[HN Gopher] The Great Decentralization? Geographic shifts and wh...
___________________________________________________________________
The Great Decentralization? Geographic shifts and where tech talent
is moving
Author : cwoolfe
Score : 106 points
Date : 2022-06-10 14:42 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (stackoverflow.blog)
(TXT) w3m dump (stackoverflow.blog)
| ecshafer wrote:
| 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, massive
| homelessness crisis.
|
| Elmira/Corning dropping is kind of interesting. Since Corning is
| entirely propped up by Corning Glass.
| lastofthemojito wrote:
| > 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.
|
| Yeah, I found that to be an odd "top 10" as well. My guess is
| that they are the top 10 US metro areas from which Stack
| Overflow traffic originates? It'd be nice if we didn't have to
| guess though.
| citizenkeen wrote:
| It's been fascinating watching the suburbs of Portland
| (Beaverton, etc.) get all the culture funding and investment as
| everybody flees downtown.
| [deleted]
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _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, massive homelessness crisis._
|
| I had the opposite response, but I guess I've been in San
| Francisco. All the locals were scared of downtown. Yes, it was
| boarded up. But it was safe. One homeless guy was being talked
| to by a cop because he was yelling. (They were all sitting
| cross legged on a corner. Super non-confrontational.) They left
| and then he left (not yelling). I don't think you could get a
| San Francisco cop's attention if a homeless person were
| flinging things at you.
| ecshafer wrote:
| In the week I was there I saw people be physically attacked
| twice, once at a tram stop and once at a restaurant. This is
| on top of maybe a dozen other "incidences". I spend a lot of
| time in Philly and New York both, and that's beyond the pale
| for either of those cities.
| kryptozinc wrote:
| > 90% of downtown is boarded up, city is deserted, massive
| homelessness crisis.
|
| Patently untrue. Portland is booming.
| ecshafer wrote:
| I went to a half dozen neighborhoods over a week. Even post
| covid, comparing it to Chicago, Philly, NYC, DC (all places I
| have also been to in the last 6 months) it felt like an
| absolute ghost town. Almost no people are walking around,
| even in the "hip" areas. If it weren't for the cars, it would
| have felt downright post-apocalyptic.
| rednerrus wrote:
| It's not as nice as it was in 2019...
| citizenkeen wrote:
| The greater Portland area is booming, but downtown just feels
| sad.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| where? i've been to Portland many times, and haven't seen any
| booming.
| francisofascii wrote:
| The Corning drop is interesting. Maybe the Corning engineers
| are all working from home but live in towns not included in the
| defined Corning/Elmira area like Binghamton?
| rovolo wrote:
| > shocked that Portland is growing ... massive homelessness
| crisis.
|
| This statement reminds me of "Nobody goes to that restaurant
| anymore because it's too crowded".
| frankfrankfrank wrote:
| Could it also be that the pageview method is not accurate?
| joshmaker wrote:
| It's probably directionally accurate
| [deleted]
| davidw wrote:
| This is pretty interesting. There are tons of small towns
| throughout the western US that are nice places in their own way.
| Will the remote work trend cause people to move there?
|
| A few random ones the top of my head:
|
| * Baker City, Oregon: near a small ski area, mountains, sunnier
| and nicer than western Oregon.
|
| * Silver City, New Mexico: (very) small college town next to the
| national forest. Great climate because it's far south, but at
| enough altitude that it's not miserably hot in the summer
| compared, to, say, Phoenix.
| dboreham wrote:
| Yes. Here in Southwest Montana we have seen a very significant
| increase in transplantation in the past 2 years. House prices
| have soared. The freeway looks like 101 now (101 north of
| Eureka, but heck..)
| rgrieselhuber wrote:
| After living in SF for 7-8 years and seeing a serious decline in
| quality of life for residents there, I wouldn't be real excited
| about the tech industry spreading out to one of these new regions
| if I happened to live there.
| cs137 wrote:
| This. I wonder if Bay Area people still claim to be "living in
| the future", as they did in the 2000s and early 2010s. They
| were right, but I wish they hadn't been, because the future
| turned out to suck.
| tren-hard wrote:
| This is great news. I love that tech jobs and workers are
| spreading out.
|
| Some concentration is good but it's way over saturated. That said
| real estate is still bonkers in Seattle (and everywhere really)
| so even with a huge out flow it isn't even making a dent in
| affordability.
| krinchan wrote:
| I feel surprised that Miami or Fort Lauderdale or just South
| Florida in general didn't rate in any category. It's even more
| baffling to see Tampa, of all cities, used for the "Warmer
| Climes" category. I can't really overcome the gut feeling this
| data is cherry-picked.
| rootsudo wrote:
| I've been to all those Floridian cities quite recently, and
| went frequently yearly. There are a high number of out of state
| plates,and drivers are much much worse - in FL driving is
| absolute so it's a easy check to see who's from where - most
| people avoid changing the registration/title until the
| registration expires.
|
| It makes me more considerate that there is a housing crisis,
| simply because Florida does not have enough diversity of
| industry - it's very hospitality, real estate, entertainment
| and military driven even though the state and people have tried
| to diversify into tech and manufacturing - but the pay is quite
| low when comparing to other cities.
|
| Growing up in FL in the late 00's also had me see people buy
| condos that went one year fro 35k, then to 150k, then left
| empty and then sold for 25k in a period of 5 years. Houses,
| similar.
| [deleted]
| jeffbee wrote:
| Comically bad analysis. Take a bunch of tiny denominators and
| stochastic numerators, cherry-pick one instant in time, and then
| declare Joplin and Tulsa the two hottest tech talent markets,
| despite the latter being so desperate for in-migrants that they
| will still pay you $10k to move there.
| jmyeet wrote:
| I'm glad they looked at climate because for a lot of people it's
| a huge factor. Some people seem to like but for me the Pacific
| Northwest is the most depressing place on Earth (outside summer).
| The Northeast? Less depressing but the winters are harsh.
|
| I expect family is a big factor in wwhere people move, as in
| people are moving to have some proximity with their extended
| families. It's just that remote work has allowed this to happen.
|
| But here's another potential factor: the Trump tax "cuts" did
| three big things to individuals, which is particularly relevant
| in tech:
|
| 1. _Raised_ taxes in the $200k to $500k tax bracket;
|
| 2. Ended the longstanding SALT deducation (mostly); and
|
| 3. Any personal income tax cuts (unlike the corporate tax cuts)
| are temporary and are slowly being rolled back.
