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The Price Of Doing Business
8127972 writes: "It seems that a ton of high tech companies are leaving cities (like San Fran) with high costs of doing business for cheaper cities (Washington DC is mentioned due to new government spending) or even cities in Canada. Sounds like American high tech workers are going to have to learn to say the word "eh?" a lot."
The cost of living here is SUPER low.. plus.. you can hire VBscript monkies to work on ASP sites for $8/hour.
:)
In Oklahoma, you put an add in the paper, and you will have billions of applications and you can pick who ever is willing to take the least amount of pay.
That is why companies like AOL like to put call centers in Oklahoma cause they can pay a whole $9/hour and people shit themselves about how much money it is.
Unfortuantly, actually SELLING a product in Oklahoma is kind of bleak.. but if your product is nation wide.. then this is the place.
I hear there is some cheap real estate in Kabul...
those moving to canada will also need to learn to say aboot fairly often.
This is paticularly benneficial for cities like Salt Lake, Boise, and somewhat so for Denver. Havens of white flight with fairly educated populaces.
Sounds like American high tech workers are going to have to learn to say the word "eh?" a lot."
:)
Yeah, but is that really different then saying "Dude", "Man" or "Yeahhhhh" like we say in San Francisco?
Plus, we won't start to say "eh?" until you say "Francisco"
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
We Canadian's could end all our sentences with "Dontcha know!".
=)
You couldn't pay me enough to live there. Nice people. Sheltered world.
First off, Canadian's don't say 'eh', well not much anyway... Second, the dollar is worth a lot more over here than in the states. There are a lot of technology companies in the states paying nearly twice as much in salary for US workers, than what they need to pay their Canadian counterparts, for equal, if not better productivity and performance. But with the same logic, the Australian dollar is even cheaper than the Canadian dollar... So should all high tech workers learn Australian slang? I think not.
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
Guffaw! The 'merkin made a funny!
I guess you'll have to start saying "aboot" and buy snowshoes, too, huh?
Idiots.
I find it amazing that they are moving out of large US cities into Canda instead of just moving to the midwest or something. Chicago is quite a lot cheaper than the coastal cities, and it has all the usual big-city perks.
Of course there are also a lot of small citys that would kill for some high-tech company to move in. Seems like they could get some pretty good deals if they used that option.
Why do so many companies feel the need to be tied to a coast?
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
There has been alot of commentary on this subject. The Gartner group put out this commentary about the "Tech Wreck" coming to the SF Bay area.
They claim that a city will do well if they install a broadband communications network that connects citizens, local businesses and the global marketplace.
I think that the obvious solution to this may be Telecomutting See this link for more info
The Bay Area economy has always been like this. Anyone who has been here for more then 10 years will realise that the entire thing is cyclical. Years of boom, then years of bust.
If you stick around long enough, you'll even see it yourself. Eventually, the next big thing(tm) will make its way back to the Bay Area and everyone will re-locate here again.
The cost of living is just getting ridiculous in California. I don't even live in a major met area, but apartment and gas prices are rising month after month, and average wages haven't increased a dime in my county in about 4 years. So, it doesn't surprise me that companies are leaving for greener pastures.
There's a mass exodus going on in California. I looked into renting a moving truck to go across the country. The cost was insane, and the reason given? Trucks are leaving the state so fast that they can't keep them in stock, and almost none are coming back this way.
Bad karma revisits landlords who threw out poor people for those who could handle higher rents! News at 11!
Useless opinions, worthless observations, and more!
I heard that tech companies are planning on moving to North Dakota. Of course, only after the state gets electricity, and Telco. And they'll still have to convince residents not to run them out with pitchforks and torches while yelling charges of witchery.
Then there's that little issue of finding the road during the winter since the ditches fill with snow and are level with the highway. Wow, I can't believe I actually lived there for over a year and made it out alive. The newest computer that I saw in that state was my apple IIe, which was 13 years old at the time. The only other computer I saw was at a bank, and made in the early 70's.
Need Free Juniper/NetScreen Support? JuniperForum
The median cost of rent where I live is the highest in the country. It's a nice place, but I could be buying a house in Ohio every five years, it's that bad. Firemen, police, teachers, gardeners, and others with lower incomes have been leaving the area and are very hard to recruit. The irony is, where tech industries fled to, early on, have become a similar problem. Austin, TX is a great example, seeing insanely rapid growth and the problems it brought, Sacramento, CA went the same route in the mid 80's. However, if you're looking for a decent place out of SF, Sacto isn't a bad place to go. Lots of office space and lower cost of living.
Canada? Wouldn't the taxes alone make that less appealing? When I think it's expensive in California, all I have to do is remember the GST and PST I paid in Ontario. Gads. Probably lots of available land, but so has most of the midwest.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
The larger a company becomes, the less practical it is to move en mass. It is one thing to move a headquarters. It is quite another to try to move and/or replace the entire staff and risk loss of intellectual assets.
Anyone who's ever been to / lived in San Fran. or San Jose and seen the insane suburban population density there knows that those cities have some major disadvantages despite the wonderful weather. Some people like it, but for many, it's just not their style. Also the cost of living there is downright ridiculous compared to say.. the mid-west or north-east US.
Their fat-assed sales dorks just stand around "Bistro! Bistro!" in the Reston Town Center driving away hot women and babbling about how great Canada and New York are.
Damn it! Canadians go home or go to New York city, where the girls are fat and the boys have titties.
Sounds like American high tech workers are going to have to learn to say the word "eh?" a lot.
That's a myth, eh? Only blue-collar workers ever say "eh?", eh? It was all a marketing coup for Bob & Doug, eh? Hook, line & sinker, Buds, that's what it's aboot, eh?
from the they're-not-even-a-real-country-anyway dept.
What is this? Editor-troll-and-flamebait day?
In any case, the movie industry here in sunny SoCal has had this problem for a long time, which is why a lot of productions have been moving up to non-sunny Canada.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
Shameless Plug: rural communities with bandwidth can be found. Two I work in can be found at:
http://www.bowmannd.com
http://www.hettingernd.com
Columbus, where I live, is a great place for this. We have a decent bus system, lots of shopping places, and lot's of office space. There are alot of call centers here and lots of 18-20 year old's because of Ohio State, Franklin University, DeVry, Keller Graduate School, Capital, Otterbien and Mount Vernon Nazerene College are here also. Columbus is also one of Ohio's most wired cities with a decent penetration of broadband (available almost city wide I believe.). Rent's for workers can range from cheap to exhorbitant. You can, if you can afford it, even buy a condo downtown in Miranova (starting aroun $300,000). Miranova is for that executive who doesn't like to put a lot of miles on thier Beamer (right downtown). In any case, Ohio in general is a good place for high tech (at least that's my feeling anyway!).
Gorkman
Recently in Canada one of the hot topics of discussion is about the "brain drain" to the US, where IT grads were moving to California for employment due to low taxes and a stronger US dollar (although supposedly we're doing quite well with educated immigrants). Still it would be interesting to see how many of these workers (or even companies) are Canadian or have strong Canadian connections already.
I stole this Sig
Yup, the Bay Area is expensive. You get the world's best array of tech talent in a 100 mile radius. Thats going to cost you.
I live in London, UK, and four of the six companies I have worked for over the past three years were US-owned.
I live, work and play in a high tech burb. Just outside of Boston but in the tax free state of New Hampshire. When I first moved to this area it was great. Tons of high tech, low rent and tons of people just like me who had just moved into the area. After 4 years I will say that everything has changed. With all the high tech moving in the rent has jumped up 4-800 dollars for a two bedroom and the jump is even higher for a 1 bedroom for some reason.
I guess the moral to this rant is that no matter where you go to after a while its the exact same as where you left. The small town life doesnt remain the small town life for long as soon as the town fathers realize that they can make tons of cash off the tech industry.
I cant wait for the days where a high speed access point and a video phone are all you will need and you can work from anywhere.
If I were only smart enough to accomplish the things I dream about.. Or maybe too dumb to care.
As a tech worker who has (recently) endured lack of jobs in this sector, I plead to come here. The cost of living is very low, we have Purdue, IU, and Rose-Hulman, the NCSA is right down the road, the Internet2 has a main artery here, and God knows we need more tech-savvy people here. We'll even change to daylight savings time for ya...honest.
[RIAA] says its concern is artists. That's true, in just the sense that a cattle rancher is concerned about its cattle.
hmmm... i can't say that i'm raring to move from SF to baltimore (lowest op-cost US city, according to the ref), despite the tough job climate in the bay area.
however, companies might find plenty of gracefully aging but eminently employable geeks in those US states to which many baby boomers are retiring: florida, arizona and new mexico come to mind.
the op costs would be low *and* part of the tech population might be enthused about relocating.
It's funny that the article mentions Toronto as a viable relocation for high-tech companies - Toronto is generally considered as the most expensive city in Canada, followed by Vancouver.
Calgary is attractive to employees because unlike most of Canada, there is no provincial sales tax, only federal sales tax (so they end up paying only 7% on everything they buy, as opposed to 15% like Ontario and the eastern provinces).
One major centre which is not mentioned in Montreal - which is incredibly cheap compared to the other major urban centres in Canada. It's generally cheaper Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Ottawa in almost every category for employees (rent, car insurance, food, beer...) Only problem is that Quebec has a high rate of provincial tax, so maybe it factors out a bit in the end.
"Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it." -- Thomas Jefferson, 1801
In fact, of the people in the ISD (aka IT) department where I work, almost half are Canadians (some are dual citizens like me).
