Great Decentralization? Geographic shifts and where tech talent is moving

#97

Post by citizenkeen »

ecshafer wrote: post #17

The top 10 metro areas list is interesting. Philadelphia, San Antonio, Houston, San Diego and Phoenix not on there despite all 5 being in the top 10 MSA and city population, while DC, Portland, Seattle, Atlanta, Boston are on there. I am also shocked that Portland is growing. I went to Portland this year recently, it is the worst city in the country I have been to. 90% of downtown is boarded up, city is deserted, mas…

It’s been fascinating watching the suburbs of Portland (Beaverton, etc.) get all the culture funding and investment as everybody flees downtown.

Re: The Great Decentralization? Geographic shifts and where tech talent is moving

#98

Post by citizenkeen »

kryptozinc wrote: post #27
ecshafer wrote: post #17

The top 10 metro areas list is interesting. Philadelphia, San Antonio, Houston, San Diego and Phoenix not on there despite all 5 being in the top 10 MSA and city population, while DC, Portland, Seattle, Atlanta, Boston are on there. I am also shocked that Portland is growing. I went to Portland this year recently, it is the worst city in the country I have been to. 90% of downtown is boarded up, city is deserted, mas…

> 90% of downtown is boarded up, city is deserted, massive homelessness crisis. Patently untrue. Portland is booming.

The greater Portland area is booming, but downtown just feels sad.

Re: The Great Decentralization? Geographic shifts and where tech talent is moving

#99

Post by [deleted] »

ecshafer wrote: post #17

The top 10 metro areas list is interesting. Philadelphia, San Antonio, Houston, San Diego and Phoenix not on there despite all 5 being in the top 10 MSA and city population, while DC, Portland, Seattle, Atlanta, Boston are on there. I am also shocked that Portland is growing. I went to Portland this year recently, it is the worst city in the country I have been to. 90% of downtown is boarded up, city is deserted, mas…

[deleted]

Re: The Great Decentralization? Geographic shifts and where tech talent is moving

#100

Post by bombcar »

lmarcos wrote: post #9
adamhi wrote: post #3

Keep in mind that they're really measuring pageviews to Stackoverflow, not actual data about movement. My intuition is that it's probably right, but this is suggestive at best.

During my first years as a developer I used regularly SO. Nowadays perhaps once per month or so.

Also, a decent amount of SO traffic is stolen by SO-copy SEO spam sites, too. I used to frequent it, but haven't needed to in years (it seems to more rarely show up in searches for the problems I have, even though I avoid the spam sites, too).
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