The Case for Working in Silicon Valley and Living in the Rust Belt
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Re: The Case for Working in Silicon Valley and Living in the Rust Belt
#2If you draw a circle 50 miles in diameter around LA, SF, NYC, Boston, and DC: basically anywhere outside of those circles in the mainland US is pretty reasonable. It's not just the rust belt, really. You can live in Miami, Seattle or Chicago and do just fine.
Re: The Case for Working in Silicon Valley and Living in the Rust Belt
#3So, people who build services for the internet finally found out it exists? And that if you work with github/slack/jira/several other services you already can work remotely?
Really?!
Re: The Case for Working in Silicon Valley and Living in the Rust Belt
#4If you draw a circle 50 miles in diameter around LA, SF, NYC, Boston, and DC: basically anywhere outside of those circles in the mainland US is pretty reasonable. It's not just the rust belt, really. You can live in Miami, Seattle or Chicago and do just fine.
And I would like to add that now is the time to buy within those metropolitan area, because they are expanding, so housing in the suburb is going up.
Re: The Case for Working in Silicon Valley and Living in the Rust Belt
#5If you draw a circle 50 miles in diameter around LA, SF, NYC, Boston, and DC: basically anywhere outside of those circles in the mainland US is pretty reasonable. It's not just the rust belt, really. You can live in Miami, Seattle or Chicago and do just fine.
You're going to have to include Seattle in the "expensive" set either now or very soon. New homes are going for millions. But other than that, agreed, just go outside the commuting range of all the major hubs and it's cheap!
Re: The Case for Working in Silicon Valley and Living in the Rust Belt
#6If you draw a circle 50 miles in diameter around LA, SF, NYC, Boston, and DC: basically anywhere outside of those circles in the mainland US is pretty reasonable. It's not just the rust belt, really. You can live in Miami, Seattle or Chicago and do just fine.
For that matter, I live about 40 miles outside of Boston/Cambridge and housing prices are pretty reasonable. Yeah, the commute in is a pain if you work in the city (although there's decent commuter rail service). But if you don't have to work in the city (I don't), there's reasonable housing within a distance that lets you go into the city for an evening.
I think some of those other locations (SF in particular) probably have a bigger radius but a lot of the angst about housing prices turns out to apply to very specific urban locales. And new grads were complaining about the price of crappy Manhattan apartments at least since the 80s.
Re: The Case for Working in Silicon Valley and Living in the Rust Belt
#7Don't try and establish yourself in the tech industry outside of a tech hub.
Re: The Case for Working in Silicon Valley and Living in the Rust Belt
#8Personally I wouldn't be comfortable if I had to persuade them to let me work remotely to take a mortgage when the company has access to so much local talent. Maybe I'm reading that wrong, but if it wasn't an issue for them, there wouldn't be any persuasion: "Hey, can I work remote from now on?", "Sure!"
Re: The Case for Working in Silicon Valley and Living in the Rust Belt
#9So, people who build services for the internet finally found out it exists? And that if you work with github/slack/jira/several other services you already can work remotely? Really?!
It's ironic that so many people build services to "connect" people over long distances and find it amazing to find out you can work over long distances.
Re: The Case for Working in Silicon Valley and Living in the Rust Belt
#10In 1992, a friend got a job in the valley and I visited him when I was out there visiting the HQ for my company. He asked me to go with him to check out a condo he was thinking of buying. Remember that these are 1992 prices.
The two-bedroom place we looked at was just like one of my first apartments. When the agent said it was $250K, I almost fell on the floor. My wife and I had just bought our first house, which was about three times bigger as this condo with a large front and back yard in a nice middle class neighborhood, for $80K in St. Louis.
A few years ago, I saw him again. He has never owned a house but he now lives in a much nicer condo for $1.25 million. However, that condo just looks like a much nicer, updated version of that same apartment. He could have lived cheaper at an upscale, full service hotel in my town.