Have another Molson's on me. I'll have a lite cider, in a litre bottle.
Will in Seattle
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
Remember, profit is revenues less cost. There's nothing wrong with a business leaving a city to reduce fixed overheads.
The only problem is getting your workers to move, and if they don't, finding new workers to replace the old ones. Smaller cities have smaller labor pools.
The bottom line: Lowering your rent is always good, but in the case of workers, you get what you pay for, sometimes.
thats funny. i live just over the border from you. Everytime I go over there, I become 60% poorer. But as a consoloation, I become 200% better educated, and 1000% smarter.
If you stopped smoking crack, you might not have such strange ideas about 'smart americans' lol.
Apparently, either subscriptions or big ads. =)
http://www.talknerdy.org
'Blame Canada'
:) but he was gracious enough to put up ar ereally nice post after the fact...
he's already knocked us for taking some of the film industry (ok, he's not the only one.... but remember they created Hollywood in California for the good weather - now with the smog in LA they can't shoot much anymore)
then there is the whole Hockey thumping... (damnit it's our sport anyways!
and lastly there are those damn 'Canadian Cold Fronts' that make it snow in Texas... yes definately BLAME CANADA!
ah.... all better now
have a great weekend all!
:)
Just a quick note: I am from Canada (Vancouver) and right now a US dollar gets you Cdn$1.592, which means company A who would pay employee XX US$70,000, can pay the employee Cdn$70,000 which is US$43,970 and save a grand total of $26,030. The employee would be totally happy, as the cost of living here is almost 1:1 when compared to most high tech centres in the States (ala Seattle, etc...) and the standard of living is just the same, if not higher, less traffic, beautiful nature and so on. As for education level, good universities here have the same level of education as good universities anywhere else, and due to the multicultural nature of Vancouver, there is a lot of talent that migrates here from other countries...
:)
So all in all, it would be a win-win situation for them... and it has the same time-zone as LA, Seattle, San Fran and so on (as opposed to going over seas which makes for a development nightmare! I have been through it, working with UK/Ireland - from Vancouver, and let me tell you it is NOT my idea of fun
peace.
-farshad
...and remember in your brain boggle, wrong starts with a wubble-u.
Are you sure you don't get 50% richer? I'm not sure how to measure your %'ge increase in smarts, but I've got a funny feeling that it doesn't have a square root.
I never understood why a business would want to station itself in the Bay Area. If I pay 450k for a 3 bedroom house, it better be on 25 acres, preferably waterfront.
These guys are MBAs and they can't figure out how to spend less money. It blows my mind.
(/local/home/curiosity)-#who -u|grep thecat|cut -c 44-49|xargs kill -9
The Bay Area in particular is about the cutting edge industries - there is already a groundswell of biotech. Once an industry becomes mature and doesn't need cutting edge talent, it should leave the area.
Old hat tho. It happens (happened) in every industry. As the tech market becomes more 'bricks and mortar', the US will likely outsource much of its labour, although, as usual, not its executive staff.
"Old man yells at systemd"
Here's a neat tool that let's you compare what your income would have to be elsewhere in order to have the same lifestyle.
$100,000 in Oklahoma City compares to $279,000 in Menlo Park.
I saw it on the Internet, so it must be true.
Oh, I can't help quoting you because everything that you said rings true
Here in the Research Triangle Park, home to Red Hat, IBM, Cisco, Siemens, Motorola, Alcatel, Nortel, GE Aircraft Engines, Glaxo, Bayer, Fujitsu, AstraZeneca, and smaller software and support companies - this is the WORST its been in 30 years. On a national basis our labor costs are not even above average. I tend to think that failing companies relocate regardless of the cost of labor. The bigger problem is the cost of RENT in places like the Bay Area, SF.
I left the Bay Area (Silicon Vally, specifically)in 1997 and never looked back. The only thing I miss are my friends.
Goodbye insane cost of living. Goodbye nasty traffic. Goodbye techo-yuppies. Goodbye high real estate. Goodbye psycho work mentalities.
The place I live now has everything the Bay Area had, and none of the things that completely sucked. Skiing, wineries, good restaurants, theater - the Bay Area doesn't have a monopoly on those things.
Nice weather - that's another thing. But truth be told, the Bay Area seasons (more specifically, the lack thereof) really messed with my sense of time. So I don't miss that either.
...the fact that trying to actually get in to Canada "sucks".
If all the high tech jobs move up that way, most Slashdot readers are gonna be working behind the counters at 7-11, unless Canada loosens its new immigration restrictions a bit.
political_news.c: warning: comparison is always true due to limited range of data type
The Bay Area is an expensive market for expensive talent in expensive industries.
No, you should not manufacture widgets in the Bay Area if you can do so elsewhere. The companies that are here are here becuase they need a high concentration of talent across a set of tech industries that you cannot find elsewhere in quantity.
R&D is expensive and the Bay Area is the R&D shop for the nation (if not the world).
Why the hell was this person given a flamebait? It was just his opinion. You moderators are freaking morons.
I hate this stupid dicussion site. As soon as you say something that is not "in" you get modden down. I feel like I am in freaking Germany in 1942
The one problem is - a tech company is composed of talented individuals. Most of the really talented people can find good jobs within their area, so they have less incentive to move to Podunk for just their career.
You can move the company, but if only the lower half of the talent pool follows, it's not a very good decision.
No knock against smaller cities but I think the need to move out becuase of higher costs will out wighed by the need to have good sushi, and good new movies.
Sigs are dangerous coy things
What is wrong with relocating to Canada. We are hard working, friendly people with a relatively weak economy. Movie's are always being shot in our big cities, simply because it is cheaper. So is it not a logical step to move tech companies up here too. I guess it would be a fair trade, seeing how for the past decade or so the american's have created a "brain drain" on our country. I say come on up, and maybe by the time you get settled down I will be done college and could get a job.
Disadvantages
One thing that I find ironic is that it was only a few years ago that Nortel was threatening to leave Canada because of its taxation rates which hurt corporations trying to compete against those in the USA.
dirty Canucks, first the movie industry, now IT, soon, we, I mean THEY, will complete their drive for total world domination. HAHAA HAHAHA HAAAAAA!!!
Canadian World Domination
Yeah! I finally made it too 50 KARMA!!!! Now its time to md my ass down. Mazel Tov!
Not bad, 3 anonymous cowards in a row. Yeah, OK, my math is a little shady, but the city I'm referring to is Windsor, which is like Detroit, only with a better casino and strip clubs as far as the eye can see. Not the brightest city in Canada. As far as the Northern provinces go, they can keep the snow and moose. I'll stay in Crimetown, USA! Signed, Dumb American
-------------------------------------------
Saving baby carrots around the globe.
Significantly, real estate is a fair bit cheaper in major cities here than in the U.S. Office space is running about US$10/square foot (I think) and houses start about US$175,000 in Toronto. Taxes are somewhat higher, but you do get some mediocre health care thrown in for free. Yes, the heating bill is nasty in the winter.
Anyway, if you are a business, these things might be a big factor.
The downside (or upside depending on who you are) - from every salary survey I have seen, salaries here are much lower. Hard to get a handle on this, but my impression is that technical wages in U.S. are the same as Canada but in US$ (thus 40% higher?). Part of the problem is the "branch plant" factor in the Canadian economy.
Like, at least our beer is way better, eh?
BTW No, and we don't pronounce it "a-boot" Who started that myth?
Oh, man, I can't believe you missed this.
"Canada: it's not just aboot doughnuts anymore, eh?"
Virg
How many employees are going to move to JerkWater where their new employer is the only game in town??
...or should I say cents. Supply and demand, folks. What am I missing here? There's no reason whatsoever for most of these high tech companies to hang out in these high cost areas. You're jacking up the price for everyone else to live there just so you can form some geographical "high-tech band" in the US, when no industry could be farther from geocentricity than the high tech industries who've now finally gotten a clue. Take your business anywhere you can find electricity. For the price you're paying to run your company in the "high tech band" you could probably house all your employees and their families in dream homes in Iowa or someplace.
I'm no authority, but I am just glad to see things finally evening out a bit. A town isn't meant to consist 100% of high tech profitable firms. They need teachers and "sanitation engineers" and whatnot -- the guys who don't make a zillion dollars a year to pay for the housing.
Having done the reverse relocation, baltimore-->SF I can say that baltimore is certainly ripe for development.
real estate costs are nil, at the current rate of population loss, baltimore will be *empty* by 2070. when i left in '98 downtown office vacancy rates were near 40%. can't vouch for industrial prices, but rent on a 1 bdrm apt. was running around $325/month in the somewhat safer neighborhoods. the city has an incredible amount of housing stock, most of which is boarded up.
The biggest knock against progress in the city is crime, drugs, safety. It is not a safe town with lots of animosity between socio-economic groups in addition to the blind rage associated w/abject poverty. the school system is absolutely horrid.
The combination of these two factors make for one complex situation. the city government wants and needs development but the culture of the city disallows it. want to fix up the $15,000 row house you just purchased? better post an armed guard there until you circle it with razor wire. *everything* gets stolen. reshingle your roof? the shingles will be ripped up and carted off that night. scrap metal fuels the heroin trade. most vacant houses have lost all of their wiring / plumbing for a $2 fix.
i have countless horror stories, getting whipped by bungie cord swinging bicycle thiefs, duck and cover due to random noontime gunfire downtown, ribs stolen off a hot webster grill, blah blah blah.
these are quality of life issues that will have to be addressed if the business world wants to reap the benefits of the low costs associated with operating here. it will be very interesting...
