I thought Detroit was the hip place to move to.
Do the Most Hipster Thing Possible – Move to Des Moines
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Re: Do the Most Hipster Thing Possible – Move to Des Moines
#12Having moved from Des Moines to San Francisco, I can say with confidence that Iowa has its upsides. A flourishing community of startup founders, hilariously low rents (my perfectly nice studio ran for Lack of diversity is a serious problem; most people in Des Moines were born there. From a startup perspective, there's also not much of an investor ecosystem, and some companies struggle to find local funding. It's a sm…
It is interesting that not more satellite areas around SF are rising centres of startups. Even Sacramento, which is quite near, does not seem to much activity. Anyone know why?
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Re: Do the Most Hipster Thing Possible – Move to Des Moines
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is interesting that not more satellite areas around SF are rising centres of startups. Even Sacramento, which is quite near, does not seem to much activity. Anyone know why?
This is just a guess, but perhaps there is a perception that, being so close, why not just move the rest of the way to SF?
While being so far that travel to SF is really inconvenient. Sacramento is not really being compared as "near enough to SF to count", but rather "A city in the US that is not SF", and thus is being compared against every other city that falls into that category. Being close enough that an hour and a half drive (assuming no traffic) and the expensive parking necessary to visit SF may be a point in its favor, but I'd imagine not a tremendous one.
Re: Do the Most Hipster Thing Possible – Move to Des Moines
#14I travel from Chicago to Des Moines several times a year to visit my parents, and have seen much of what the city has to offer. Restaurants, music, culture are all fantastic. The local craft beer scene is growing like crazy, and most taprooms have prime spots along popular bike trails throughout the city. I'd consider a fantastic city for biking. And between Ragbrai and the HyVee Tri every year I'm reminded of how awesome the bike scene is there.
The tech scene is like many other mid-sized cities in the Midwest: small, growing, but not ever close to the major tech hubs. If you're going to bootstrap a company and want to have a low cost of living it's not a horrible place to do so. Dwolla strikes me as a bit of an anomaly in the city, as most of Des Moines is insurance companies and agribusiness (which is no joke, especially if you like embedded programming and GPS).
You absolutely have to own a car, and in the past few years something resembling bad traffic has started to appear as the sprawl north and west of the city accelerates.
Des Moines is basically a better alternative to the other mid-sized cities like St. Louis, Indy, Columbus, Milwaukee, etc.
Re: Do the Most Hipster Thing Possible – Move to Des Moines
#15Having moved from Des Moines to San Francisco, I can say with confidence that Iowa has its upsides. A flourishing community of startup founders, hilariously low rents (my perfectly nice studio ran for Lack of diversity is a serious problem; most people in Des Moines were born there. From a startup perspective, there's also not much of an investor ecosystem, and some companies struggle to find local funding. It's a sm…
It is interesting that not more satellite areas around SF are rising centres of startups. Even Sacramento, which is quite near, does not seem to much activity. Anyone know why?
It's more interesting that physical location matters at all in 2014.
Re: Do the Most Hipster Thing Possible – Move to Des Moines
#16I thought Detroit was the hip place to move to.
If looking for a city sized similarly to Des Moines, check out Grand Rapids, MI. Lots of great art, craft brews (Founders Brewing anyone?), and a small startup scene. You're also a 30 minute drive to Lake Michigan in the summer, which is nice when its warm enough to experience it :)
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=grand+rapids%2C+mi+vs+d...
Re: Do the Most Hipster Thing Possible – Move to Des Moines
#17As a Brit, pretty much all I know of Des Moines is what I've learned from Bill Bryson, the first line of his book "Travels in Small-Town America" is "I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to."
Re: Do the Most Hipster Thing Possible – Move to Des Moines
#18I am from Chicago, but went to school at Grinnell. We used to drive alternately to Des Moines or Iowa City on weekends for something different. I preferred Iowa City, but Des Moines was great too.
Anyway, my point is that the state of Iowa is this beautiful, underrated and amazing place. I have lived in a lot of places since graduating and have lived abroad for the past several years now. But, if I ever did go back State-side, I would probably try to find a job in either Iowa City or Des Moines. They are both lovely cities, for all of the reasons mentioned in this video.
Re: Do the Most Hipster Thing Possible – Move to Des Moines
#19Having moved from Des Moines to San Francisco, I can say with confidence that Iowa has its upsides. A flourishing community of startup founders, hilariously low rents (my perfectly nice studio ran for Lack of diversity is a serious problem; most people in Des Moines were born there. From a startup perspective, there's also not much of an investor ecosystem, and some companies struggle to find local funding. It's a sm…
> most people in Des Moines were born there
The opening bit of this book talks about that: http://www.billbryson.co.uk/index.php/the-lost-continent/#ex... (click on extract to read)
"I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to. When you come from Des Moines you either accept the fact without question and settle down with a local girl named Bobbi and get a job at the Firestone factory and live there for ever and ever, or you spend your adolescence moaning at length about what a dump it is and how you can’t wait to get out, and then you settle down with a local girl named Bobbi and get a job at the Firestone factory and live there for ever and ever."
Re: Do the Most Hipster Thing Possible – Move to Des Moines
#20>> ... in the process of building a new Des Moines, a tech hub in Silicon Prairie... Every story that comes out about every city has a statement like this. We've had different cities across the country trying to become "the Silicon Valley of XYZ" for the last 15-20 years. Have any of them done it? Considering we're still calling the effort "the Silicon Valley of blah blah blah", I think not. I used to live in Philade…
What's silliest is that these nicknames make no sense. Why call your town "Silicon __________" to refer to a scene where people are making iPhone apps? Where's the Silicon?