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What Makes a City Appealing to High-Tech Workers?
WGR writes "The City of Ottawa, Canada is starting to re-write its Official Plan, the "charter" for a city. [A few weeks ago] we had a 5 day Smart Growth Summit that was webcast online with discussion groups and web interactivity. Ottawa is fairly strong in the high-tech sector as it is, with NortelNetworks and JDS-Uniphase having their biggest presence here and had over a $1 billion of venture capital last year. But how do you keep a livable city when you expect to have a 50% population increase in 10 years? One idea came from Dr. Richard Florida from Carnegie-Mellon University. He said that "knowledge workers" want to go to places that have the 3 T's, "Technology, Talent and Tolerance". That is, where there already is a lot of technology, where there is a rich artistic and entertainment sector, lots of educational opportunities, where there are a lot of people with similar interests and where there are people from many diverse backgrounds and lifestyles. But not necessarily low city taxes.
Do you agree, and what would be your ideal city to work in?"
- The Neon Guild,a group of geeks. We've met twice monthly since 1995, and we have hundreds of members. It's like Cheers, only for geeks.
- The Virginia Piedmont Technology Council represents our interests (theoretically) on a legal level to the state and beyond. I have some qualms with them, but the concept is great.
- A wide variety of tech businesses populate the city, from gaming companies like Electronic Arts and (formerly) Boxer Jam to small shops like my website design firm. Not much homogeny, as a result.
- Tech non-profits like Computers 4 Kids. Geeks need an outlet in their time off, but many of us are happy to keep doing computer stuff. Being able to donate time to organizations like this is great.
But we need some changes. Like:- A wireless network. Downtown should be blanketed with 802.11b and a DHCP server to handle the users. No charge, something that the city would do as an incentive to tech businesses to set up house downtown. Not fast enough to be used as an office Internet connection, but sufficient for browsing at a café or something.
- Tax breaks for tech start-ups. We have one for personal property taxes, but the state taxes are killers. It would be nice to see a graded tax that would leave companies paying full face-value after n years.
- A clueful City Council. Most of them just don't get tech, and there's a general attitude that as goes the stock market, so goes the city's interest in having tech firms here. This is foolish, as tech firms are excellent businesses: non-polluting, compact, undemanding (ignoring my list here
:), and high-paying. If the City were simply able to react to needs quickly, instead of running a 24-month study, I imagine that things would get done more quickly.
Anyhow, that's my take on things as regards my experience with my city. YMMV.-Waldo
Just to set a perspective I live in Atlanta, Georgia. And it is the best city I have lived in so far.
I agree with what Mu* said in general but here in Atlanta I have not really noticed the tendency to "milk to cow". For instance I live downtown with a friend of mine a stones throw from the CNN building and we only pay $1150 a month including utilities for a 2bed/2bath apartment. I think this is mainly because Atlanta just grew at a good rate with the whole boom in the 90's instead of exploding like Silicon Valley.
One of my biggest greviances with Atlanta is the lack of a decent public transport system. And by that I mean we dont have a subway, and if you live in Atlanta dont even try to say those MARTA trains constitute a subway. It only runs north/south and east/west and has way too few stops. It would be nice to have something like what Washington, D.C. has where the subway goes all the way out to the suburbs and there are parking areas at the end points.
I think a very important part of any city that wants to attract Techies is that they need to be a diverse and tolerant city. One thing I have a hard time doing is putting up with bigots/racist/holyier-than-thou types. I was raised with a philosophy of "dont knock it till you've tried it" and I try to live up to it. I believe that everyone should be able to live the way they want to live. I will not live somewhere where I am told I need to change or the people's general attitude is that I am the spawn of satan for not agreeing with them (I went through highschool once already and I would rather not do it again).
As far as taxes go I feel that anything above 30% or so is excessive unless the government can really explain it. Here in Georgia I actually lose more money to state taxes than I do to federal taxes and social security which I dont think is right... Georgia doesn't have an army last time I checked.
Wow that kindof rambled a bit.
Basically I look for interesting Technology Companies, Tolerance, Diversity, public transport, and a good education system(I will have kids one day).
Of course, with education it is not so much the city but the individual schools that are good or bad.
Rich
I have been to/worked at quite a few places in the world such as Chicago (Schuamberg), San Fran (San Jose, etc), Swindon (UK), Bonn (Germany), Fort Worth-Dallas, and Cork (Ireland) to name a few. I fit somewhere in the middle as far as the "geek" factor is concerned. I like to have my computer meets and a good game of head to head Quake with some friends, and I also like the out doors (biking, climbing, hiking) and the urban nightlife (house music, clubs, etc). Basically I like what cities like NYC and San Fran offer, but without all the traffic jams and with some good weather and the great outdoors. And I have found that here in Vancouver, which is the "small big city". We have all the amenities of a big city (you know, the big concerts, the Virgin Mega stores, the big city shopping and night life) but the city has the population of less than 1 million , the air is clean, never gets too hot or too cold (all year round), world's best skiing is a quick drive (Whistler) and the traffic is MUCH better than most Amercian cities. Granted, taxes are higher, but you get a pretty decent social welfare system. If you are more of a people's person, Vancouver is your place. And all the major corps have offices here (Motorola, Intel, Alacatel, HP, Nortel, IBM, etc , etc.) not to mention the chic Yaletown with all the smaller startups and incubation facilities... And as for rent goes, you can live downtown or in the Vancouver core where it is more expensive, you can live in the surrounding regions where rent is fairly cheap.. depends on how close to the beach you want to be ;)
-farshad
...and remember in your brain boggle, wrong starts with a wubble-u.
One of the worst things I've seen/heard from people who live in the 'high tech heavy' cities/areas, is how high (most often termed 'insane' from them) the cost of living is in such places. The term 'high tech' seems to almost always conjure the idea 'big bucks'. With the pay rates assosciated with the stable tech industries/vendors (read 'not fly-by-night dot coms'), people start to feel there's 'more money in the air', and prices start getting jacked up. Hell, here in the Salt Lake valley, there's a nearly constant difference of 10 to 15 cents per gallon of gas between the west side (more middle and lower incomes) and the east side ('where the money is', the usual sentiment goes).
The point: people will try to milk perceived 'cash cows' as hard as they can, and having high-tech industry/service around, one can suddenly 'feel money in the air'.
As for 'The Three T's', well, think of the truly 'techie' people you know. They almost always can be considered 'eccentrics' in one way or another in relation to 'the general accepted public view' (Goths, anime junkies, Pythonites, Stars Wars fanatics, 'l33t g4m3r phr34kz', 'furries', RPGers, etc, etc. (And yes, I consider myself a few of these, so I have license to poke fun :b ) ). Techie people just -tend- to desire a varied and wide range of things. Hell, just look at a cross-segment of /. topics and threads. ;)
"Your mind is like a parachute. If it doesn't work, you're screwed..."
There's no wrong way, to eat a Rhesus...
i'm probably a bit odd for a slashdot reader in that i actually _like_ support jobs.... not so much the call center variety, but there's nothing that i like more than working for the IT department in a college or university. the pay isn't always the best, but the low pressure environment and the variety of day to day work makes up for it for me.
so i'd have to say that the two biggies for me are a few largish colleges in the area, and a fairly low cost of living. right now i'm in buffalo and i love it. cheap rent, great restaurants, a wonderful art and music scene; everything i could ask for. i've spent time in all the continental states (except for oklahoma and delaware) and in all their major cities, and this is my favorite.
(yeah, i know, i'm the only one in the city who isn't actively trying to escape. :P )
--saint