Oh yeah, for sure. We got the curling too, eh? And Tim Horton's. :)
Trust me, my fellow techies, if you ever move up here, get an apartment or house within two or three minutes walk of a Tim Horton's. You will not regret it.
Milpitas is filled with derelict Cisco buildings that are frequently squatted.
>>lack of world class cities and attractions
... HOCKEY!)
I dunno, I think Vancouver BC beats Seattle any day of the week and Toronto is a pretty fun city.
But maybe you don't include Seattle in the list of 'world-class cities' in which case, I'll shut up and go back to my code.
PLus there is that Banff film dealie and you have hotties like Nelly Furtado and Pamela Anderson from there, so it can't be all bad (oh yeah and lest I forget
I forget...are we at war with Eurasia or East Asia?
The gov of the great country of Quebec had the idea a few years ago to create the "multimedia city" within Montreal. One word, it almost worked. They offered tax-free building just aside downtown, gave 10 years tax exemptions, paid 1/2 of the salary of every company that had move in that area instead of going anywhere else, and gave them so many advantages that even french monkeys decided to move in Quebec to develop software because of the huge expertise now available. The cost of live of barely the 1/3 of Toronto and about 1/11 of NY! We have pretty good telco in the area and our WAN is closely almost as strong as the one of Washington.
;ppp
Think about it, with 10$ us you can have 1896.75$ cnd
I know this is offtopic and feel free to mod it down, but has anyone else seen the MS Visual Studio .NET banners on OSDN pages. Not that I have anything against MS (well except that whole unethical business practice thing), but I know in general many /.'s are also MS bashers. Just thought it was ironic....well go back to reading more useful comments
Baltimore Big Business Quotes:
"When we gonna get us some of that them there health care Hon ?"
"If we could switch to Solar Panels, we would use a lots less Earl (oil)."
"Whys that there stadium say PSI-NET? Whoz that Hon ?"
"Yea, this heres the new business capitals, we're right between Warshington and Napolis."
[non baltimore residents need not laugh]
--Ne auderis delere orbem rigidum meum, non erravi pernicose!
To reiterate, the biggest downside for tech workers is lower wages. Forget about that $100k US (equivalent) coding position in Ottawa.
Here, on Prince Edward Island, Canada, you can hire a programmer for $12 canadian. We're having an employment boom all over the island just in call centers. Why shouldn't american companies take advantage of this? To them, we're practically giving away the work. And we're also super-friendly which helps...
Obligatory URL's Geeks with Guns and Packing.org
> The east says "eh", the west sounds just like Seattle.
Okay, then, let's get this straight:
East: "Sure, whatever, eh?"
West: "Sure, whatever, Seattle?"
I think I like it the Eastern way better, eh?
Virg
Cities like Manchester and Portsmouth are becoming tech hotbeds because of the following bennies:
Close to Boston without the expense.
Easier commute. Less congestion and NH drivers are not selfish bastards.
Cheap rents. You can get a 2 bedroom apartment for as little as $700/mo. Office space is cheap too. Less regulation. NH is way more laid back than MA is in the area of business regulation. * No income tax. No sales tax. Taxes are generally low except property taxes in rural areas.
Incentives by Gov. Shaheen. to entice tech companies to NH.
Sundial Avenue in Manchester is Telco central. Gobs of fiber avalable!
Home to companies like PC Connection and Tyco.
The lifestyle here is cool too. If you live in Manchester, the mountains (camping, skiing) is an hour away. The beach is 40 min away from Manchester too. The people here are alot more laid back than in MA.
- mindstom posting as AC because he can't find his password.
that sinking ship will be gone soon enough, along with their coked-up and drunken "sales" staff
they are the data equivelant of a dot.bomb anyway.
Standard mode of operation for corporations moving to Texas. Move to Texas, dismantle corporation.
Move, offer bonus's to people for move. Say move is because it's easier to get to both coasts for the sales people.
People who moved train the local help. Can people who moved.
Real reason to move is that it's easier to:
1) Can people in Texas
2) Blatanly flaunt corporate laws that other states put in to protect people from what happens in Texas.
3) Flaut US laws, it's closer to the Bahamas.
It would be nice if someone finally would... Not that it would matter to me; I'm probably leaving here for a California job...
Benefits:
Low cost of living
Located between Atlanta, and the Research Triangle
Decent infrastructure, due to the collage campuses
Detractors:
Well, it is South Carolina
Convincing your staff to move here
I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
Once KK enters the Canuck market, you are going to see Tim's get hammered (or vastly improve their donuts in response)
Maybe we Canadians say "eh", but at least we don't say "huh" with that annoying Bill & Ted's excellent adventure kind of accent.
And at any rate, we have whatever we want the way we want to because we kicked US ass in both the men's and women's hockey tournaments. Eat that!
ceci n'est pas une signature
People from the bay area have been moving up to Sacramento (about 100 miles) away because of the high cost of living for a long time.
However, companies are not doing the same, and a lot of people end up keeping their old jobs and commuting every day.
Perhaps it's not as inexpensive in Sacramento as some other areas, but the cost of relocation would be significantly less, plus it would probably be easier to retain employees when it's not so far.
.sig? Get your own damn
Montreal has a large Multimedia City which is basically a whole section of the city where a lot of high tech companies have set foot:
. as p
http://www.citemultimedia.com/english/home/home
You find Motorola, Discreet Logic... something like a 100 companies all within 1 km square. It is very, very cheap. You can get a nice appartment in Montreal for 300$US a month (not kidding) and be close enough so you don't have to drive to work.
You also have an e-Commerce center growing fast.
Companies get incredible subsidies to hire staff. The government basically pays almost half your salary if you are a developper.
Montreal is by far the cheapest metropolist in North American and 9th largest city in North America plus people speak French plus the girls are leaner than average (statistically speaking) plus the food is much better than anywhere else in North America.
Downsides? Cold weather, and of course, the fact that the salaries are on the low side.
That's exactly what we did. The whole company up and moved from DC to Portland, Maine last December. Real Estate's ALOT cheaper, the people are ALOT nicer, and the traffic is ALOT better.
i like the "even Canada" statement. said as if it were completely outrageous. "even timbucktwo..."
perhaps the weak Canadian dollar and the dual Canadian olympic hockey golds will be joined with a monumentous reverse brain drain. Canada's been complaining about it for years... maybe the US will get a kick at the can.
and i see the "baren glacier as soon as you hit the border" misconception is still alive and well. Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, and others are massive metropolatin centers with similar climate to many US cities. in Vancouver it rarely freezes and typically has winter temperatures in the mid-high 40's. (that's around 8degC... eh?)
I never saw the reason for companies to locate their headquarters in the most expensive and trendy place possible. How many companies out there need that much physical proximity to others in the industry? Think of all the small manufacturing shops you see in the most remote places, and they depend on raw materiels and suffer if the freight cost is too high. What excuse does the IT industry have? None, as far as I can see. There are literally countless locations across the country that are ridiculously inexpensive and have the high-quality of life that will attract workers.
But no, IT corporations say "We need to move to San Franciso!". They are idiotic, and they get what they deserve for making such stupid mistakes, I have about as much sympathy for them as those who are rebuilding for the third time in the same location because putting up a house on a flood plain was a Really Good Idea (tm).
Is there any compelling reason to be there, other than ego? In most - read: almost all - cases....no.
Furthermore, what really gets me, is when companies have little or no revenue stream and decide to plop down in the most expensive place they can find and then set to work on maybe, you know....making some money.
Here is a stunning idea, locate somplace inexpensive - if you think you won't get any employees or business by setting up someplace that isn't flashy you are ignorant or simply unwilling to accept the truth. Then, build your bussiness slowly, spend as little as possible, supply good, but not extravagant workspaces and equipment and do away with most or all luxuries and see what happens. You might actually last more than a year or two. And when your company grows, it might actually be sensible to move to somplace more upscale. You know.....when you can actually afford to.
People just need to think for a minute, before they go off making dumb and obvious mistakes then crying about it later on.
Advantages
you get to say "aboot"
eh?
Disadvantages
it's not a real country ;-)
an abundance of gorgeous people are our best kept secret
Ah, I see you don't live in New Brunswick.
I swear, all I'm looking for is a woman with less facial hair than me and no kids. Are my standards just too high?
I live in Norman, Oklahoma and we have everything the big cities have with a smaller percentage due to less population. Is your city implementing wireless access for the entire city? Doubtful. I have a 1350 sq.ft. home on 1/4 acre that cost me 80k and is close to the University. I do VB/ASP/PPC development and make 60k/year. Granted in Dallas I made 105k/year but my expenses were 2 to 3 times higher than in Oklahoma. The only difference in Oklahoma and the "Non Sheltered World" is cost of living and better standard of living. However, there are only 2 places in oklahoma worth living in, Norman and Tulsa (OKC is marginal)
The near mythic status of SF has to go. The idea that you can't do business without being in Cali or at least having a "west coast office" is bull, and has harmed the industry.
That being said, I live in Fairfax Virginia and based on the employment section of the Post, it doesn't seem like people are exactly *flocking* to this part of the country. If they are, they aren't hiring. Its still pretty dismal around here, UNLESS you have a security clearance, in which case you have nothing but options... "Will code Perl to help fight the Taliban, please ignore that I'm a slacker misanthrope, that was cool in the dot-com days..."
