Why Invest in Cities? There's Always Another Boise • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Invest in Cities? There's Always Another Boise

#41

Post by Naritai » Sun, Apr 22, 2018, 9:57 PM UTC

StudentStuff wrote: post #21

_virtu wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mainly tech. I work in tech and have had no issue looking for work. > 7,000 science, technology, engineering and math jobs went unfilled in Idaho in 2017, double the number from the year before. Sources: [1]: http://www.idahostatesman.com/news/politics-government/state...

What companies are creating these positions? What is considered a "high" wage? In my eyes, that could be $58k a year or maybe a touch less depending on the authors perspective, which is a far cry from what similar talent would make in Portland or Seattle, let alone SoCal.

In my experience 60-70k is considered to be a 'high' salary in Boise. Like, someone outside of tech who is making is 60k considers themselves to be upper middle class. I know people who relocated from Boise to Bay area, and were given 30-40% salary boosts for cost of living. Of course, at the time real estate was so cheap in Boise, it was commonly noted that it actually costs much more than 30-40% more to live in the Bay area than it does in Boise, but that's what was offered.

Re: Why Invest in Cities? There's Always Another Boise

#42

Post by gonzo » Sun, Apr 22, 2018, 9:58 PM UTC

_virtu wrote: post #9

As someone who's currently looking to purchase a first home in Boise after living here for the last 9 years, all I can say is "meep". There's nothing like the crazy stupid money that Californians are brining in to the housing market to make we wish articles like this would stop shining the spotlight on Boise. The housing market has been nuts this season and I can't help but think that it's all the Californians coming…

> There's nothing like the crazy stupid money that Californians are brining in to the housing market

In Austin we used to call them "equity refugees".

Good luck.

Re: Why Invest in Cities? There's Always Another Boise

#43

Post by rayiner » Sun, Apr 22, 2018, 9:58 PM UTC

aclimatt wrote: post #32

Not the crux of the article, but: > This doesn't mean that they, or the even higher-cost, more congested coastal metros, will adopt Manhattan or Tokyo-style density and transit patterns. Instead, Austin and San Antonio might be the new Houston and Dallas. My goodness, can we /please/ stop this false dichotomy that a city either has to be a Tokyo megalopolis or a suburban sprawlfest? I don't think any reasonable perso…

Tokyo is also not particularly congested.

Re: Why Invest in Cities? There's Always Another Boise

#44

Post by gonzo » Sun, Apr 22, 2018, 9:58 PM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #24

_virtu wrote: post #9

As someone who's currently looking to purchase a first home in Boise after living here for the last 9 years, all I can say is "meep". There's nothing like the crazy stupid money that Californians are brining in to the housing market to make we wish articles like this would stop shining the spotlight on Boise. The housing market has been nuts this season and I can't help but think that it's all the Californians coming…

Your response sounds like an exact echo of Austin's gripes from 5-10 years ago, and thus I think highlight the point of the article. Sorry, but it's a losing battle. While some of us still like to say we are trying to "Keep Austin Weird", the fact is it's not really possible to keep it that weird when bare lot values for anything remotely central in Austin now go for over $500k.

> Austin's gripes from 5-10 years ago

Started in the mid-90s here, but yeah.

Re: Why Invest in Cities? There's Always Another Boise

#45

Post by jarsin » Sun, Apr 22, 2018, 9:58 PM UTC

StudentStuff wrote: post #23

connorl33t wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a surprisingly large tech scene in Boise, quiet, but there.

What companies are there, and with what kind of pay range/job roles?

Micron - One of the worst places you could ever work. The amount of people coming out of there with PTSD was very high when I was in boise.

Clearwater - Old and boring

T-Sheets - sold to behemoth that will mess it all up

Blackbox VR - some guy who got lucky with a body building forum blowing money

Kount - ya scammy payment processing for the win

HP - reorg and layoffs never ending.

Tons of pretentious digital marketing firms who really only work for hp.

I can go on and on. The tech scene there is a joke don't listen to anyone who says otherwise.

