Ask Slashdot: Undervalued, Livable American Tech Towns? 464
An anonymous reader writes: I've been working in tech as a software developer for about 15 years. As I've gotten older I'm starting to see the appeal of living in a city that's not crazily blown out and expensive like most established tech markets (think San Francisco, Austin, Seattle, Los Angeles, etc.). Are there are any good tech job markets that are normal, affordable, livable, American cities, or am I forever doomed to be subjected to the rat race found in these overheated and overcrowded markets? Lots of cities have at least some vibrant tech scene; Omaha, NE, Raleigh, NC, and Ann Arbor, MI are three that spring to mind, but everyone's tastes and tolerances will vary. What do you find in your neck of the woods? (Even if it's one of those "crazily blown out" examples.)
Austin? (Score:5, Interesting)
What's wrong with Austin? Did something change in the last 2 years? Did Austin suddenly become coastal-California-level expensive?
Re:Austin? (Score:5, Funny)
Word got out that it's in Texas.
Re: (Score:2)
And that's bad because ...?
Re: (Score:2)
And that's bad because...?
Speaking as someone who's lived all across the States (including central and west TX), all I can say is; if you have to ask, you wouldn't understand... but the answer is "Because culture and geography or specifically, a lack thereof." And, (with special thanks to all the inept English teachers who've incorrectly taught for decades that you shouldn't begin a sentence with "and" much less put a comma afterwards!), virtually anyone from anywhere in the English-speaking world who's spent any time in TX (with
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
That is just silly. And, I don't see the problem.
Re: (Score:2)
And, (with special thanks to all the inept English teachers who've incorrectly taught for decades that you shouldn't begin a sentence with "and" much less put a comma afterwards!),
Agreed, there is nothing inherently wrong with doing that. (I was actually taught that it was "something to avoid if at all possible", but that it wasn't specifically prohibited.)
Re: (Score:2)
You certainly shouldn't put a comma if a phrase in parentheses (the part beginning "with special thanks") is coming next. Either alone will suffice.
And there's little point in putting an entire sentence (as opposed to an aside or clarification) as one.
Re: (Score:2)
(I can if I want to.)
Austin is different (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not quite sure how it happened this way but, I think the soundest the theory is all of the smart/sane people in TX banded together in one city to make their last stand, Alamo-ish style.
Re: (Score:3)
eh, Austin isn't quite like the rest of Texas. I mean, it's consistently favored Democratic politicians, often by a 2:1 margin.
That's got more to do with the general American rural/urban divide than Austin's particular weirdness. Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, and El Paso all went for Obama over Romney, as well.
Re: (Score:3)
All of the people who refuse to live near someone with different politics should really just band together and live in a compound anyway. If the walls are thick enough, they'll keep the strange ideas out -- for a while at least. They can have nightly groupthink rallies in the common areas to reinforce the political orthodoxy.
Re: (Score:3)
That's rather bigoted of you to say that.
No, it's rather experienced of me to say that. I lived in Austin for a year and eight months, and visited every major city and many minor cities in Texas at least once. Now I'm sharing my opinion. I note that you, however, are willing to talk shit without logging in, like the little bitch you are. That means that you're probably not a Texan, since Texans will usually open up their mouth and let you know just what they think without being such a pathetic coward about it.
Re: (Score:2)
Crippling heat and humidity come to mind.
Re: (Score:3)
Crippling heat and humidity come to mind.
And Texans, there are shitloads of them all over the place down there. Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.
Re: (Score:2)
Follow some of the tech companies that thought the same thing and looked for lower cost data centre cooling bills. Hate to have the neighborhood become crowded, but have you seen the location of the air cooled Facebook Datacenter? Others are moving in for the same reasons. Nearest interstate freeway is about 50 miles away.
https://www.facebook.com/Prine... [facebook.com] If you don't like big cities.
Re: (Score:2)
Texans, mostly.