ZOMG I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ON MACINTOSH VERSUS WINDOWS, VI VERSUS EMACS, AND HOW YOU'RE NOT A DORK
It seems things are really going our way these days, our best Olympic showing in years followed up by the *news* that it's cheaper up here in the great white north(tm). San Fransisco expensive??? I don't believe it!
Cheers,
_GP_
I'll have to agree with many others that there are lots of other (unmentioned) locations in the U.S. I work for a small company in the EDA industry. Probably 90% of the other companies in our industry are located in the Bay Area. We have often found it a big selling point when recruiting that we offer competitive salaries to those companies, but in areas (Pittsburgh, PA and Phoenix, AZ) where that money is worth A LOT more.
Both of the areas we are located in have good schools to recruit from, and are decent sized cities with everything for good quality of life. Phoenix especially has a huge high tech community already. You just have to put up with 100 degrees in the summer, but its beautiful in february.
San Francisco and Silicon Valley has an enormous critical mass of Gay/Lesbian/Bi/Trans people, and Nerds. The counter-culture continues to thrive here.
For techies - it means that you are respected and accepted everywhere, no matter what you look like.
It is the opposite of the nightmare world Jon Katz describes in "Voices from the Hellmouth". Nobody who has been dumped-on for being smart or diferent wants to go back out into the cold.
Attempts to replicate the Bay Area have to replicate this tolerance too - which often requires a massive, slow change in attitude.
-- Jamie
Lots of tech companies are moving to Markham, Ontario - self appointed High Tech Capital of Ontario - just on the outskirt of Toronto. Cheap land, and tax benefits for moving out there apparently. IBM, Autodesk, ATI and others just seen driving across the highway.
:P *Warning* If you didn't like the last statement, don't read my sig!
And what's up with the "they're-not-even-a-real-country-anyway dept" comment? Dontcha know we beat you in Olympic hockey eh?
Oh, there are many Tim Horton's out there as well - there's nothing quite like a traffic jam around a coffee shop.
As for the movie industry moving north:
It's not like I can walk around my neighbourhood currently without accidentally walking onto a movie set anyhow. I nearly walked into a stunt car that was supposed to hit two actresses.
---- The geek shall inherit the Earth.
The huge variation in the cost of living among cities is why those "What Programmers Get Paid" surveys are one of my pet peeves.
I always feel a bit inferior--for a second--when I look at how underpaid I am relative to the statistics in these articles. However, I quickly realize that these statistics are mostly from people in places like Silicon Valley, where a pup tent in someone's back yard costs $150,000.
The fact is that these articles include naieve and misguided analyses of income. It is much better to just rely on a few real data points, such as those from recent job offers, and use local consumer-price-index numbers to scale the salaries accordingly. It is suprising how $40,000/yr. in a small south-east city can easily equal $60,000/yr. in Chicago, for example.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
Take off!
To the Great White North.
Take off!
It's a beauty way to go.
I can't believe it has been brought up yet(unless I missed something), but moving to Canada will take the companies and employees out of reach of the RIAA and MPAA's grubby hands. The US's draconian laws don't operate too well outside of its borders (yet)
"There's a mouse about the house" == "There's a moose aboot the hoose"
Let's put all the "Canada is the best at hockey" Comments under here so the rest of the world can skip over our chest beating (I am Canadian, Lemieux is a gosh darned good guy)
I concur that Tim Horton's does have the best coffee, just don't move to Vancouver... Damn starbucks
>>PLus there is that Banff film dealie and you have hotties like Nelly Furtado and Pamela Anderson from there, so it can't be all bad
well... Pamela lee/anderson/etc may have been born in canada, but she was made in the USA.
Ok, I've got a few karma points to throw away:
Q. How do Canadians spell Canada?
A. C, eh? N, eh? D, eh?
/me bows.
Ok, now continue with the real conversation.
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
Next if US'ers moves here they'll be paid in Canadian dollars. While you'll live well in Canada it's a big pay cut from the US, especially when you add taxes on top. Furthermore prices in Canadian cities have started to rise and while they don't compare to NYC, Boston or SF they're still shocking the natives and expensive in local terms.
Finally there are the cultural differences. While visiting Toronto or Vancouver may feel very familiar to a US'er that changes when you actually live here (Montreal is immediately obvious as being different.) There're the little things like brands being different, everyone being that one notch politer, and Curling being a real sport. There's also a dearth of ghastly evening news (you'd think Canadians are the world's worst drivers from watching TV news until you realize there aren't as many shootings and other violent incidents for the if-it-bleeds-it-leads stories) and lots more interest in international events.
However there are even more important differences. One is the Quebec issue. This is where I live but it comes up everywhere across the nation: French language laws, government policies, separatism, and the economic shock-waves every time Quebec threatens to leave.
Other significant differences:
- Little separation of Church & State with things like religious lessons in schools.
- However by-and-large Canada is more liberal then the US and does have far fewer of the extreme right-wing biblethumpers.
- Canada doesn't place individual liberties above all else; the general good is at least as important.
- The Provinces are stronger politically then US States and there's a lot more Federal/Provincial jostling.
- Strong social policies often more in line with European models then US.
- Political parties that don't map at all onto the US model.
- Socialized Medicine (services are generally good in spite of the horror stories often heard in the States.)
- Establishing credit across the border can be difficult, sometimes very difficult.
- Lots of technology comes out later in Canada (wireless Palms) or not at all (TiVo.)
- While Canadians get US TV & somewhat radio there are lots of programs, acts, and personalities that are big in Canada but unheard of in the US. Some are programs like "This Hour Has 22 Minutes" and others are bands that make Top-10 in Canada but never rise above Top 500 in the US.
No, I like living in Canada a lot, and US friends love visiting, but ask any US expat. living in Canada and they'll tell you it is different and it's more then the good beer.I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Chicago sucks. I just got the fuck out of that shithole. Maybe if you could kill off half the population it'd be OK. Cram way too many people with sub-par educations into a city with terrible weather, long commutes, flat land with no natural beauty, expensive, old, run-down, housing, lots of racial tension, and one of the most corrupt mayors in the country and you've got Chicago. The best thing that could ever happen for Chicago is that it would sink into the swap it was built on. I'm amazed you think that Chicago is cheap. It's nowhere near cheap. When it costs $300,000 to buy a tear down house in the suburbs or upwards of a million to buy a flat in Lincoln Park, forget cheap. There are still many states where you can buy a brand new home for $100,00 to $150,000.
i've been working for for a tech company now for 3 years now in Louisville, KY. when we were bought by a larger firm they moved a group of people here and none of them could believe how cheap the cost of living is! it was and still is this company's philosophy that there is outstanding talent here in the bluegrass state and why not remain when it's so much cheaper to live, employ, and enjoy! just my .02
mary jane capri - managing editor monkeypantz.net For every woman who burned her bra, there is a man ready to wear one
Are you having trouble finding heads?
Up here in hancock county, there's only
a handful of companies that would even employ
a geek: and they all have openings.
That said, send some jobs over here. We need em!
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
Seattle a World-Class City? Gimme a break. It's Vancouver with less natural beauty and a better road system.
How many other places in the country can you place an ad for an esoteric vertical technology and reasonably expect 100 good resumes??
This site has PDFs of the Boyd Company's other industry studies of comparative cost analysis. I'm sure the "Call Centers" and "Help Desks" files will be the most interesting reading. =)
"All mankind is at the mercy of a handful of neurotics". - Norman Douglas
Yes the Queen is the head of state, but she has now power
Since when did the queen become a fema-nazi? Unless you were speaking of the band "Queen", or david bowie...
I'm glad to see Baltimore at the top of the list. It's definately one of America's more underrated cities. Cost of living is darn cheap and it has a rather vibrant small business tech community. And besides, if significant migration from Sanfrancisco occours, it will drive up the value of my house :-)
Strangle enough, Milwaukee would be a great choice. It's a hop, skip, jump away from Chicago and it's seems to be more internet freindly. I have friends that live almost in the country area and they can get DSL. I live in a Chicago subburb and can't get DSL.
almost 1/2 your paycheck goes to income tax, employment insurance, and the Canada Pension Plan
You should manage your money a little better. I make over $80K and pay out only 25% for those items.
Our company HQ is based out of Santa Rosa, CA.. because that's the place to be if you're a telecommunications company... but they've located 99.9% of IT in Salem, Oregon (all servers, brain-power, etc).
The further away the top-level execs are from people doing real work, the better...
Actually it's 26 miles by 8 miles (but that's because it goes past lake thunderbird). If you want to cross Norman quickly use Hwy 9 like you said or Robinson. Do you have any fucking idea how long it took me do drive 13 miles from my apartment in Lewisville (north dallas) to downtown dallas for work every day? 55 minutes. Now I work 30 miles from where I live and it takes 35 minutes. If you're not bright enough to figure out a quicker route thats too bad.
First you say how Oklahoma sucks and there is nothing there. Then you say how it's too crowded. Make up your mind. Putz.
I've been yelling about this for years.
There's no reason to be in an expensive place to do this sort of business. It adds nothing to productivity. The only thing it adds is cachet, which only impresses VC's. Hence, what happened.
The scam is over. Time to get back to work.
--Blair
I don't know what you're talking ab0ut.
almost 1/2 your paycheck goes to income tax, employment insurance, and the Canada Pension Plan (which will by dry in 10-20 years)
In short, you'll always live confortably. But you'll never have that extra money you need.
only one airline, and man does it suck
And I believe it's got $4 billion in debts thanks to the government who wanted to boost the competition but failed.
yeah, ok - it's a little colder
Not to worry the pollution will take care of heating us up.
the healthcare system is spiralling downwards due to funding shortages passed onto the provinces from a sneaky federal government that wants to report a "surplus"
Quebec receives $4.79 billion in fundings out of the $10 billion. For some reason they still complain about money. British Columbia receives like $200 million out of those $10 billions.