|
| So consider a software engineer with TC of $500k in CA or NY.
| You're paying close to 10% of your income in state income taxes
| and might be paying $30k in property taxes. In addition to losing
| $80k in taxes, you no longer get a Federal deduction of 33% for
| those taxes so you can be losing more than 20% of your income to
| state and local taxes.
|
| Now that same engineer moves to, say, Nevada. State income tax is
| gone and property taxes are low (because of casinos) so your net
| pay could be almost $100k higher.
|
| Put another way: that means working in CA for 5 years will net
| you the same money as working in NV for 4.
|
| The Northeast has already had a longstanding trend of migration
| to the Sun Belt, so much so that NY lost a congressional seat in
| apportionment from the 2020 census while Florida gained 1 and
| Texas gained 2. For non-US people, every 10 years there's a
| census and based on the results the 435 Congressional seats are
| distributed. If a state gains or loses enough population they can
| gain or lose (respectively) Congessional seats. It's actually a
| big deal.
|
| I'm happy people have the option of living outside a few big
| urban centers. Some locals are mad at skyrocketing real estate
| prices. The biggest reason for this is and overall demand shock
| but migration doesn't help. Still, it's more high-paying jobs in
| those economies.
| ryandrake wrote:
| That software engineer is unlikely to make $500K in Nevada,
| even if working remotely for a CA or NY company. If remote tech
| work really does mainstream, companies will surely begin
| adjusting compensations to match the local cost of labor where
| their employee lives.
| NortySpock wrote:
| As a Missourian, the percentage-pageview-change data looks odd,
| highlighting two cities, Joplin and St. Joseph.
|
| Both cities are small, between 50,000 and 75,000 population (2020
| census), and are about an hour's drive away from the nearest
| larger city (Joplin is near Springfield, St. Joseph is near
| Kansas City, and it would take 3 hours to drive from Kansas City
| to Springfield.)
|
| In terms of Midwest tech hubs,the ones nearest to me are Kansas
| City, Missouri; St. Louis, Missouri, and Omaha, Nebraska (3.5
| hour drive from Kansas City).
|
| If I were to guess, I would say you could cause this apparent
| shift in traffic simply by shifting a few corporate VPN exit
| points from several large companies in the region from St.
| Joseph, Missouri to Joplin, Missouri.
| ravedave5 wrote:
| Similarly Mankato MN being on the list is wierd. Very small
| town, a college town actually. I would imagine 50% + of
| stackoverflow traffic to come from college kids.
| bitbang wrote:
| Can't speak for St. Jo but Joplin and Pittsburgh are growing
| from proximity to the Fayetteville, Springdale, Rogers
| metropolitan area just exploding in growth. The interstate was
| finished up that now puts them only an hour drive away, and
| they have been benefiting greatly from that.
| corrral wrote:
| I put the likelihood that the Joplin, MO / Pittsburg, KS area
| is becoming any kind of destination for remote tech workers at
| 0%. That one has to be a case of a very small number not
| needing to increase much to have a large percentage increase.
| mywittyname wrote:
| There's an issue with scale with those numbers on the metro area
| growth/decline.
|
| For example, Vegas, Cincinnati, and Columbus are metro areas home
| to 2+ million people, while Elmeria is the 10th smallest American
| metro area listed wikipedia with just 83k people, literally a
| rounding error compared to the others.
| yacine_ wrote:
| This is a good analysis. I think we're going to see an even more
| extreme selection of the more highly skilled individuals. The
| bigger the pool, the further you can go on the right tail of the
| pareto distribution. There's going to be a big influx of people
| moving to tax havens.
|
| Especially considering the fact that highly sought out engs end
| up spending 90% of their time in meetings with teams across the
| globe, they're much more likely to continue being remote.
| adamhi wrote:
| Keep in mind that they're really measuring pageviews to
| Stackoverflow, not actual data about movement. My intuition is
| that it's probably right, but this is suggestive at best.
| jsdwarf wrote:
| Isn't the SO pageview data skewed by the fact that most remote
| workers are on their company's VPN, hiding their true location?
| LimaBearz wrote:
| Slightly maybe but split tunnel would avoid that. If it was
| full I'd expect to see an increase from popular cloud hosting
| regions (if it was a prod vpn) or if corporate VPN's their
| home offices (which would show as a net zero change)
| sanjams wrote:
| AWS has a large data center near Portland... (And
| Washington DC for that matter)
| rubidium wrote:
| Eh, maybe your company' vpn is better than mine, but I do as
| little work as possible on the VPN due to abysmal speed.
| mahogany wrote:
| This data could also signal that people in less traditional
| areas for software development now have access to remote jobs
| and are starting to learn more about programming (thus visiting
| Stackoverflow) to try to get those jobs. The fall in traffic in
| the traditional places is a signal about movement, but I wonder
| how much the upticks in other places are a combination of
| multiple things.
| lmarcos wrote:
| During my first years as a developer I used regularly SO.
| Nowadays perhaps once per month or so.
| bombcar wrote:
| Also, a decent amount of SO traffic is stolen by SO-copy SEO
| spam sites, too. I used to frequent it, but haven't needed to
| in years (it seems to more rarely show up in searches for the
| problems I have, even though I avoid the spam sites, too).
| swman wrote:
| You're basically a god now
| omginternets wrote:
| Huh, I hadn't even thought about it, but I'm in the same
| boat. I haven't needed SO since switching to Go in 2014.
| smt88 wrote:
| This is the correct (and massive) caveat for everything
| StackOverflow posts from their own data. It tells you a lot
| about some developers and absolutely nothing about others.
|
| I use it a lot for my secondary languages, but when writing a
| well-documented language/framework like C# .NET, I never use
| it. The Microsoft docs cover everything.
| hwbehrens wrote:
| I feel like the dataset they've chosen is extremely noisy at the
| tail, but they've obscured this in their analysis. An 11%
| increase in Portland should be a lot more impactful (in absolute
| terms) than a big decrease in El Centro, which I can imagine
| could be caused by a single company moving.
|
| I guess it's probably unrealistic to expect P-values in a blog
| post, though...