Re:Austin? (Score:5, Funny)
I hate it when the football police drag me out of my house, handcuff me to the bleacher seats, and force me to watch high school football games.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Word got out that it's in Texas.
And that would be enough right there to cross it off my list of places to live.
I spent 20 years in Texas one week, and that was it for me.
Re: (Score:2)
I spent 20 years in Texas one week, and that was it for me.
How is the future, and can you get us lottery numbers?
Re: (Score:3)
How is the future, and can you get us lottery numbers?
1) The future isn't nearly as good as we hoped it would be.
2) 26 15, 31, 44, 11, 38, and 29 (but not necessarily in that order, sorry)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
In what way? San Francisco has water on all sides, lots of local impediments to development including almost no vacant land, a high demand for housing, and rising local wealth -- everything that causes extremely high housing prices. Last time I checked, Austin (and the local Austin area) doesn't have most of these.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
he means politically, Austin is a very liberal city
So? I am not a liberal, but I don't mind them as co-workers. I don't discuss politics at work.
Re: (Score:2)
And liberal cities have the hottest women. You can look it up.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes. At least that's what I've heard from people there, never been myself though.
Re: (Score:2)
It's surrounded by Texas..
In case you are a Texan and offended, I live in Houston, which doesn't have a "tech" scene in the strict sense of software/hardware startups, but otherwise is quite heavy in science and engineering in general, and probably has the lowest cost of living out of all major cities in the US.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not a Texan. But I'm not prejudiced against Texans either. If anti-Texan bigotry is the main "problem" people have with Austin, then they should just say so. Then people could decide to value or discount the advice they're reading without having to decode all the innuendo and double-talk
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Austin? (Score:4, Informative)
Austin has gotten pretty expensive, yes. We bought into a central Austin neighborhood at the bottom of the recession (thanks luck we both had jobs) and rode it up. We couldn't afford to buy in our own neighborhood now. Sister-in-law wanted to buy a year and a half later and the only houses in the price range in the city were on the periphery of the core city area. Now you mostly have to go to the suburbs or the funny offshoot bits of the city, and getting from those into downtown (or even in the core periphery area where most of the tech companies are) takes a long time.
On the other hand, if you live central and work at a tech company on the periphery, you commute against traffic. My ~10 mile commute takes 11-15 minutes.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Colorado (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Not denver. It has exploded so fast there that house prices and rents have tripled in the past 2 years. A company offered me a 100% raise to move out there and work for them, when I researched real information from friends living there I shot back declining the offer.
You can extrapolate it out and a lot of people are going to be royally fucked there in a short time when all the other costs of living skyrocket to catch up with what is happening there so fast.
Find where you love to live (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Like food and shelter... Who needs jobs?
Actually, after 15 years, either you're doing it wrong, or you should already have enough money saved to semi-retire in a low-rent area.
Re: (Score:3)
Where I love to live I need to be making $550,000 a year to live there.... unless I am OK with living in the dumpster behind work.
Re: (Score:2)
Where I love to live I need to be making $550,000 a year to live there.... unless I am OK with living in the dumpster behind work.
But is it a nice dumpster, or one of those icky ones?
Re: (Score:3)
There is not a single place in the U.S. that requires that income.
Atherton.
Re: (Score:2)
Presidio of San Francisco, perhaps?
It's the property tax that bites.
Nashville (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Warning, Nashville was just featured on NPR as the place everyone was going now. It won't be long now. :D
Philadelphia area (Score:2)
Boulder/Denver, CO; Lincoln, NE & Bozeman, MT (Score:3)
I was really surprised by Lincoln, NE. I wouldn't live there but it really is at its heart a college town and has everything that generally goes along with that.
Boulder/Denver has everything Lincoln, NE doesn't have in the way of mountains and outdoor activities while also doing pretty well on the tech and lifestyle front.
Bozeman I hear is doing pretty well right now as well. Again, Big Sky is nearby so lots of outdoor goodness.
