New York City: Data Science’s Best Bet for Growth and Opportunity • Hacker News Board

Re: New York City: Data Science’s Best Bet for Growth and Opportunity

#31

Post by Nelkins » Fri, Sep 29, 2017, 10:21 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #14

As someone who grew up in the NYC area, and who is currently feeling the crushing suffocation of SF Bay Area cost of living, I'd love to go back. But aren't the problems similar? In order to afford to own a home I'd likely have to live in Pennsylvania and commute 2+ hours--not much different than in SF. Plus, my understanding is that back east, tech is what companies use rather than what companies make, so at most co…

Buying a home in NYC is expensive and not really worth it considering the alternative return you would get for the money in an index fund. Renting is actually not that bad though, especially these days in the segment of the market that a software engineer would be looking in. There's been a glut of luxury/luxury-ish new construction that has been driving prices down. And there's many more rentals coming on the market in 2018 [1], so I anticipate rents dropping even more. Like I said though, buying is still expensive for what you get because you're competing with professional investors and other folks who blindly think NYC housing is a good investment no matter what.

[1] https://ny.curbed.com/2017/8/2/16082774/nyc-vacancy-brooklyn...

Re: New York City: Data Science’s Best Bet for Growth and Opportunity

#32

Post by Nelkins » Fri, Sep 29, 2017, 10:26 PM UTC

In case anyone wasn't aware of the existence, the Open Data Law[1] means that there are lots of fun data sets to play with [2]. Plenty of fodder for data science projects. And if you want to get involved BetaNYC is one of the larger civic hacker communities.

[1] https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doitt/initiatives/open-data-law.pa...

[2] https://opendata.cityofnewyork.us/data/

[3] https://beta.nyc/

Re: New York City: Data Science’s Best Bet for Growth and Opportunity

#33

Post by aeriklawson » Sat, Sep 30, 2017, 4:38 AM UTC

Swizec wrote: post #5

vdnkh wrote: post #2

I live and work in NYC as a JS developer, and I feel like it's a great place to be. The community is strong here and there's a lot of diversity in what people do, technical or not, within the tech community. The amenities are good and I walk to work and honestly the rents are not that bad. Manhattan is the most expensive, but if you want to save money Brooklyn, Queens, NJ, etc. are cheaper and all linked by (mostly w…

As someone living in SF I’ve been seriously eyeing NYC for a while now. It just seems like an overall better city. The roads are better, the people seem more varied, there’s even more things to do outside work, there are seasons (god I miss weather), and the tech scene is probably almost as strong. But are there many startups? It almost seems these days more startups are coming out of Europe than out of NYC.

One thing to keep in mind is that ads and media are a big focus here - not to say that every company is in that game, but you'll notice quite a lot are. I don't really find that field interesting so it does out leave out options for me personally.

Re: New York City: Data Science’s Best Bet for Growth and Opportunity

#34

Post by aeriklawson » Sat, Sep 30, 2017, 4:44 AM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #14

As someone who grew up in the NYC area, and who is currently feeling the crushing suffocation of SF Bay Area cost of living, I'd love to go back. But aren't the problems similar? In order to afford to own a home I'd likely have to live in Pennsylvania and commute 2+ hours--not much different than in SF. Plus, my understanding is that back east, tech is what companies use rather than what companies make, so at most co…

From what I gather from friends who have moved out of the expensive boros / neighborhoods, you can easily get really affordable housing just over the river in NJ. I grew up in CT and there are also way more affordable options there (Stamford, Norwalk, etc).

The "NJ option" in particular is definitely trending - a friend just bought a house near Union City for around 300k and its a 35-45 min commute into Manhattan.

You don't have to live in PA to find something affordable. From what I know about the bay area, that radius of "I just can't afford this" housing is much larger.