Thanks to those great roads, you'll need a new car every few years.
The cost of living here is SUPER low.. plus.. you can hire VBscript monkies to work on ASP sites for $8/hour. .
Do you mean ASP sites like EBay or HotBot
Perhaps if you actually knew what ASP was, you wouldn't come to Slashdot and make such an ass of yourself. ASP != VBScript, ASP is a technology which utilizes one of several scripting languages as well as any compiled componant you choose. That includes VB and C++. PHP, Perl, JSP do not even come close to offering the power and flexibility which ASP offers.
But let me guess, you are one of thoise illiterate Linux Monkeys who once read that ASP was VBScript so you decided to spew it out again.
You are probably the best example of why nobody wants to live in Oklahoma.
We slipped from #2 in 2000. But we have some new draft picks this year, and from what I've seen of their driving, we should be back to #1 in no time.
Everyone will start to cheer when you put on your sailin' shoes.
When our company started, we started in an affordable location, and stayed there. We built on an inexpensive, yet powerful Linux-based infrastructure. We pinched every penny. We never recieved venture capital, but we've been around 3 years, and we're turning profits.
Our competitors started out in expensive cities. They spent millions on their infrastructure, to impress the investors - and the investors flocked. They burned through several rounds of multi-million-dollar funding, but never really produced anything. Now, they're all out of business or have all 'downsized' and moved to cheaper locations.
How in the world to people with so little business-sense (or even just plain COMMON financial sense) get in charge of these companies? It never ceases to amaze me that so many people have been (and still are) so STUPID.
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
Ummmm ... isn't *every* Canadian apartment or house within 2 to 3 minutes of a Tim Horton's? ;]
My apartment (almost 700^2') off the Dulles Tollroad is just over $1000/mo. plus utilities. Cable+ w/HBO and Router is around $100, liquid sunshine for my Jeep is about $1.10/gal. Lots of nice shopping and DC is a nice, safe, 1 hour or so (30 miles) away during rush hour.
Now, INSIDE DC proper all I hear is complaints about the government, utilities (lack of along with exploding manholes), hassles to the nth power, etc.
If you come to the DC area decent living is not hard to find down here on the USA side of the river.
Better Beer
I only live a few miles from Canada, but California has the better beer. Sierra Nevada and Anchor Brewing make some of the best beers in the world.
http://www.kubuntu.org/
I found that there's one other major problem with relocating to Quebec. They seem to be very intolerant of outsiders, especially Americans. Every time I've been to Quebec, I was treated very badly, to the point where I decided never to return (things like hotel personnel who spoke English to each other, but when I approached they would only speak French to me, and waiters who ignored me after they discovered from my accent that I was American). Several colleagues of mine were confronted with the same issues. I had no such problems in Toronto.
Virg
Mmm, British Columbia...with it's Marijuana Party, large cannabis clubs, and high pot tolerance, not to mention everything else.
I've always liked that part of the continent...
"All mankind is at the mercy of a handful of neurotics". - Norman Douglas
The question that needs to be asked is: "Why does an entire company need to be 'near the business'?" I have personally never heard a good answer to this, considering the facts presented. Many 'reasons' too be located in the center of activity are not mutually exclusive with reasons not to be, or perhaps are simply overruled by basic givens of the situation at large and past performance. As an example, take a large IT company that claims that they must be in the center of the business, like in the DC area, more specifically in a dense concrete jungle of bad traffic and long commutes to work (long time, not really distance) because of COL prices in the area. In reality, that IT company most likely does more work outside the area it is housed in (perhaps most of it international). Perhaps even there are other of that company's locations that are distant, yet those distant locations often are the ones with the business that is in the same area as this business location. That makes no sense really, but it does happen quite frequently. When you look at government contracts (the stated reason for a DC location normally) you find that the actual work is done far away and with DoD often overseas. You end up with the realization soon that it apparently does not matter at all where you are located on the actual productivity side of things. However, there is a need for marketing types and liason types to be near the equivelent customer types like that. Yet again, reality is much different then this, as most companies house a significant portion of customer interaction personnel in locations far away from the customer.
Perhaps it is just another example of an initial good idea not having critical thought applied to it (not thought through) coupled with inefficient processes, incompetent decision makers and confused middle management.
So the real lessons... the long term lessons should be looked at here in detail. Moving a large company to another location is not cheap by any means. Add to that the initial cost that drove them away, and sprinkle on top the very real possibility that the same situation will happen again in the new location, and you are left with a nice recipe for disaster. No number of degrees, powerpoint slides, meetings, fancy talking, buzz words or that typical management pseudo-busy pacing is going to change that. (pseudo-busy pacing referring to when they think that ANY work, regardless of efficiency and relevancy to the needed work is performed just to say 'yeah we did something', much like a mouse in a wheel)
A smart business person will not get so wrapped up in desires that they only look at red tape policies and not real results. Company picnics and cool looking golf shirts will not keep employees happy, especially if they feel that their decision makers are more interested in tricking and manipulating their employees (through picnics, shirts and other false moral raisers). Most employees at non management levels I have ever interacted with where indeed interested in moving forward and producing good work. It is only when treated like thieves and criminals that they began to exhibit the complacent and lackadasical attitude that the managers seemed to 'expect'. I am thinking that decision makers need to stop following the crowd so much. If a company decides to make a medium sized campus out in 'the boonies' and it works well, I fully expect that the brainless sheep of many other companies would mimic this, while not trully understanding the real reasons, motivations and desires of the remote location move in the first place. next thing you see will be a very popular trend to open up massive campuses in the middle of farm country, and added to that you will find they stupidly flock together (like sheep) in the same locations, creating more big cities and the same problem that caused the employees to leave in the first place. (thus resulting in the 'new move')
its not that hard people, you just gotta stop worshiping processes and use your brain.
It's probably going to be a lot easier for companies to move a relatively short distance, like SF to Sacramento. This gives the workers a lot more options if they decide to reconsider in the short term, and the influx of high-tech companies means that the deficit of employment options is going down rapidly.
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
Plenty of cheap labor and living is cheap. The only problem is the ridiculous taxation and the over zealous police force.
I think the majority of the country just doesn't care about somebody's sexual preference. This would be my definition of "tolerance" but in Bay Area parlance "tolerance" is when your demographic wields significant political power disproportionate to the actual size of the demographic. Consider me wacky but I think it is going to require more than a change in "attitude" that is going to allow the Bay Area to replicate that definition of tolerance.
I just escaped DC last year. I grew up in that pit of a city and last year successfully escaped to a job in Seattle (a really great place to live if anyone is interested). Well, two months ago I got laid off and now I'm watching all the jobs here slowly dissapear and companies are moving away one by one. And where are they moving to? ARGH! I really don't want to go back to DC......
You diseased creatures are so obvlivious to the truth, you can't even see the folly of your own unsustainable lifestyle.
It doesn't matter where you relocate, if all you do once you get there is build build build, grow grow grow. You have the same effect on the local enonomy, no matter what part of the world you are in. An influx of highly paid workers causes the existing local markets to realize they can demand and get higher prices for what they are selling - be it houses, rent, gasoline, groceries, you name it. Yeah I just paid 450 thousand for a house that would sell for 95 thousand tops in Tucumare NM. So what. THe company I work at pays me enough to afford it. The (former) owner of the house knows this, so he asks as much as possible for the place, knowing I have no choice but to pay it. What else is he going to do, give me a break and let me have it for $1.98 just because I'm such a nice guy? That's not the way you creatures operate. It's not in your nature. It's not the way your brains work.
Meanwhile, there aren't enough existing houses to support the mass migration into the area, so local landowners and developers take advantage of the situation by doing what they do best: raping the land, building condo's and townhouses piled on top of each other so closely you can hear your neighbors chewing their Wheaties at the breakfast table in the morning. But does the expansion of available housing cause prices to fall? Nope! The rest of the community hops on board, riding on the coattails, milking it for all it's worth.
So where does it end, guys? WHen there is absolutely NO MORE LAND available to build new houses and Big Box malls? When we all make 6 million dollars a year, and cracker-box houses cost 4.5 million each, and cars cost 125 thousand used, and your cable TV/broadband bill is 3000 dollars a month?
Cost of business, indeed.
You figure it out.
You would be surprised to learn that there is well-developed IT industry in Canada. Moreover, given flexible immigration policies and special government programs for attracting IT specialists (so-called EFW Pilot Project) there are literally thousands of developers/admins coming into the country from Eastern Europe, India and China each year. These people are very well skilled, most of them have Master degrees (due to immigration requirements) and majority of them beats local college graduates in efficiency, professionalism and industry experience. And unlike most of southerners newcomers are not hot for big bucks and will accept decent jobs for less. In other words, do expect competition ... and that's apart from being paid in canadian dollars :)
3.243F6A8885A308D313
Same thing here in Philadelphia...just a little different slant. People who live OR work in Philadelphia have to pay a wage tax as high as 5 percent. It comes right outta your check. No ifs, ands, or buts. Many young techies (and not so young) have fled the city to the burbs, where new office parks rule. Why would anyone want to give Philly any of their cash when they live and pay taxes in another city? And for the folks that live in Philadelphia, why pay 5 percent when you are taxed to death on everything else? I live in Philly and think about moving every payday.