| TooKool4This wrote:
| Agreed! The list of highest growth and highest decline cities
| by page view is almost entirely small cities. This is a
| pointless stat because of course the small cities are going to
| see the largest change from even the smallest of trends.
|
| I'm skeptical of the rest of the analysis if simple things like
| that are not considered.
| swman wrote:
| 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.
| rednerrus wrote:
| 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.
| amyjess wrote:
| 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.
| redisman wrote:
| Especially if we get a recession and tech employment is hit in
| a major way. We could be back to square 1 soon.
| outside1234 wrote:
| It would be interesting to see what the trends are for
| "spreading" decentralization.
|
| I still live near enough to San Francisco / San Jose that I can
| go to the office if needed once every few weeks -- but far enough
| away that I have a much better quality of like (Santa Cruz). I
| can't help but think I am not alone in that.
| zucked wrote:
| I suspect the housing data would support this theory. While the
| 90's and early oughts marked an inflow of people and investment
| into the city cores, the last two/three years seems to have
| reversed that and sent people scurrying into the suburbs and
| exurbs. If your commute needs are sporadic at best, the quality
| of life is going to be (perceived to be) higher in single
| family houses, even if you're an hour or two from the "office".
| angarg12 wrote:
| 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 wettest and coldest in recent
| memory.
|
| So high prices, dreadful weather and no value from visiting the
| office is making us very seriously consider moving to a southern
| state. I have already brought this up and my manager is ok with
| me going fully remote and coming to the office on an as-needed
| basis. For anyone who has no roots or reason to stay here sounds
| like a no brainer.
| rootsudo wrote:
| This is a common problem w/ Seattle. I've always thought that
| the bad weather did push enough people away in tech.
|
| This spring is one of the wettest and coldest, but it has been
| going that way, wetter springs, colder winters/snows Jan-Feb
|
| High prices and reduced value all around.
| themanmaran wrote:
| The southern states are pretty great. ATL (hometown) is getting
| more expensive but has a pretty decent tech scene. Also the
| best airport in the US (direct flights everywhere).
|
| I've also been interested in North Carolina for a little while.
| Much more affordable (compared to PNW), and has some really
| nice areas (Asheville, Raleigh/Durham). But transportation is a
| bit more limited.
| havblue wrote:
| While the job market and the airport is great about ATL, I
| have to say the traffic, public schools, crime, etc are not
| great.
|
| Expensive housing as well, maybe not terrible compared to
| some places, though. Moving outside the perimeter doesn't
| help on the traffic front either.
|
| The south in general seems like a stable job market and place
| to buy a house for the decades ahead. However, it seems like
| Atlanta shifted from being a fast growing area to moderate
| growth a while ago.
| shmatt wrote:
| ATL averages about 33% more rain than Seattle
|
| Honestly unless OP goes to California, where the housing
| situation is much worse, or middle of nowhere like Nevada,
| they're going to be much wetter (albeit in the Summer and not
| Winter/Spring) in most of the south
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Honestly unless OP goes to California, where the housing
| situation is much worse, or middle of nowhere like Nevada,
| they're going to be much wetter
|
| A lot of the drier parts of California, if you aren't tied
| to the LA Basin because you need local work, don't have as
| much of a housing problem, though. (That's also true of a
| lot of the _wetter_ parts that you might chose to live in,
| if you aren 't dependent on local work, too., though the
| wetter places that's true of often aren't the best places
| for the affordable, reliable high-speed internet you want
| for remote work.)
|
| If you've got a Seattle tech salary, and want a dry
| location, you can find plenty of places in California where
| you can live like a king. Though I suspect you could as
| well or better, in that regard just by moving to Eastern
| Washington instead of Seattle.
|
| US States are often neither climatically nor economically
| homogenous.
| jeffbee wrote:
| You can live like a king in Hanford on a tech salary,
| except you'd be like the king of Somalia. Not sure if
| that's the crown I want to wear. You're still paying
| $400k for a house but now you need private schooling and
| you have a 3-hour drive to the nearest thing that even
| resembles culture.
| ripper1138 wrote:
| Take it from people who have lived in Seattle, it's not the
| amount of rainfall. In the winter months you can literally
| go weeks without seeing clear skies.
| swearwolf wrote:
| Light therapy and vitamin D supplements are essential in
| the PNW. They aren't a replacement for the sun, but they
| can make it bearable to be without it.
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| 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.
| juve1996 wrote:
| Sunny and oppressively humid and hot.
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| It's all relative. Atlanta is refreshingly cool compared
| to cities located closer to the gulf coast.
| TrueGeek wrote:
| With massive swings in barometric pressure. Atlanta is
| great for many things but I hate the weather here.
| themanmaran wrote:
| Plus the storms are really awesome. When I lived in SF I
| really missed the massive thunderstorms in Georgia. I
| only saw lightning 1 or 2 times in SF.
| susanasj wrote:
| same. almost complete lack of thunderstorms on the west
| coast kinda bummed me out when I lived there.
| spring/summer storms in the south rock
| mgkimsal wrote:
| Had expected NC to show up on that list somehow, but with
| respect to raw % deltas, those other areas might still be
| having larger % growth (or shrinkage).
| bin_bash wrote:
| 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 meet are
| generally happy and not obsessed with their careers. There is
| actually a lot more for us to do since a lot of places cater to
| people with young children.
|
| Yes it's hot, but everywhere is air conditioned. There isn't a
| lot of outdoorsy things to do aside from hanging out by the
| pool anyways. The nature is ugly and there are no hills, but
| with the money we save we are able to travel a ton to prettier
| locales. We're right by one of the biggest airports in the
| world after all.
|
| I would never recommend visiting Dallas, it's a dull city, but
| as far as places to _live_ it 's far surpassed my expectations.
| rjsw wrote:
| I turned down a job in Dallas 30 years ago because I felt
| that I wouldn't be able to do outdoor stuff, I had been there
| on business before this.
| bin_bash wrote:
| It's our biggest drawback for sure, but I think it's also
| the reason it's so affordable since the lack of hills means
| the city can expand out in every direction. Austin (in
| contrast) has become very expensive and has bad traffic I
| suspect because of their hills.