Huntsville, Ala. (Score:3, Informative)
Cost of living is extremely reasonable (I live in a 3,500 sqft house in a nice neighborhood and it runs me about $1,250 a month). Taxes are low, utilities are cheap, my commute is 15 minutes to and from the office. Great place to raise a family, too.
As far as things to do, we're never short of entertainment. If you like outdoors stuff, plenty of hiking, caving and water sports opportunities are nearby. And if you ever do get bored, Nashville and Birmingham are 1.5 hours in either direction. The beach is about a half-day drive too.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
look at job postings (Score:2)
Presumably, you'll want to move to somewhere where you can get a job. So... look at job listings, eliminate the ones that are in places you don't want to live, and then look into the places that you might want to live.
Huntsville, AL (Score:2)
Huntsville is a great town -- an island of technology in what would otherwise be a very... rural... state. Our tech sector has a lot of military but there are commercial opportunities as well. Cost of living is very reasonable, commutes are short, and there are a wide variety of housing options. The heat and humidity take a year to get used to, but once you do, you'll never want to leave!
Boise Idaho (Score:5, Interesting)
More than famous potatoes...
http://www.hcn.org/wotr/boise-... [hcn.org]
Outdoor town also with skiing close by, climbing, mountain biking, Sawtooths, etc.
Value to you, not undervalued. (Score:4, Informative)
You don't want an 'undervalued' city - you want a city whose value is in line with your willingness to pay it. Raleigh and Ann Arbor are not inexpensive cities, for instance, even though they're cheap compared to the Bay Area. Austin (where I live) is heinously expensive compared to many parts of Texas, but even with the tremendous growth and increase in cost of living, it doesn't begin to approach the Bay Area. The brand new 3000sq ft house we just bought fairly close to downtown Austin would have cost north of of 2 million in San Francisco.
city-data.com is a great place to start for cost of living comparisons and questions about specific towns. Ask this question on the Raleigh board, the Omaha board, or the Austin board. Findyourspot.com is also an interesting exercise though not necessarily conclusive.
nope/not saying (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly my sentiment, I don't need my town to become known as a mecca for low cost of living high wage jobs. So: I recommend Houston - try it, you'll love it! Plenty of jobs, high pay, good benefits, world class cancer treatment center in town (because they need it), it's a great place, and plenty of wonderful neighborhoods with low priced houses - as long as you don't need to breathe the air.
Denver area (Score:4, Informative)
There is an area about 10 minutes south of downtown known as the "Denver Tech Center". This area is HQ for a number of tech companies and it's extremely convenient because you can get a decent tech job there, live in the 'burbs, and not have to drive downtown every day.
The skiing and other mountain activities nearby are phenomenal. There is a lifetime supply of camping, hiking, and mountain climbing opportunities. I'm told that the nearby town of Evergreen has America's largest outdoor ice-skating park, as well.
Re: (Score:2)
And drug addicts walking the streets with impunity. Neo-hippie paradise.
Re: (Score:3)
Twin Cities (Score:5, Funny)
The Minneapolis/St. Paul area has a relatively high-tech (depending on your area of tech) employment base, with headquarters or significant offices for 3M, Medtronic, Cray, Silicon Graphics, Ceridian, Toro, Thomson Reuters, Target, Best Buy, Wells Fargo, US Bancorp, St. Jude Medical, Polaris, Digi, Imation, CHS, Shutterfly, General Mills, Cargill, Seagate (though I think that operation was purchased by someone else), and Digital River. There's plenty of small tech-oriented business around here as well.
Come for the low unemployment and reasonable standard of living. Stay because your car won't start all winter.
Re: (Score:2)
Stay because your car won't start all winter.
Which starts in October and ends in May.
Pittsburgh, PA (Score:3)
Google
Apple
IBM
Uber
Duolingo
Shoefitr
Dynamics
Safaba
etc.