With all of the tech industries leaving the city, Philadelphia is rapidly becoming a tech dead zone.
You writing that and me understanding it makes us both look very old. =)
I swear by MacOS X. Although I use to swear *at* MacOS 9...
Don't let go of that attitude and make sure to tell all your friends about how bad it was in ND.
Make sure you mention the horrible things like wide open plains, warm summers, clean air, stable jobs, low crime rate, friendly people and low cost of living. Qwest provides service including DSL for the Fargo area. If you don't like DSL, go with a cable modem because yes we have those too. Fargo also has wireless access from Monet. Dickinson and the surrounding towns have Consolidated Communications which provides DSL and cable modems as well. I'm not exactly sure where you were, but the things you're describing are a complete opposite of what I've experienced.
Now after saying that... Stay out cause we don't want no strangers round these parts! Ma fetch me mah shotgun!
And I believe it's got $4 billion in debts thanks to the government who wanted to boost the competition but failed.
No, it's got $4b in debts because they would rather compete EVERYWHERE than where the money is. They run routes at 10% capaticy just because other airlines run them. They don't realize that not running a plane is cheaper than running it for two people (though it's nice to be able to get seat upgrades when First Class is empty).
The government allowing competition is great, but Air Canada forgets that it's not the only player in town. It needs to clean up its act, focus more on the profitable routes, and start cutting out waste.
--Dan
Actually Montreal is a world class city. It is clean, beautiful and has the best resturants and strip clubs I have ever been to. ;-)
I highly recommend the city to visit. Also, they party much harder there than say Boston or even Nashville where I currently make my home. Nashville is cheap to live in and has a small but growing high-tech sector. Sprint made the big jump to Kansas City and a small leap to Nashville from Chicago. It's the right thing to do, in my opinion. Spread the wealth I say.
Take at look at this report: http://www.competitivealternatives.com/main.htm to see how costs compare in different cites. Canada is at the top of the pack for best places to do business. And Edmonton (home of companies like Bio-ware) is the #1 city, though not even mentioned in the other article...
I know you are all asking yourselves if it so great why everyone not located in Iowa. Yes, there is a downside. Chief and foremost right now is Iowa's winter, cold and snow and more cold, though it is warmer than Minneapolis. Second, gettting into and out of the state by airplane is a bit vexing at times. But this is really a chicken and egg problem. We cannot get better air service without more demand, and we cannot get more demand without better air service. So you might have to "bite the bullet" for a while and pay a little more for plane tickets. Finally, while there is a lot to do in Iowa, there is not always something going 24 hours a day, like there is in the big cities. For me persoanally I consider that a blessing as it leads to a life with a much more relaxing pace.
Oh and I almost forgot a benefit, at least for those in Silicon Valley, NO EARTHQUAKES
For more information:
Iowa Dept. of Economic Development
A coder in Iowa
stoothman
One thing I don't want to hear out of tech support or my surgon...
Karma whorin' since 1999
What are you talking aboot?
Calm down everyone!
This is an age old cycle. High demand for realestate in SF = higher prices being charged for rent. Now that demand is down the prices are going to fall and new tenants will go there.
Nothing to worry about so long as the government stays out of it and doesn't do something stupid with rentals like they did with utilities.
You are receiving this message because your browser supports Slashdot Sigs and you have Slashdot Sigs enabled.
Hey, now I can not only retain some of my basic human rights - but I can get a job too! Just how hard is it to become a Canadian citizen, eh?
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
Blah blah blah, ok... "VBScript monkies working on ASP sites."
What from that statement says that ASP only supports VBScript?
The truth is, VBScript monkies are the least expensive people you can purchase, err hire to work on ASP sites.
At least we don't have morons who can't read.
Sure, but there is another factor that is important for high-tech companies that Gartner is missing: skilled workers.
I work for a company that has one of its offices in Edmonton, AB, Canada. Why Edmonton? Let's see:
The third point there is very important. Yes, it is possible to attract SV engineers to Edmonton, but it takes a *lot* of effort and incentive. One major problem is that a SV engineer may sell a bungalow for $600,000 USD. In Edmonton, you can get a mansion for $200,000 USD; there are no houses to be bought for $600K. So the SV engineer suddenly has $400K to pay taxes on.
So, the vast majority of people in R&D are local-area Canadians.
Yes, every Canadian apartment is within 2 to 3 minutes of a Tim Hortons. After spending two weeks in Canada this summer I never want to see another Tim Hortons. Krispy Kreme kicks the krap out of Tim Hortons. Come on, what is with those tiny little pieces of bread and meat they call sandwhiches.
What ya'll should really be worried about isn't tech jobs leaving the Bay Area for DC or Oklahoma or some other podunk place....the transnational globalists have transferred all the jobs to India and East Europe and China to hire educated people who work for peanuts by Western standards.
If they move to Canada how would that effect the eminent security policies of the US ?
Even if the company is US owned they reside in another country that still means the US company abides to local laws, so maybe they are getting out because they don't want to hassle with DMCA and such, and the whole its too expensive is a cover up. Because we all know if companies want to reduce cost the just pass the buck(s) on to consumer to make up for thier lack of cash.
anyways just a thought, things aren't always what they seem.
Or a Newfie!
Karma whorin' since 1999
Get that stupid net out of your hair you stupid shitheaded troll
1 j4x0r0x0r3d j0000
pj33r mu4 1337 5k1zzn1ll35
Dallas, Tx is the largest IT market in the USA.
/.
Houston, Tx IT market is almost as large as Dallas.
Both have extremely low cost of living and doing business.
3000 square foot NEW house close to town in Houston costs $150k.
Contrary to stereotypes, almost all Texans live in Dallas, Houston, Austin, or San Antonio.
The funny thing is that San Francisco governemnt is correcting the overpopulation by raising the costs of living/business so that people/businesses leave...this corrects the high cost of living problem...
Another rare piece of actual economics talk of 'supply and demand' on
Toronto blows away anything we have here in Texas, I can assure you. In fact, Toronto is probably the only city I'd consider visiting just to see what's there.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
Needless to say, I live 2 hours away and telecommute!
The reason they moved there, of course, is that this part of York has extremely poor economics and is being targeted for "growth" by the government. They have established an Official Small Business Bribery Zone and give us tax breaks and free services. Woohoo!
Justin
"Why would God give us a waist if we wasn't supposed to rest our pants on it?" - Rev. Roy McDaniels
My area is trying to promote economic development and the tech sector would do great up here. Take a place that has DSL and T-1s available, plenty of space to build or buildings to take over, a willing community that is eagerly accepting new business and even offering incentives, houses that cost $20-$40k on average, good schools systems, etc. and you have a very alluring place for people to come work. A local sofware company in Bancroft, IA also has a California branch. They offer their employees the choice of which they want to work at. Lately more have chosen Bancroft - especially those with families. Not as good an option for companies that need quick access to airports and major shipping routes, or for people who really need a good nightlife, but for many software or internet cos it would be great.
Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do.
Companies are finally feeling the budget pinch caused by doing business in NYC, Seattle or San Fran? Come to your senses and move to Hawaii! Hawaii has a warm, beautiful climate and some of the best karma on the planet. Unlike other parts of the USA, the people on the islands are genuinely kind-hearted and friendly to each other. - As long as you pack a sense of common decency along with your swimming trunks you will be treated as Ohana. The cost-of-living is not as extreme as popular legend would demand - there are many people who comfortably survive here making less than $30K a year. Think of what your high-caliber IT wage can do here. Think of how much more value your expensive IT employees will find in their paycheck. And yes, there is bandwidth and lots of it. A rich social ecology of Native, Asian, Pacific and European culture exists here. Not only is the food great (the best sushi in the US), but the level of cultural diversity is intoxicating to the average Western mind. There's nothing like walking through the park in the morning and passing by a group of Chinese seniors moving through their Tai-Chi exercises, and strolling back through it in the evening to the sounds of a practicing Samoan choir. There is a small, but growing, technical community in the islands - which has it's plusses: The technical community that does exist is small, active and very supportive of each other. Most Importantly, people don't yawn when you tell them that you program for a living. :)
At the moment, The Hawaiian economy is economically addicted to the Military and Tourism. Without solid alternative industries, the islands will become stagnant with the transient natures of it's current economic benefactors. - The politicians of Hawaii are slowly coming to their senses about this, and are starting to listen to reason instead of to their campaign contributions.
Because of this, there has never been a better time to move your venture to Hawaii. The govmn't of the islands are actively seeking Tech Companies to move to the Islands, and provide great financial incentives to businesses wishing to migrate and to the entrepeneurs willing to build here. There has never been a better time to move your venture to "paradise."
-- Apologies to the Hawaiian Sovereignty People who may be reading this...
The better beer generally considers only the mass market beers, as microbrews are an entirely different ballgame.
Of course, when you're comparing urine to urine, does it really matter which is better? Molson or Bud, they're both fecking close to water.
Although, I did actually try a Budweiser last month, and I didn't realize how apt the joke was, when applied to Bud. Molson, at least, looks somewhat orangey-yellow. Bud was pale, pale, PALE straw yellow. I was dumbstruck.
Of course, I'm also a guiness drinker.
For anyone interested in San Francisco's rent situation, you might find these two articles, by Thomas Sowell, to be interesting: The Housing Farce and The Housing Farce, Part II.
White flight is nonsense in today's society.
No one wants to live in a high crime, low education, bad schools, etc. area of town...especially non-whites.