| kurthr wrote:
| Dallas (and Fort Worth) is a huge metropolis (especially in
| area because it's not dense). There is definitely easily
| visible homelessness and crime in the downtown (got to
| DeepEllum) and actually surrounding many nicer neighborhoods
| (Turtle Creek, or even NorthBranch ). That you say there is
| no traffic implies to me that you are outside the Loop12 (and
| the Interstate ring) and don't ever take Central or I35
| through Dallas.
|
| I'm guessing Richardson... Arlington? Those are really
| satellite suburbs.
| bin_bash wrote:
| I'm in the northern suburbs, and you're right that I don't
| live in Dallas proper but I said "Dallas area". There are
| certainly homeless people once you get to Downtown--and
| they can be a lot more "forthcoming" than they are even in
| SF or LA. Downtown Dallas isn't like any of the west coast
| city downtowns though, it's small and there isn't much of a
| need to go there.
|
| However up here I haven't seen a single one in over a year.
|
| As far as traffic, yeah some areas have a bit of congestion
| but I'm comparing to Seattle, Portland, SF, and LA.
| Compared to those cities the traffic in DFW is nothing even
| in the worst parts of the city center at rush hour.
| causi wrote:
| Speaking from a totally selfish perspective, it really is
| incredible to have a downtown area in the 15-30 minute
| drive range away. They act like heatsinks to suck the
| riffraff out of the surroundings. If you're homeless, why
| stay in the unwalkable town where you see 1/10 the
| people? If you're a criminal, why stay where you might be
| recognized and have 1/10 the targets and no alleys to
| hide in? Let the people who want to live in a concrete
| anthill do it.
|
| My personal target for living is a city of at least
| 50,000 people but less than 1,000 per square mile.
| amyjess wrote:
| > 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).
| bin_bash wrote:
| 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.
| amyjess wrote:
| Well, this is gonna be a doozy... this might be multiple
| posts, and I'm rate-limited, so we'll see...
|
| Let's start with Chinese food...
|
| There are multiple places here that can easily be called
| Chinatowns, the bigger ones being the one in Richardson
| on Greenville between Arapaho and Belt Line/Main and the
| one in Plano at Park & Coit. Lots and lots of good
| restaurants in both places, and the one at Park & Coit
| has a lot of non-Chinese Asian places too (like a
| fantastic Korean fried chicken place called BBQ Chicken).
| Any place with "Sichuan" in the name is going to be a
| banger; Sichuan King (now merged with Royal Sichuan, and
| I think the restaurant carries both names) is one of my
| favorite places to order ma po tofu. One of the more
| famous places in Richardson Chinatown is called Jeng Chi,
| they were one of the restaurants that introduced
| xiaolongbao (soup dumplings) to Dallas though they've
| kinda let their fame go to their head lately (they're
| kinda expensive now, and other places are better) though
| they're still pretty good. Canton's another decent place,
| some of the best chow fun and Hong Kong-style wonton soup
| in Dallas. One of the few Hunan restaurants in Dallas,
| Hunan Bistro, is at the Plano Chinatown, right next door
| to another Sichuan place. Plano Chinatown also has a
| decent hot pot place, called Chubby Cattle.
|
| Of course, there are lots of Chinese restaurants that
| aren't in the Chinatowns. First Chinese BBQ is a local
| chain with locations all over town... they used to be
| cash-only but i understand they started taking card very
| recently. Fat Ni at Spring Creek & 75 in Plano serves
| Chinese street food, mostly on skewers--I recommend their
| vegetarian stuff, such as their fried gluten and tofu
| (yes, fried gluten on a stick, it's good). Sichuan Folk
| at Spring Creek & K in Plano is another fantastic Sichuan
| place (there are a ton of other great Sichuan places all
| over Dallas too). Wu Wei Din at 15th and Independence in
| Plano specializes in Taiwanese food. I'm fond of Tian
| Tian at Preston & Frankford in Far North Dallas, which
| has a huge menu including Peking Duck and gold and silver
| buns. We also have some wonderful hot pot places, Happy
| Lamb at Legacy & 75 in Plano being one of my favorites.
| My current favorite place to order from is Long Time Ago
| at Coit & Belt Line in Richardson, they have a huge and
| diverse menu with a huge selection of Sichuan dishes and
| Cantonese food like BBQ pork fried rice.
|
| Next, on to Japanese food. We have an actual sushi buffet
| here, Osaka on Belt Line & Midway in Addison (we used to
| have more, but this is the only one left). We have lots
| and lots of ramen joints that also serve other things
| including some great takoyaki and curry rice: Ramen
| Hakata at Belt Line & Marsh in Addison, Higuma Ramen &
| Izakaya at Belt Line and Midway again (different corner
| from Osaka though), Monta Ramen at Coit & Arapaho in
| Richardson, and several Yama Izakaya & Sushi locations
| all over town. We have an actual Japanese supermarket,
| Mitsuwa Marketplace, at Legacy & 75 in Plano, which has a
| food court inside full of great places. Gyu-Kaku is a
| chain of yakiniku restaurants (with an all-you-can-eat
| option) and locations in both Addison (Belt Line &
| Montfort) and Plano (Preston & Headquarters).
|
| Korean food... our main Koreatowns are at Old Denton Road
| & Trinity Mills in Carrollton and Royal Lane & I-35E in
| Northwest Dallas. I've only been to the one in
| Carrollton, but it's amazing. Korean barbecue (some of
| which are all you can eat!), Korean fried chicken, Korean
| bakeries, Korean shaved ice places for dessert... the
| centerpiece of it all is H-Mart, a giant Korean
| supermarket with a wonderful food court inside.
| Everything in that food court is fantastic, and they
| serve food from several other Asian countries too,
| including my favorite place for xiaolongbao in Dallas.
| But their actual Korean food in the food court is
| fantastic too, there's one place that seves bulgogi in
| stone bowls and amazing sundubu (tofu soup). There are
| also a number of Korean fried chicken places outside the
| Koreatowns, including a number of BBQ Chicken franches
| all over and Bonchon Chicken at Belt Line and Quorum in
| Addison.
|
| Thai food... we have Thai restaurants all over.
| Admittedly, I'm not familiar with the breadth of them
| because I've usually stuck to my favorites because
| they're so good. Banana Leaf at Preston & Campbell and
| Thai Spice at Frankford & the Tollway, both in Far North
| Dallas, are fantastic and I always find myself going to
| one of those two when I want Thai food (keep in mind:
| Thai Spice lives up to its name... I can handle spicy
| food really damn well normally, but I got a 4 on their
| menu once and it was too much for me, I've been told by
| friends that their food is usually one or two levels
| spicier than other restaurants at the same number).