Re: (Score:2)
SLC, UT (Score:2, Informative)
Salt Lake City. It has the nickname 'Silicon Slopes'.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_slopes
Lots of great out door activities, low cost of living, and the SLC area isn't heavily Mormon.
Roll your own (Score:2)
I am consistently surprised that more of the entrepreneurial types don't drag a bunch of their friends to the South or Mid-West to set up shop. There is little benefit I can see to joining established markets except for the "Me too!"-ism and paying inflated costs.
Especially as far as tech is concerned, that can be done almost anywhere. I remember when Austin was little more than flyover country, and it still would have been except a few decided to make the first strike.
Re: (Score:2)
Presumably you will have to recruit new employees at some point.
Being in "the middle of nowhere" makes that really, really, really hard. And yes, I've had to do it.
Re: (Score:3)
There are a few major downsides to working in a "Tier-2" or "undiscovered" city if you are a tech guy.
1. You are very unlikely to find high-quality or cutting edge work. Like it or not the movers and shakers of tech are in the bay are these days. They may have remote offices elsewhere, but the work that is parcelled out to these areas is mostly "non-criticial". This is due to both political and practical reasons. This will severely limit your ability to `move up' in the world and is a serious consideratio
Re: (Score:3)
Then let them tell themselves that the traffic, diminished purchasing potential, and degraded quality of life is worth it.
Place I live has a pop. of about 50,000, has a performing arts center that can attract acts like the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, is 1.5 hours out from a major city in any direction, has several good universities nearby, and what I use to pay in rent can get a house.
I would expect especially nerds to do a cost-benefit analysis and figure it out.
Time machine (Score:3)
If you have access to a time machine then Seattle WA is a pretty nice place to live, as long as it's in the early 1980s or so.
Boston? (Score:3, Insightful)
Nice town. Just an observation from Scandinavia
Utah (Score:5, Interesting)
Utah has a rather low cost of living with a very vibrant and active tech community. Driving down the main highway through the state you will see billboards every few miles for developer related hiring. There are dozens of established tech companies as well as many many smaller startups. A few are:
Qualtrics
Pluralsight
Novell
Adobe
DOMO
WorkFront
MX
InsideSales
FusionIO
Instructure
L3 Communications
Boeing
Oracle
Microsoft
Overstock.com
HireVue
See more at http://siliconslopes.com/deal-... [siliconslopes.com]
There is also a vibrant tech community in Utah with a variety of meetups including:
AngularJS Utah ~1400 members
Utah Java Users Group ~1100 members
There are also Python, Elixir, Elm, Haskell, ReactJS, Go, Lambda Lounge, Ionic, F#, Big Data, DevOps, Drupal, C++ and BitCoin meetups.
Also the most common profession currently in Utah is Software Developer - http://apps.npr.org/dailygraph... [npr.org]
Utah is also a great place to live: http://siliconslopes.com/about... [siliconslopes.com]
Outlying towns near Orlando and Columbus, OH (Score:2)
I worked for many years in Altamonte Springs, FL, which is realtively quiet and not too far from Orlando. Lake Mary also has some tech businesses too and is a but further west.
In addition to Michigan, Ohio also has a low cost of living, with plenty of good tech jobs in Columbus, Cincinnati, Akron, Cleveland, etc.
Chattanooga, TN: municipal fiber and startups (Score:3)
Thanks to the municipal power utility rolling out gigabit speeds to Chattanooga and the surrounding communities, the Tennessee river valley is starting to become a good place for tech. There have also been local efforts to attract and develop startups to take advantage of that broadband speed. Furthermore, though the average salary for employees is below national average, the cost of living is even lower, meaning people can get by on less. The local natural environs are great, too. If you want to work for a big company doing tech it might not be the place for you, but if you want to do your own thing and form, or be part of, a small team doing innovative stuff, it's a great environment to work in. That and you can always take your startup team for a hike in the nearby mountains with only a 15-30 minute drive. Talk about a break to clear the cruft out of a cluttered mind!