'White flight' is nonsense created by alleged leaders who want some issue to give soundbites on and to get elected.
If you worry about your karma then your pathetic. Apparently you haven't been to Norman recently. The town isn't slanted either. Look at a fucking map moron. The middle of town is slanted. This is because the original downtown area was lined up to the railroad and not east west. Here's a map
Do you see the slant in the middle? That isn't the entire town. Lindsay is that way because the students. It is essentially a residential area. Would you like people driving 55 through your neighborhood? If you worked at a flower shop across from Norman High my guess is that was 10 to 15 years ago. Earl's has long since moved. Also norman has significant growth past 24th avenue (which is another indication you dont have a fucking clue what you're talking about). Did you not notice the Norman North High school? Wonder what thats for. I guess the non existent people of North Norman. With a population of around 100,000 there is no way you can have an area as you describe and have no crowding. The difference between Norman and other large cities is you may be going 25 mph but like you said it's only 4 miles. So that shouldnt take too long.
Yes Norman is crowded but my arguement is that it has all the same things everyone wants in a big city with significantly less hassle. So before you start bad mouthing Oklahoma go live in a hellhole like Dallas. Christ Dallas is 10 degrees hotter than Austin as an average temperature in the summer because there are NO trees, all concrete. In other words if you dont like it get the fuck out. It's cheap to hire a U-Haul/Ryder Truck. And since we are soooo poor you can hire movers for cheap too. My guess is you bitch about it but are too lazy to do something about it.
They went to Chicago instead of Dallas because Chicago had one of the great lakes and Dallas didn't.
I wonder if Chicago was economically better than Dallas. Probabally not given higher cost of living and taxes...
A lot of the high-tech growth in the DFW area has been fueled by cheap land and a corresponding cheap workforce. A $300,000 two-bedroom cramped house in CA gets you near mansions here. In addition there are quite a few workers here dumped by the dotcom/telecom bust that drive hiring prices down. Plenty of electrical power here. There is no personal income tax in Texas, a real selling point for a million-plus executive looking to shelter his nest egg. Finally Texas cities often give tax breaks like depressed Southern states to lure business here.
That's not to say that price is the only factor. For instance until the last fifteen years DFW didn't really have enough of the highly specialized building contractors that make computer room sites. That's something you're not going to get everywhere.
Also proximity to what counts drives many location moves. DFW probably lost getting the Boeing HQ because it was not as close to Washington DC as Chicago (since Boeing business is largely driven by what happens with the DOD and FAA), and I suspect because of the lack of world-class four-year colleges and cultural opportunities.
For folks who live for SanFran it will be irreplacable. But for bottom-line folks other locales beckon.
________________________________________ History Must Not Fall Into The Wrong Hands ___________________________________
Some places in Canada like Victoria BC and Banff are so gorgious I'd move there in a sec.
Before anyone knocks curling please take a look at a very popular sport that is even more ridiculous and very popular in the US called GOLF. Curling requires far less space also.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
And I believe it's got $4 billion in debts thanks to the government who wanted to boost the competition but failed.
My understanding is that Air Canada negotiated hefty deals with its unions and suppliers when it thought it would own the sky, but then the industry went into decline and then Sept. 11th happened.
Companies are finally feeling the budget pinch caused by doing business in NYC, Seattle or San Fran? Come to your senses and move to Hawaii!
Hawaii has a warm, beautiful climate and some of the best karma on the planet. Unlike other parts of the USA, the people on the islands are genuinely kind-hearted and friendly to each other. - As long as you pack a sense of common decency along with your swimming trunks you will be treated as Ohana.
The cost-of-living is not as extreme as popular legend would demand - there are many people who comfortably survive here making less than $30K a year. Think of what your high-caliber IT wage can do here. Think of how much more value your expensive IT employees will find in their paycheck. And yes, there is bandwidth and lots of it.
A rich social ecology of Native, Asian, Pacific and European culture exists here. Not only is the food great (the best sushi in the US), but the level of cultural diversity is intoxicating to the average Western mind. There's nothing like walking through the park in the morning and passing by a group of Chinese seniors moving through their Tai-Chi exercises, and strolling back through it in the evening to the sounds of a practicing Samoan choir.
There is a small, but growing, technical community in the islands - which has it's plusses: The technical community that does exist is small, active and very supportive of each other. Most Importantly, people don't yawn when you tell them that you program for a living. :)
the moment, The Hawaiian economy is economically addicted to the Military and Tourism. Without solid alternative industries, the islands will become stagnant with the transient natures of it's current economic benefactors. - The politicians of Hawaii are slowly coming to their senses about this, and are starting to listen to reason instead of to their campaign contributions.
Because of this, there has never been a better time to move your venture to Hawaii. The govmn't of the islands are actively seeking Tech Companies to move to the Islands, and provide great financial incentives to businesses wishing to migrate and to the entrepeneurs willing to build here. There has never been a better time to move your venture to "paradise."
-- Apologies to the Hawaiian Sovereignty People who may be reading this...
lack of world class cities and attractions
I don't know what Canadian cities you've been visiting...but they're obviously different from where I've been! Have you ever been to Montreal? It's like a bit of Paris (the good bits.. not the seedy nasty non-showering bits) dropped down into the heart of the country. I'd take a walk down St. Denis or Sherbrooke over New York's Fifth avenue any day. Not to mention the world-class dining, shopping, and the fabulous nightlife..the party doesn't even get STARTED here til 1 AM.
And did I forget to mention the cheap cost of living (I rent a 4 1/2 - that's a two bedroom for the non-Quebecois - for $450 a month in a prime location), amazing public transportation system, and the caché of coming from one of the most recognized places in the world.
I won't even get into Vancouver, Ottawa, Toronto, St. John's (Party town!), and all the other great spots in this country.
Other than that, I must say I agree whole-heartedly! Canada rocks as a place to live.. though the taxes do suck (almost half my bonus went to taxes this year...whimper). But I think the public health care system and low costs of just about everything else more than make up for all that.. yes the salaries are lower, but then again, where in NYC or San Fran are you going to find a decent apartment for under $500 CDN?
Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo - H. G. Wells
Haven't many movies recently been shot in Mexico because of the tremendously lower production costs....?
When are we going to see this on Indian reservations? completely gets rid of all local/state government regulations/taxes
Please leave your guns at the border.
... maybe slashdot should move here. No more subscriptions!
Of course I'm kidding. Silly Americans wouldn't be able to handle the beer and the cold.
J
If I had a dollar for every person who thinks his/her little microbrew is "the best in the world", I'd be Bill Gates.
Plenty of Oil & Gas work, though - Programmers even get their own office at most of them... Of course this is offset by the fact your whole life is spent trying to figure out new ways to interprit seismic data... booo-ring...
"lack of world class cities and attractions"
And you call yourself a Canuck? Try Victoria BC (beautiful), Banff, Baffin Island (for the adventurous types), Montreal, Quebec City, etc.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Remember that a lot of TV production is done in Canada nowadays. That means a strong Hollywood presence. The US and Canadian governments also have an uncomfortably close relationship. If pressed, Canada probably would initially resist an SSSCA-like regime just to be contrary to the US -- but they'd eventually give in. I think to get free of the SSSCA and related laws, moving to countries outside those most Americans would consider living in will be necessary. But Canada could be a stop along the way.
Here goes my karma, not that I have much, but alas, this is off topic.
For the extra 40 cents, I would take a cup of Starbucks coffee over Tim Horton's, though I would rather go to a small Italian espresso bar than any chain. As far as economic nationalism goes, ummm, Tim Horton's os owned by Wendy's. Anyhow, I don't understand the popularity of Tim Horton's coffee. I just chalked the lineups at Tim Horton's in Ottawa to the fact that we have a large population of government drones who have no taste.
I make a reasonable middle-class wage by going to work and not spamming blogs with scams.
I'm breaking out the Molson and the back bacon so I can watch the Leafs on TV.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Don't forget that Canada uses the metric system.. though I'm not sure if that is an advantage or disadvantage..
cpeterso
I have to agree with that. Most people who think Canada is "bland" haven't actually travelled through it. They simply watch too much American TV, which stereotypes us that way.
I'll reply to this one instead of all of them ... I didn't say "absence" nor did I say "none". I just said that we're lacking in world class cities.
... however, they don't rate as "world class". I'm not being unpatriotic, just honest and blunt.
For everyone's reference: I consider Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary and grudgingly "Toronto" to be "world class" cities, in the sense that there's reason for other people in the world to know about them and visit them. If you define a world class city as one which is a cultural centre and on stage with cities like New York and Paris, I'd say only Montreal rates.
There are loads of places in Canada that are worth visiting: Ottawa, Victoria, Banff, Drumheller, Charlottetown, Cape Breton, Tufino, Yellowknife
Lets see...
Has a (democratic) government
Stable
Recognized by every other nation on earth
Large + industrialized economy
One of the largest nations physically
Has flag, embassies, etc
Member of NATO
I'd say it is a real country, get over it.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
I don't know what you are talking about Seattle having a better road system..
cpeterso
It's not "eh". It's "hey" without the h pronounced. I once thought it your way, but learned the real derivation of the word after many hours of sailing with Canadians.
According to Ed the Sock, all you need to do is go to Cornerbrook, NF!
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Boeing did that recently too. They left Seattle for Chicago because Washington wouldn't bow to their demands and give them all kinds of wacky tax breaks.
You get the best of both worlds in the Buffalo Region. ;-).