Re: Why Invest in Cities? There's Always Another Boise

#46

Post by niftich » Sun, Apr 22, 2018, 9:59 PM UTC

The article's point is that the churn of spillover-boomtowns will continue: once the current crop of towns starts getting built out and accumulating problems like unaffordable housing, nightmarish traffic, lack of easy greenfield land to develop with cookie-cutter houses on tiny lots and giant office parks, the developers will find the next wave of towns to exploit, probably long before most of the human misery materializes in the one they just left behind.

Boise/Meridian/Nampa may be the flavor of the day now, but by the time you're commuting from Fruitland because you couldn't afford a home in Boise, the region will have become just another dusty built-out suburban disaster buoyed by but a handful of overinfluential employers -- like Tucson -- and you'll be reading articles about whatever buzzword is being used for the new generation moving to Hermiston and Hickory and fortunately-placed small towns no one has never heard of. This is not at all different from the cycle of suburbs that plays out within every metro [1][2][3].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11880084#11880734 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13665669#13666473 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16744401#16746390

Re: Why Invest in Cities? There's Always Another Boise

#47

Post by akhilcacharya » Sun, Apr 22, 2018, 10:01 PM UTC

Spooky23 wrote: post #35

Why is this a bad thing? I live in a midsize city. High quality housing is $110/sqft. I can walk to my kids school, shopping, library and dining. My kid can take a bus to malls and parks, and my commute is approximately 7-10m, and few commutes around here would exceed 20-30. I can be in NYC or Boston in Why would you want to move from such a place to NYC or SFO?

NJ?

Re: Why Invest in Cities? There's Always Another Boise

#48

Post by quickthrower2 » Sun, Apr 22, 2018, 10:01 PM UTC

Spooky23 wrote: post #35

Why is this a bad thing? I live in a midsize city. High quality housing is $110/sqft. I can walk to my kids school, shopping, library and dining. My kid can take a bus to malls and parks, and my commute is approximately 7-10m, and few commutes around here would exceed 20-30. I can be in NYC or Boston in Why would you want to move from such a place to NYC or SFO?

> Why would you want to move from such a place to NYC or SFO?

For the career or business opportunities, I imagine.

Re: Why Invest in Cities? There's Always Another Boise

#49

Post by ebikelaw » Sun, Apr 22, 2018, 10:02 PM UTC

whack wrote: post #26

ebikelaw wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

California is diverse and populous. There are enough far right voters in California that if they were to migrate en masse they would totally overwhelm their destination. They're also more likely to migrate, being the most irked by California's current one-party government. As a personal anecdote I happen to know a small businessman who moved from Fremont, California, to Oregon because those gosh darn overbearing regu…

> there are more Trump voters in New York City than there are total voters in Alabama. I agree with your general point, but the above seems grossly inaccurate. NYC had ~500k Trump voters, whereas Alabama had 1.3M Trump voters and ~2M voters in total. https://www.amny.com/news/elections/nyc-voter-turnout-was-55... https://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/numbers/clinton-trump-presi... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Stat…

Yup you are right. I did not mean to say "New York City" in the second case, I meant to just say "New York" the state, in which 2.8M people voted for Trump.

Re: Why Invest in Cities? There's Always Another Boise

#50

Post by StudentStuff » Sun, Apr 22, 2018, 10:08 PM UTC

jarsin wrote: post #45

StudentStuff wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What companies are there, and with what kind of pay range/job roles?

Micron - One of the worst places you could ever work. The amount of people coming out of there with PTSD was very high when I was in boise. Clearwater - Old and boring T-Sheets - sold to behemoth that will mess it all up Blackbox VR - some guy who got lucky with a body building forum blowing money Kount - ya scammy payment processing for the win HP - reorg and layoffs never ending. Tons of pretentious digital marketi…

Wow, yeah, that tech scene sounds very similar to what is north of the Columbia River in the Portland area, basically HP (failing forward at an astounding pace) and a bunch of sketchy "tech" companies that aren't great places to work.

Its livable, but not where I'd go out of my way to get a job at.