| Plenty of other good places, I'm just a bit set in my
| ways here.
|
| Vietnamese food... oh we have a _ton_ of them. Lots and
| lots of pho places, just search Google Maps for any
| restaurant with "Pho" in its name and you'll find
| something fantastic. The best places are the holes-in-
| the-wall with no decor. My go-tos are Pho Pasteur II at
| Belt Line & Josey in Carrollton and Pho Truong at Arapaho
| & Custer in Richardson. I have to admit I haven't gone
| for pho much lately... thanks to the pandemic I've mostly
| just been ordering delivery with a few exceptions, and
| pho doesn't deliver well. But it's still good, and I'm
| starting to go out to eat again so hopefully I should be
| eating more pho.
|
| ...and I think I'm going to take a break before typing
| out any more. I'm sure I'm rubbing up against a character
| limit anyway, and I want to get this submitted now in
| case my machine eats this post. I'll write up some stuff
| about food from India, Nepal, West and East Africa,
| various parts of Latin America, other regional American
| cuisines, etc. later.
| gringoDan wrote:
| _> I would never recommend visiting Dallas, it 's a dull
| city, but as far as places to live it's far surpassed my
| expectations._
|
| I think this point is key. When your day-to-day is spent
| staring at a laptop, it doesn't really matter where you live.
|
| I used to live in NYC. I loved it; great city to be in your
| 20s. But I left due to COVID. Since then, I've returned to
| visit a handful of times and realized that visiting NYC is
| probably better than living there. In a long weekend, I'm
| able to visit great restaurants, see a show, and catch up
| with friends. Essentially, I pack the social activities that
| I would have spread out over a month into 3 days. Then in my
| day-to-day, I don't have to pay Manhattan rent, fight the
| crowds on the subway, or deal with all of the friction the
| city has.
| bin_bash wrote:
| yeah I put this on another comment but different cities are
| great for different stages of your life. I lived in Santa
| Monica and SF (in the city) during my formative years and
| can't imagine a better way to have spent my 20's. In Dallas
| I would've been super bored and probably wouldn't have
| advanced in my career nearly as much. Do _not_ move to
| Dallas if you 're 23--that would be a poor life choice.
|
| I'm well into my 30's with a family now though and those
| more "dynamic" environments would just cause a lot of
| problems in my life.
| namdnay wrote:
| The problem is that that type of lifestyle, while
| comfortable, is the polar opposite of what we should be doing
| for the next generation. Air travel, massive houses that you
| have to drive to, air conditioning 6 months of the year...
| it's just not sustainable
| bin_bash wrote:
| You're not wrong: I'd rather have a lifestyle like living
| in Holland or Japan in a family-friendly, walkable city
| near a major airport. Trouble is there really isn't
| anywhere in this country that offers that for a reasonable
| price that I'm aware of (we looked).
| EB66 wrote:
| > There isn't a lot of outdoorsy things to do aside from
| hanging out by the pool anyways though. The nature is ugly
| and there are no hills.
|
| That's primarily why people tolerate Seattle's climate. 9
| months out of the year it will often be grey and rainy, but
| the natural wilderness is phenomenal exactly because of that.
| If you're into the outdoors, backpacking, fishing, kayaking,
| canoeing, mountain biking, trail running, skiing, rock
| climbing, there's tons of stuff within an hour drive of the
| city. If you get out backpacking and chat with other people
| you meet on the trails, it's a pretty common refrain that
| they moved here in large part for the outdoors.
|
| And then when July - Sept rolls around and it's consistently
| warm and sunny -- you can't beat it!
|
| Personally, the grey rainy weather was never really off
| putting for me. But that's probably because I was born here
| and I'm used to it. It's like that Bane quote from Batman:
| "Ah you think darkness is your ally? You merely adopted the
| dark. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn't see the light
| until I was already a man, by then it was nothing to me but
| blinding!"
| bin_bash wrote:
| One notable difference between Texas and PNW weather is
| that during the winter in the PNW you'll pretty much never
| get a nice day. There might be a single weekend in March
| where the weather hits 65 or so. In Texas our winters have
| a lot of variability, there isn't a 2 week period without a
| 75 or even 80 degree day. Perfect for hanging out in the
| park or going for a walk in the dead of "winter".
|
| I wouldn't advocate for our weather generally but I do like
| these breaks from winter we seem to get.
| davidw wrote:
| 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.
| bin_bash wrote:
| 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 your office is close enough for a regional
| airport you might change jobs.
|
| Of course Eugene basically has the same problem.
| davidw wrote:
| I don't travel much for work and am not a big traveller.
|
| This isn't really a big problem, and RDM does have daily
| flights to most major west coast destinations.
| simmons wrote:
| 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.
| mkr-hn wrote:
| You might not like the constant thunderstorm/tornado watches
| and warnings from all the pop-up thunderstorms during the
| summer due to the Gulf. Everywhere you go will have problems.
| It's mostly a choice of which problems you can live with.
| dixie_land wrote:
| don't you wish you was in Dixie! :P
|
| I'm in the Seattle area too and it was indeed the wettest May
| in like 30 years. (Usually summers are great in the area but
| not so sure about that this year)
|
| With remote work a lot of options opens up for you, esp with
| some rural areas getting community built fiber! You don't have
| to choose between acres of pasture and fast Internet any more!
| zucked wrote:
| Yes, the housing is, by-and-large, a lot cheaper, but the
| cities are not super walkable (if that's important to you) and
| the weather is often the opposite of cold and wet - it's hot
| and muggy. I don't do well with humidity, so a huge swath of
| the US is out for me.
|
| Plugging this tool again because it ate up an hour of my day
| last time it was posted: https://www.movemap.io/explore/us
| softcactus wrote:
| If you can find a pre-war (WWII) neighborhood there is
| actually still a decent amount of walkability. The issue is
| that these neighborhoods are typically the first to be
| gentrified and are likely very expensive. Small to mid sized
| southern towns typically have a nice dense pre-war core
| nieghborhood with high levels of tree cover and small
| businesses within walking distance which is nice.
| Victerius wrote:
| 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.
| lllkgxsgnc wrote:
| Here's a great example of someone fully in thrall to the
| idea of anthropocentric warming as an apocalypse myth.