First, make a list of areas you'd like to live (Score:5, Insightful)
Because there's "fixed" things about every place in the country that will not be changing.
For example, if you can't stand heat and humidity, you can eliminate the South. If you can't stand snow or cold winters, you can eliminate much of the Northern parts of the country. If you can't stand commie liberal bastards running everything, that's going to eliminate some places. If you can't stand conservative religious nutjobs running everything, that's going to eliminate other places.
Once you have your list, go to a big-name job site and look at the count of job postings in the last two weeks for your kind of work.
If the place has 5 listings, you better REALLY love the companies, and be ready to move if there's downsizing. If the place has one thousand job listings, you'll have your choice of employers.
From that quick search, cross off any place that doesn't fit well. That should leave you with a relatively small number of places, which you can more thoroughly research and possibly visit.
St. Louis (Score:2)
Re:St. Louis (Score:5, Insightful)
Really? I was born and raised in St. Louis. Spent almost 40 years of my life there working in tech. And I'm really glad I got out. Same sentiment many of my tech-savvy friends had too when they left.
I'll grant you that for a city its size, it does have affordable housing, and it's VERY good at offering family-friendly attractions.
But beyond that, it's in decline in many ways. First, you have only a few major employers there who employ the bulk of the I.T. workers there. One is the Busch brewery, who ever since getting taken over by InBev, let go of a whole bunch of full-time I.T. workers, preferring to use contractors (often of the H1B variety). Before that, they scaled back much of the advertising/marketing they used to do. (I had friends who lost good jobs there as graphics artists and the like, when they eliminated the "creative services" division.)
Another is Boeing, who IMO really just took over McDonnell Douglas in St. Louis so they could eliminate them as a competitor. There's been a slow shuttering of buildings on that campus ever since the takeover. They still employ a lot of people, but I'd say Boeing is much more interested in work they're doing in places like Seattle at this point.
It also has the HQ for Emerson Corporation, although it happens to be located right next to Ferguson. Luckily for them, they've always been walled in like a fortress, so I doubt the rioters ever had a chance of damaging anything of value in there. But needless to say, a job there means you're traveling through questionable neighborhoods every day for work. Not a lot of pleasant places to go out to lunch or what-not, out there, either.
If you remember the "glory days" of St. Louis, you'll also note that the riverfront is TERRIBLE compared to what it used to be. Ever since the casino went in on the landing and started buying up adjacent properties, it killed the nightlife down there. The riverfront used to be a popular destination that had moored ships and barges of all types, including a floating McDonalds riverboat, an old aircraft carrier you could walk around on, and riverboats (Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn) that actually did riverboat cruises/tours daily. One place let you take helicopter rides too. It also had a wax museum, a coin-op arcade game museum, a cool magic store, and many other neat shops that are all gone today.
I'm sure there are a lot of random opportunities out there, but my experience is, many are tough to find and fleeting. Many I.T. people wind up working in manufacturing for a struggling business someplace in the city for wages below the average, or working in medical I.T. - which is kind of its own beast, with a unique set of challenges and problems. It's not for everybody....
Re: (Score:3)
Interesting. I live in St. Louis now (have done for about 20 years) and can't say enough good things about the job market here. No, you're not going to find tech jobs in any of the big tech companies, but there are a surprising amount of programming and infrastructure jobs always available around here.
Engineering companies seem to exist all over the place here, and while yes healthcare IT is its own beast there are definitely plenty of jobs around here for that. And you'd be surprised the number (and pay) o
Nevada City, CA (Score:4, Informative)
Absolutely beautiful! I love living here!
We are 90 miles from Sacramento, and have a great community!
