The Great Decentralization? Geographic shifts and where tech talent is moving • Hacker News Board

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

#131

Post by woobar » Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 5:48 PM UTC

BlargMcLarg wrote: post #91

squaresmile wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Are you asking about averages/medians across the country?

Median family will have 1 child, earn $80K/year, pay <20% income taxes, live in 2400 sqft house, own two 12 year old cars and commute 1 hour/day to work. Will have ~15 vacation and another 10 days of paid holidays per year.

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

#132

Post by amyjess » Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 5:49 PM UTC

rednerrus wrote: post #53

swman wrote: post #36

I think eventually we will be back in the cities. Just not now. And by we I mean people in tech who are the only real group with this privilege.

I grew up in a really small town and all of the kids who wanted to get good jobs left the town when they finished high school. I have a feeling if this had been available to them at least some of them would have come home afterwards. It would have brought some of the money and some of the brain power back to the town and created a little bit of a virtuous cycle.

I think you have cause and effect backwards. I've talked to a few friends who came from small towns like these: they put in the effort needed to get good jobs so they could get out of their hometowns.

They were all unhappy growing up in a town where there's nothing to do but opioids and where being LGBTQ+ or anything other than an evangelical protestant would get you ostracized by the community at best or violently assaulted at worst. Getting a good job was just their method of getting the hell out of that environment.

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

#133

Post by TrueGeek » Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 5:52 PM UTC

juve1996 wrote: post #44

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More rain yes, but that rain comes down in heavy storms instead of miserable perma-drizzle and mist. This means even days with a forecast for rain will often be sunny until the front rolls through.

Sunny and oppressively humid and hot.

With massive swings in barometric pressure. Atlanta is great for many things but I hate the weather here.

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

#134

Post by simmons » Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 5:53 PM UTC

bin_bash wrote: post #113

davidw wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But with remote work, you can, say, go east of the Cascades where the weather is better and you have all that outdoor stuff too. I grew up in Eugene and I am just done with that much rain and, like others have mentioned, endless gray.

As someone that's done remote work for a long time, I wouldn't live east of the Cascades because it's so far from any good airport. (Also because my family and I are big travelers). Post-2020 we don't visit the office much but once your company wants you to come into the office every quarter that 3 hour drive each way from Bend is going to be hell—or dealing with that postage stamp of an airport in Redmond. Even if y…

I haven't had to do any business travel since the pandemic started, but I agree that proximity to a good airport can be an important consideration. There are probably a number of other reasons keeping me in the Denver area, but the ability to walk out my front door, take a train to an airport where I can travel anywhere in the country quickly and cheaply... it's a killer feature.

Some friends recently moved to Asheville, NC, which seems to be an attractive destination these days. But it's hard for them to find affordable flights, and they end up with out of the way connections that make travel onerous. Once when I was visiting Deadwood, SD, I talked to a guy who recently moved there from Denver and travels for work. But his company doesn't want to pay the high prices to fly out of Rapid City, so he found himself driving six hours back to Denver to catch flights!

If I was considering a move to a smaller metro or a rural area, I'd need to think hard about how well I could push back against my customer's requests for travel.

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

#135

Post by dragonwriter » Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 5:55 PM UTC

kodah wrote: post #127

dragonwriter wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Kind of, keep in mind ~50% of Texas votes Democrat In Presidential elections, since 1976, the range is 37.1% to 51.1% with 46.5% in 2020 the highest since the 51.1% which was in 1976. The median in that time period has been 41.4%.

Sounds about right, there's more variance for local and state elections. Definitely doesn't fit the narrative that a lot of folks like to run with about Texas. Personally speaking, I'd go back to Texas if it stayed purple-ish and didn't adopt or drive national narratives of either party.

If you go back to '74, gubernatorial elections are pretty similar in distribution to the Presidential since '76, but with less recent strength; you've got a narrow Dem majority in '74, a plurality win by a Democratic in 1990, and a lot of big blowout wins by Republicans, with all but one after 1994 being 10-point or greater margins ('98 was over 30 points, 2006 was a hair under 10 points, but it was also a weird four way race.)

“~50%” as the typical Democratic share of the vote in Texas requires a generous interpretation of the approximation symbol.

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

#136

Post by rovolo » Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 5:59 PM UTC

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…

> shocked that Portland is growing ... massive homelessness crisis.

This statement reminds me of "Nobody goes to that restaurant anymore because it's too crowded".

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

#137

Post by amyjess » Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 6:01 PM UTC

kodah wrote: post #115

angarg12 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great website! thanks a lot for that. This seems to confirm my intuition. Our parameters spit out southern california and a few places in Texas, including Austin. SoCal is still incredibly expensive. I considered Austin before but I'm a bit concerned about politics. Although I know it's a bit of a progressive bubble, Texas is still overwhelmingly and overly conservative, so that might be a big drag.

> Texas is still overwhelmingly and overly conservative, so that might be a big drag. Kind of, keep in mind ~50% of Texas votes Democrat, Republicans just squeeze wins. Also keep in mind that Texas Democrats are not like national Democrats, and I'd hardly call Austin something like "progressive". It marches to its own tune, which is just fine for Texas.

It doesn't matter how the local government votes as long as the state government is run by people who are actively committed to making LGBTQ+ people's lives hell.

The state government is actively criminalizing any kind of gender-affirming treatment for LGBTQ+ youth, and there's nothing the local governments in Dallas or Austin can do about it. If I had kids, I would have already uprooted my family and left the state months ago.

Right now, as someone who lives alone I'm torn between wanting to get the hell out of here before they come for adult trans people and knowing that I'm going to be miserable no matter where I move because I love everything else about Dallas and absolutely no other city will be just like it. I'll just be a bitter, miserable refugee for the rest of my life.

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

#138

Post by amyjess » Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 6:07 PM UTC

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 would never recommend visiting Dallas, it's a dull city

Oh, sure Dallas, doesn't have the usual tourist attractions, but I bet that if someone came to Dallas for a week I could put a huge smile on their face by taking them to as many different ethnic restaurants as I can fit into a week. Just thinking of all the food options we have here makes me drool. And the best part is that all of these wonderful places are out in the suburbs, not in the city core (in fact, 95% of what I've seen in the city core is pretty solidly made for white yuppies).

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

#139

Post by bin_bash » Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 6:12 PM UTC

amyjess wrote: post #138

bin_bash wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 would never recommend visiting Dallas, it's a dull city Oh, sure Dallas, doesn't have the usual tourist attractions, but I bet that if someone came to Dallas for a week I could put a huge smile on their face by taking them to as many different ethnic restaurants as I can fit into a week. Just thinking of all the food options we have here makes me drool. And the best part is that all of these wonderful places are…

Suggestions please! I've found the food especially in Dallas proper (but not downtown) to be surprisingly good but always looking for more. Also the art museums are a lot better than I expected.

We went to Vrindivan last weekend and it was easily the best Indian food I've ever had outside of India.

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

#140

Post by zucked » Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 6:30 PM UTC

lllkgxsgnc wrote: post #92

Victerius wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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]

While I agree that having a modicum of restraint about making claims of Mad Max being imminent is prudent, I also believe that this is coming to a head at least during our children's lifetime, if not ours.

The earth isn't hosed tomorrow - we've probably got a couple of decades yet, but the writing is on the wall. OP can plan according to their risk appetite. I'm sure as heck not trying to buy a million acre ranch in Wyoming right now, that's for sure.