|
| This view has as little grounding in reality as the idea
| that we will be able to burn oil forever with zero
| consequences
|
| As with most things, reality is somewhere in the middle.
| The climate apocalypse cult is doing real damage to the
| mental health of the youth:
|
| https://www-vox-
| com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.vox.com/platf...
| zucked wrote:
| 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.
| angarg12 wrote:
| 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.
| kodah wrote:
| > 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.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > 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%.
| kodah wrote:
| 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.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| 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.
| amyjess wrote:
| 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.
| mhzsh wrote:
| Well, thanks for eating up a bunch of my time, too. It feels
| like some of the data its using for hazards is wrong. My
| current county gets excluded by "avoid hurricanes" and "avoid
| tornados", where I don't remember there ever being a tornado
| (definitely nothing major), and hurricane risk is very low
| (not directly coastal).
| bombcar wrote:
| "Tornado" is way too wide - there are some places where
| they're more common, but even there the chance a tornado
| hits _where you are_ is still low.
|
| Where I am we had a big tornado _120_ years ago and we 're
| still talking about it. So we're in a "tornado danger area"
| but ... snow is the much bigger danger.
| subsubzero wrote:
| For weather you are right, it has been incredibly cold on the
| west coast all winter/spring this year, I lived down in Socal
| and cities near me were seeing records broken for all time
| lows, our old neighbors were saying this was one of the coldest
| winters they had ever seen. I think its a La Nina event that is
| causing the colder weathers so you make have been unlucky in
| that regard.
| usrn wrote:
| God only knows why we still have net immigration. I guess
| despite the way minorities and lower classes are "oppressed"
| we're still better than everywhere else somehow?
| squaresmile wrote:
| 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" paths to it. I don't think
| it's fair to draw much conclusion about the whole society
| from immigration flows.
| BlargMcLarg wrote:
| 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 don't doubt average people survive but it sure would be
| nice to get an idea what "average" actually entails across
| an entire year. Especially someone who doesn't have a house
| or an inheritance on their name.
| woobar wrote:
| 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.
| Frost1x wrote:
| I'd say that and and the global propoganda machine is strong.
| There's many from outside the country who have a picture of
| what it's like to live here that doesn't align with reality.
| I think much of it is due to entertainment: movies, TV shows,
| etc. that give this false impression that everything is rosey
| all the time.
|
| The lower classes are abused here as well and classes do
| exist but it's probably better being poor in the US than
| being poor in most parts of the world. If nothing else you
| have access to emergency rooms and food, although you may not
| have real housing.
| redisman wrote:
| Immigrants aren't dumb. The problem is that westerners have
| no idea what a median persons life in Africa or South
| America is like
| cscurmudgeon wrote:
| Or even EU. There is a reason there is still brain drain
| from Europe to the US.
| wincy wrote:
| It's true. I was asking a person I know from Kenya what's
| it's like there. She said it's a beautiful please, pretty
| good but I'd have to hire security guards to avoid
| getting kidnapped and ransomed. We just don't realize how
| good the US is.
| BlargMcLarg wrote:
| The US is still a pretty good place for people with highly
| desirable skillsets, no / small families and specific
| mindsets.
|
| If you're Average Joe looking to start a family, a middling
| job and no assets or inheritance to your name, it's pretty
| mediocre (though some would argue "well you could learn
| programming").
| Swizec wrote:
| As an immigrant I often wonder if America's economy works so
| well in spite of or because of its policies.
|
| But one thing is clear: Last year I saved more money than I
| made in my last year in Europe. And that's while paying rent
| in downtown SF
|
| To give a more surprising comparison - my country's entire
| GDP fits into Apple's quarterly _profits_. The pie is large
| here.
| nopenopenopeno wrote:
| America's economy doesn't work well at all for most people.
| It only works well for the rich, i.e. those who directly
| benefit from a higher GDP.
| Swizec wrote:
| I'm going to assume you've never lived in an economy
| where median wage is $1000/month. Because it sounds like
| you have no idea what you're talking about
|
| Everyone benefits from higher GDP. Yes the rich benefit
| more, but I promise you that everyone being equally
| destitute is no walk in the park either.
|
| Reading about the economic histories of South America,
| China, Eastern Europe, and Africa are great places to
| learn more about how low GDP is terrible for everyone
| involved.
| cscurmudgeon wrote:
| Yes, that's why America is #1 for immigrants.
| nopenopenopeno wrote:
| The word is _exploited_. The lower classes are _exploited_.
| angarg12 wrote:
| Don't know about others, but I can tell you my reasons:
|
| a) Higher salary
|
| b) Better career opportunities
|
| c) An idealized view of the American society
|
| a) is easiest. I more than doubled my income by moving here.
| If I jumped companies (I can't due to visa) I could easily
| expect a 50%-100% bump. That's nothing to scoff at. Even
| accounting for increased cost of living, we are talking about
| life changing amounts of money. Also it's impossible to not
| feel bad when you know that the junior eng. you are coaching
| due to perf issues makes more money than you, just because he
| lives in the US and you don't.
|
| b) is more subtle. I always had the perception that people at
| the main offices got better opportunities and faster promos
| than people at satellite offices. Other's have echoed these
| feelings, but I've never seen data. Outside the company, it
| is undeniable the job market is bigger and hotter here. Even
| the largest EU tech hubs don't come close.
|
| c) is the lousiest one. I haven't had much chance to
| experience it yet so I don't have much of an opinion. I'd say
| though that having lived in 5 different countries, there are
| other places with a culture that resonates with me. So yes,
| USA might be better than my home country, but there are
| alternatives.
|
| Now due to Covid points a) and b) are becoming less
| important. Salaries in the EU have gone up, and with mostly
| remote workforces career opportunities are better
| distributed. c) was always subjective and a matter of taste.
| So far I haven't got a great image of the American society,
| but our landing here has been particularly rough. I think
| I'll give it a couple of years before I pass judgement.
| BlargMcLarg wrote:
| >Salaries in the EU have gone up
|
| Source on this? Preferably with respect to inflation.
|
| >and with mostly remote workforces career opportunities are
| better distributed
|
| I think you're overestimating the effects of this.
| Companies are already making a fuss about remote work in
| the same time zone, let alone 4-6 time zones apart.