Our local ISP is in the final stages of approval for a gigabit fiber network. Once we have internet, we will have it all
Yes, new tech business are welcomed here. Our economic development council is active in encouraging tech businesses to come here
We have a strong tech history. The Grass Valley Group has been producing top of the line video equipment for decades
I just hope that we don't get overwhelmed. Part of the magic of this place is its smallness and lack of density
It's a difficult balance..more businesses will provide jobs and help the area.. or OH SHIT!, here comes the avalanche
So yeah, I strongly encourage a VERY FEW tech companies to locate here
Nashville... (Score:5, Funny)
Charlotte NC (Score:2)
RTP, NC (Score:5, Informative)
Research Triangle .... Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill... is the best mix of tech jobs and Southern living. If you like the fine food, art, music, politeness and gentle culture of the liberal South, this is the place to be. Best weather in the eastern US, a culturally diverse society. Right now we have a backwards Republican Governor and General Assembly but that won't last for long.
Re:RTP, NC (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
I feel I cant complain if i dont vote. People who dont vote are pretty much voting yes to the status quo
long story short, its not a good idea to judge someone by a screen name they made over a decade ago when they were 16 or 17
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Re:RTP, NC (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I've had a few people tell me that Cedar Rapids is a pretty livable "techy" place, but I've never been there myself.
Also mentioned was Scottsdale AZ and places like the Beaverton / Aloha area in OR.
Re: (Score:3)
It's a good sized city with plenty of city things to do
Yes, cities are generic that way. Go to city, go to House Of Blues, catch a travelling broadway show, leave city. Seriously - if you can't name 5 amazing and important (to you) things about where you live you aren't living there - you're stuck there.
Re: (Score:3)
>I'm in SF working in tech (of course) and I've been thinking about moving south... Irvine seems like a pretty decent destination.
Or you could move east. Fresno is very affordable, and in the last five years has really started building a good tech scene. Lots of companies, ranging from startups to incubators to established firms like Decipher.
It sounds weird to say, but there really is a tech renaissance going on in Fresno these days.
Re: (Score:3)
Absolutely. Irvine/Newport Beach/Aliso Viejo and many other Orange County cities have very large and growing tech scenes. And unlike other tech cities, there's still relatively (for coastal California) affordable housing to be found nearby.
Plus the weather and culture and food choices are amazing.
Re:How's Irvine, CA? (Score:5, Insightful)
Orange County Culture? Sounds like an oxymoron to me.
You're right about the other two, though. Especially the weather.
Re: (Score:2)
,,,increasingly becoming a tech town with the Gigafactory and lots of drone manufacturers.
Drone wars, cool.
Re:Reno Nevada (Score:5, Funny)
I shot a drone in Reno.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Just to clear the sky?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Plus you can't even eat lunch at the local diner without Presidential candidates coming and sitting at your table and talking to you about your corn harvest.
Re: (Score:2)
Personally, I'd rather not live where the average temperature is below freezing for a month at a time. I'd also prefer not to live where the average temperature goes over 90 deg F for over a month at a time. Iowa has cheap housing, but it's climate isn't what I am looking for.
I live in Silicon Valley (just south of San Francisco) and the housing prices are BRUTAL here, but the weather is pleasant. It's November and I'm wearing sho
Re: (Score:2)
The city is going down the shitter and has been for years. Don't do it.
Re: (Score:2)
I second Pittsburgh. I moved away to be closer to family but miss it. You can buy a house outright for the down payment in many other tech locations, and there's a good diverse tech scene including CMU startups, biotech, and small labs connected to big companies. Museums, arts, short drive to the country, etc. It's not a "night life" town, but if your pace is a little slower it's a very comfortable place to live.
Re:Bangalore (Score:5, Insightful)
Bangalore is pretty good. You can literally live like a king on tech money.
This is probably true for very small values of "king".
Re: (Score:2)
https://youtu.be/VYakrSp9DqM
Re: (Score:2)
Easily 1/3 of that 150 will be simple, adequate, acceptable housing: apartment rental.