| angarg12 wrote:
| That's fair. Most of it is hear say and anecdotal
| evidence. I know my company has increased salaries but
| that's one data point.
|
| The only data I got from the top of my head is levels.fyi
| annual report. Numbers are all over the place but it
| shows a general upward trend. These numbers are from past
| years so they shouldn't account for the massive inflation
| of late.
|
| Regarding opportunities, again this is mostly personal
| and anecdotal evidence. Due to Covid I worked remotely
| across the ocean for 2 years. Last year I got a top perf
| rating and I got my case for promo, despite being the
| only person in the whole org working 8 hours apart. I
| feel in EU there were more project with collaborations
| between people from different countries compared to pre-
| covid.
|
| [1] https://www.levels.fyi/2019/
|
| [2] https://www.levels.fyi/2020/
|
| [3] https://www.levels.fyi/2021/
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > Also it's impossible to not feel bad when you know that
| the junior eng. you are coaching due to perf issues makes
| more money than you, just because he lives in the US and
| you don't.
|
| That sounds like a failure to negotiate properly.
|
| > there are other places with a culture that resonates with
| me. So yes, USA might be better than my home country, but
| there are alternatives.
|
| American culture was built by trailblazers, innovators and
| adventurers who left wherever they came from to build here.
| It's up to you to build the culture you want to see.
| Welcome!
| michaelbrave wrote:
| I've lived quite a few places all over the US, Most of my time
| being spent in California, Texas, Utah and Colorado. But I've
| also lived in Florida, Oklahoma, Washington, Arizona, New
| Mexico, an Louisiana. So I've got some perspective. Not liking
| cold and wet eliminates Utah/Colorado and the best parts of New
| Mexico since they all get snow, a caveat of the south is the
| humidity is rather strong, so the wetness might still be there.
| Since you are thinking about going to the south and since I'm
| most familiar with Texas I'll explain about that.
|
| I think most of the US is can be disappointing in different
| ways, but it's still mostly divided between City, Suburbs and
| Rural lifestyle. A prevailing problem is how most cities are
| designed as car first, this goes back to lobbying in the
| 50s-Today but its enough to say that the only places with good
| walkability and public transportation are large cities in
| mostly progressive areas.
|
| As an example Southern California Vs Texas. Cali has worse
| traffic and more people, but has better public transportation
| (though its still not great compared to other countries), while
| Texas has lots of toll roads, near the highways instead of
| loading ramps they have frontage roads (which to me feels like
| a solution optimized for about 30% of what the population is),
| has almost no public transportation and has somehow made their
| cities even less walkable than nearly anywhere else I've ever
| been (only certain districts are walkable, usually places like
| a downtown or places to bar crawl). The sprawl in the south is
| even more pronounced than almost anywhere else, the cities are
| not condensed at all, The Dallas-FortWorth area is a good
| example, it's probably easier to call it a region of 10-20
| cities than to call it a city area, just the way it's designed,
| they are all kinda separated districts that don't mix with each
| other, don't connect properly.
|
| Housing is expensive anywhere the closer to a city you get,
| it's slightly cheaper in Texas than California, but if you live
| in the middle of nowhere in Cali, and the middle of nowhere in
| Texas it is comparable.
|
| The rest of the south I've visited or spent time in, once you
| get away from the cities there is a kind of weighty feeling
| there, almost despair, it's palpable. I think it comes from
| centuries of poverty and how nothing changes except prices
| going up. The weather is nice but the culture, lack of
| resources, lack of opportunities and lack of networks almost
| always make it a negative to be there.
|
| The positives are the food is tasty, the music is good, Atlanta
| is doing some cool stuff in entertainment and AI and Miami is
| also doing some interesting stuff in Finance and Stocks, Austin
| has a fun culture of music + tech + weirdness, San Antonio
| actually could become a place of tech manufacturing if they
| play their cards right. There are some fun places to go fishing
| too. Thats about it really. I've found most of the south to on
| the whole be a rather unpleasant place.
| switchbak wrote:
| The PNW has had an unusually rainy spring/early summer though,
| I think Seattle is usually a lot drier. The only silver lining
| might be fewer forest fires.
|
| In my case I've been leaning hard into remote work for about 15
| years now. Mostly for quality of life/access to nature. I've
| made real sacrifices to make that happen, but I'm glad to see
| the rest of the IT world is coming around to embracing us
| remote devs. It's still an uphill battle in many cases though.
|
| I don't think you'll ever see me in a big city again, and I
| don't think I'm alone.
| smt88 wrote:
| Seattle weather is... polarizing... even in a more typical
| year. I personally find it hard to deal with so little
| sunshine.
| switchbak wrote:
| Where I live gets about 2.5x as much rain as Seattle, and I
| consider it a big improvement over the East Coast (of
| Canada). It's all relative I guess.
| redisman wrote:
| I am amazed by how many people from Southern California
| move here and buy a house immediately. Only to scuttle back
| after the first year. Give it a test run first guys.
|
| Personally I come from a much colder climate than the PNW
| so I enjoy how mild and lush it is all year. And I find
| rain to be cozy.
| adamredwoods wrote:
| It is difficult, but we try to travel when it gets bad.
| Traveling to the east, over the pass helps. Otherwise we
| fly somewhere.
|
| Personally, I find the amount of violence and crime (all-
| time high for road rage shootings this year) is more
| demoralizing than the weather.
| delecti wrote:
| That's definitely true. Lots of people I know here have a
| hard time with SAD, and Seattle being so far north is
| exacerbated by how cloudy the winter is.
|
| Though if the winter isn't a dealbreaker, the summer makes
| up for it by being absolutely gorgeous for a few months
| almost straight, at least aside from wildfire smoke and a
| handful of days of unbearable heat.
| redisman wrote:
| The smoke sucks but as for heat, I'm not sure you can
| avoid some hot days anywhere in the US
| delecti wrote:
| Yes, though most places in Seattle don't have AC because
| it's not hot enough often enough, so 90+ here can be more
| disruptive than 100+ in other places, and 100+ here is
| dangerous and debilitating.
| tjr225 wrote:
| angarg12 wrote:
| Hey, I want to answer this one because I think it's
| important.
|
| You might think of me as a privileged high paid tech worker
| driving prices up. Actually I come from a working class
| family in southern europe. I'd spare you the details but I
| spent all my live slowly crawling up my way to where I am.
| Nearing 40 my life savings are 5 figures, and I have never
| owned any property or anything of value. Had I been born in
| the US I would be held as a paragon of the American dream and
| social mobility.
|
| So now I move and start in a new country all over again. We
| live in a visa that would kick us out of the country if I
| lost my job, and it will take years to achieve any kind of
| stability. We have to pay a good chunk of our inflated tech
| income to pay for rent.
|
| I know complaining as a tech worker is playing the world
| smallest violin. I recognize and appreciate my privilege. But
| we aren't exactly the winners here. The winners are landlords
| and investment funds.
|
| Blaming highly paid immigrants misses the point and just
| serves to tear us further apart. Instead we should look at
| the systems that have caused a systematic shortage of
| housing.
| coenhyde wrote:
| What a terrible take. You're the kind of NIMBY who creates
| the problems then blames them on new residents. How about you
| listen to their problems and solve some of them instead of
| blaming them for problems they did not create.
| EB66 wrote:
| The problem in Seattle is that it's been flooded by highly
| paid tech workers. Our population has exploded in the past
| decade (over 21% increase). The city council has pushed
| through tons of rezoning and construction has been faster
| here than elsewhere in the country but it can't keep up
| with demand.
|
| So, it may not be polite to point it out, but it's not
| inaccurate to say that the problem is in fact people like
| the OP.
| gedy wrote:
| 20% increase in 10 years? Wow what an impossible number
| to accommodate. /s
|
| This likely points to slow bureaucracies or people
| fighting change or growth at all costs.
| EB66 wrote:
| It doesn't sound like you're familiar with the area.
| Seattle is geographically constrained and there was
| already no empty land available for development in 2010
| when the latest surge of new residents began. We can only
| accommodate new people by tearing down structures that
| already exist and replacing them with denser structures.
|
| > This likely points to slow bureaucracies or people
| fighting change or growth at all costs.
|
| There are NIMBY elements here, but the city hasn't been
| shying away from development. It's a completely different
| story up here than compared to San Francisco. Take a look
| at the city skyline from 2010 to 2020 -- it's completely
| different.
|
| But there hasn't just been development in the downtown
| core. In 2017, the city council approved major upzoning
| changes in 27 neighborhoods across the city. It was
| passed unanimously. Lots of single-family housing zoning
| went away and tons of construction has followed, but it
| can't keep pace with new arrivals.
|
| In areas where single-family housing still exists, the
| city changed zoning laws to allow backyard ADUs. The
| number of backyard cottages exploded and many of them are
| being rented out.
|
| Is the situation perfect? Absolutely not -- housing
| prices are still sky high. But it's a vastly different
| situation than the one you've dismissively alluded to.
| coenhyde wrote:
| Land utilization is always close to 100% in cities. It's
| a misnomer that cities can "run out of land". Cities go
| up, they increase density. If they can't go up, it is
| usually because of zoning restrictions. And that's a
| choice of local residents and authorities.
| kaesar14 wrote:
| Seattle is still only the 10th densest city in the
| country.
| kipchak wrote:
| From what I can find it looks like Seattle's growth rate
| was about 2% annually from the 1980s to 2000, then
| tapered off to 1.2% from 2000 to 2019.[1] I'm not very
| familiar with Seattle, but maybe that growth has been
| extremely localized? [1]https://www.macrotrends.net/citie
| s/23140/seattle/population
| EB66 wrote:
| You're looking at numbers for the Seattle metro area. The
| story with the city itself is different. The population
| went from 608k in 2010 to 737k in 2020. That's a huge
| jump for a city that's geographically constrained and
| already had no empty land available for development.
| BlargMcLarg wrote:
| And the ridiculous concentration of wealth caused by tech
| companies able to hire those highly paid tech workers
| goes without blame? It's fairly inaccurate to present it
| in a way people like OP are the only issue here.
| EB66 wrote:
| Of course they're not the only issue -- no one's arguing
| that.
|
| What we're talking about is the negative reaction from
| other Seattlites to highly paid newcomers who complain
| about the weather and high prices.
| savant_penguin wrote:
| Those pesky people living their own lives and spending their
| own money moving to where they want to, driving up costs by
| existing
|
| If only they did with their lives exactly as I told them to
| matthewmacleod wrote:
| Person: "I don't really like it here and think I might leave"
|
| You: "stop talking shit and just leave"
|
| ???
| tjr225 wrote:
| EB66 wrote:
| I don't see what's so confusing. Unfortunately, it seems
| like a pretty predictable and rational response to me. All
| of the high prices in Seattle have been caused by the
| whopping 21%+ increase in city population (!!!) over the
| past decade.
|
| When Seattlites hear newcomers, particularly highly paid
| software engineers, moaning and groaning about the weather
| and high prices, there is _very_ little sympathy to be had.
| czbond wrote:
| I'm glad you're happy in Dallas. I'm a Dallas native who moved
| - bc we couldn't stand it. Many folks I know also moved, it
| seems to be a city for a certain type. I'll relay my type for
| others who may read your version.
|
| We moved due to the consumerism (I've called it the Los Angeles
| of the South) and utter boredom of the city if you're not into
| shopping, eating out, sports teams, and many are focused solely
| on their corporate j.o.b. However, after moving I've also found
| that places that don't care about their career - are on the
| opposite end of the annoying spectrum (ha!)
|
| The people in Dallas are some of the best I've met, down to
| Earth, easy to talk with and get along. But hell if I'd ever
| move back.
| bin_bash wrote:
| Dallas has a definite "consumerist" feel to it. You see more
| luxury cars here than in SF even though there is a lot less
| money. Sports are big though I'm definitely not into them.
|
| I think it depends on where you are in life and what you want
| out of your city. I would hate this place if I was 20. It's
| not the best for meeting new people from different walks of
| life and experiencing new things. It's for people looking to
| settle down in comfort with their families. It has a real
| 1950's postwar America feel to me. If you don't have a family
| don't bother moving to Dallas: you'll be bored out of your
| skull and have no way to relate to people.
|
| I think you're wrong that people are focused solely on their
| job here, for that experience move to the Bay or Seattle.
| Here I find even software engineers are more likely to talk
| to me about what fruit trees they're growing in their
| backyard than what Series their startup just entered.
| newaccount2021 wrote:
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