You are within short driving distance of fine Canadian establishments (Canadian Ballet, anyone?
Good skiing country nearby.
BioInformatics center just established.
I live in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Everyone is within two or three minutes walk of a Tim Horton's! Mmmmm, Medium-single-single.
--Shane
Or learn french ;-)
You were able to root out the underlying international conspiracy without being sidetracked by the economics or the fact that there aren't enough IT workers in the states to fill all of the job postings.
You are wearing an aluminium foil hat, aren't you?
Hmm ok, been a while since I lived in Seattle. I like Vancouver compared to San Francisco, which I think most would agree is a 'world-class' city. But then again I haven't LIVED in Vancouver and we all know visiting someplace and living there are two different things.
I forget...are we at war with Eurasia or East Asia?
The first 500 San Franciscans (sounds like a monastary, doesn't it?) that move to Canada will recieve no less than 3 Vancouver Grizzlies shirts!
Not enough?
Sweat too much? Hot and itchy? Move to Newfoundland (the beautiful location of The Shipping News) and say good-bye to that "dry heat" forever!
Immigrants from SF will be greeted at the airport by Rush (or Gordon Lightfoot).
This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it. - Dorothy Parker
Trust me, my fellow techies, if you ever move up here, get an apartment or house within two or three minutes walk of a Tim Horton's. You will not regret it.
Are you saying there's apartments and houses in Canada that are more than two or three minutes walk from a Tim Horton's?
From hell's heart I fstab at /dev/hdc
...when I leave the bay area is the Kuumbwa jazz center and Yoshis. Good live music is hard to find in small towns, though Santa Cruz (Kuumbwa) is an exception. I won't even get into the housing prices here.
Canada consistently wins the best lifestyle award in some annual poll ( help me out here ). I like Vancuover. Not the cheapest city in Canada but I need to be in the West and near the coast ( else I freak out ). I could go there. Anyone?
"everyone's different....I am the same"
What a combo.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"Ten bucks is ten bucks, eh?"
You keep going until you die..."Me".
Ah, how I do love our Hoser neighbors in the north. They gave us Moranis, Thomas, SCTV, Shatner. What do we give them? Acid rain. They're such good sports about it, though...
Useless opinions, worthless observations, and more!
Living in Vancouver is wonderful. (As I type, I'm looking over Granville Island into the downtown core). We have an incredibly beautiful skyline. There are always tons of fun things to do (except after 11pm, when the Mayor says we all have to go to bed). The cultural diversity can cause difficulties, but mostly it means lots of good food, good shopping, and interesting people.
I've lived in the US, all over Canada, and throughout the Pacific Rim (all English-speaking countries though). Vancouver is easily my favourite city of them all.
I'll never get tired of having the mountains and the ocean so nearby. The hiking, skiing, cycling, and general outdoors activities are unmatched (and practically year-round).
The downsides? Driving and parking -sucks-. The transit system is cumbersome at best. Everything's pretty expensive. Too many people are far too politically-correct. Overall, though, it's a great place to be.
In any field, find the strangest thing and then explore it. -John Archibald Wheeler
I'm a ten minute walk from the nearest Timmy's.. There is one in the main hallway of my college.
I don't like their doughnuts, Robin's is much better for that. Tim's coffee is better though, I haven't seen one in Calgary... directions anyone?.
God save our Queen, and Heaven bless The Maple Leaf Forever!
I've seen this happen around Chicago, many tech companies, plus other firms are moving out to the suburbs and out of downtown. Sears, for example, has moved most (if not all) of its offices out of the Sears Tower to a facility out in the 'burbs.
There is what I call the 'tech corridor' along an expressway out in a suburb called Naperville with many large office campuses lining both sides, Motorola, Ameritech, AT&T, and many others are all out there, the growth in recent years has been huge.
"We shall show mercy, but we shall not ask for it" -- Winston Churchill
the couple times I've been there everyone was very polite to me. i speak some french and I never heard anyone try to put me down thinking i wouldn't know. personally i loved montreal.
I'd much rather say, "eh?" than say: "EARTHQUAKE!!" Ever since I graduated from college, I've lamented that so many of the bleeding edge technology jobs are on the west coast and I am (happily) stuck in the midwest, ultra-conservative as it is.
The fact that all of San Francisco and the Bay Area WILL be destroyed by earth quakes is a REAL reason that I haven't moved there.
If you think the destruction of the WTC hurt US economy, wait until Silicon Valley plunges into the Pacific Ocean. Maybe people over there are finally saying to themselves, "Gee.. we're on a fault here. Everything is super expensive - epsecially housing. This sucks. See ya!"
I know some folks who had a house in San Jose. They sold it for over $800,000. They moved to South Carolina, bought a house just a tad smaller for under $100,000 and are enjoying retirement with the remainder.
"Surf's up, dude!"
...eh?
Vortran out
Knowledge is like ignorance.. too much can be just as bad as not enough.
Sales tax 6%..7% by county. No income tax. Low property taxes. High tourist taxes, so make sure to get a "one year + one day" lease or you'll get screwed.
Crappy public schools. 51st in the nation in English. Yes, that's behind Puerto Rico... but so was Arkansas.
Low cost-of-living. 99-cent gas (ok, it's 87 octane, but it's still under a buck). 89-cent milk. Broadband (DSL, cable modem,
Fifth-highest population in the US. Highest percentage of retired populace in the US. Second-highest concentration of retired populace in the world, but nobody knows who beat us.
Time required to get a concealed weapons permit: 6 hours. Time required to get a driver's licence: 8 hours. Time required to set foot in Florida soil before becoming governor: 132 hours.
Vermont "marriages" accepted by most major banks and a few churches.
Average number of applicants for "tech" jobs: 125. Average number of applicants for "new tech" jobs (Linux, Unix, Internet): 175. Average number of applicants for "heavy metal" (MVS, CICS, COBOL) jobs: 75.
* - being slowly demolished by toxic runoff from sugar plantations
Who told you that .... mWhahahaha. Sailing with Canadians, oh gee this is priceless.
... eh'.
Well as a born and bred one I cam assure you eh' is just eh' and has no relation to hey which we pronounce hay
CC
Of course, I'm also a guiness drinker.
Just to nitpick, drink more before you call yourself a guinness drinker so you can spell it right.
Another great expression:
Ni neart go Guinness!
(Guinness for Strength!)
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
Let's face it, the mark up on tech goods, internet, etc can no longer justify even an $8.00 an hour Oklahoma worker. Perhaps it is finally time for the tech industry to complete the move over seas.
Come to NZ instead where US$8 is about average salary ;-)
Are there ANY 7-11's in North Dakota? Last time I was in Grand Forks and Fargo, I couldn't find even one!
Hey, I thought companies weren't just leaving San Fran, they were leaving the market entirely. Did 200k tech people get laid off last year?
But if they are moving to Canada, there are a few good reasons. Canada doesn't have a DMCA (yet), or a nazi emperor (yet), and Canada doesn't throw people in jail for doing harmless things that the people already voted for as ok. But aside from that, all the media is from the USA, and so are the laws and foreign policy, so it'll be just like at home.
Bet my office view beats yours! :-)
Vancouver is a relatively dull place. Remember New Year's Y2K? No huge parties. No major *celebration*.
Having lived in a REAL world class city (Tokyo), Vancouver comes across as podunk small town.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
Funny.
Sure they grew up here. But they didn't have to stay here, especially once they hit it big. Maybe it's something else....nah.
Please, please don't move here. It's very cold, the residents are more surly than hung-over Texan and the women are large-boned and ugly.
Who cares about their doughnuts...how's the beer?
"everyone's different....I am the same"
Tim Horton's is moving in. Their stores are always packed.
Looks like Vancouverites are fed up with the yuppie elitism of Starbucks. Just gimme tha caffeine!
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
Actually, I was born in Edmonton, raised in Fort Saskatchewan, Red Deer, and Rimbey, moved back to Edmonton and and lived there for 15 years before moving to Seattle. As for the women, that's where I met my wife, so you should watch your tongue :-)
:-)
The only reason I wouldn't move back to Edmonton is because of the cold. Here in Seattle, the magnolia tree in our courtyard started to bud yesterday
Actually, I was born in Edmonton, raised in Fort Saskatchewan, Red Deer, and Rimbey, moved back to Edmonton and and lived there for 15 years before moving to Seattle. As for the women, that's where I met my wife, so you should watch your tongue :-)
;-)
Born here. Raised here. Met wife here. Live and work here.
Not complaints here!
There are 9 tech people in New Orleans. We need more. Please help us.
Great enormous gay community, widespread acceptance, far more liberal in many ways then any US city, arguably more/better nightlife then SF, equally great food, much cheaper cost of living, safer streets. Beautiful people who really appreciate the better things life has to offer. Walk down Rue St. Denis or St. Lauraunt or du Gai Village on Ste. Catherine on a warm summer night and tell me it can be any better (ok - not as great today with the snow.)
Yes there's the whole French/English issue but that's primarily political and almost never personal. In 5 years of living here in both a samll Francophone farming community and then on the East side of Montreal (Ahuntsic) I've had it brought up twice, both by drunks.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
--This is not new: many businesses vacated New York State in large numbers during the late 80's, for the same reasons of high taxes and personnel costs. Previous to that time period, it was assumed that businesses wouldn't bother to relocate to another state just to take advantage of lower state taxes.
--Living on the Illinois side of the St Louis-metro area, I can say that a (small) difference of a couple percent of state taxes translates into a large difference in commercial development. All the jobs on the MO side pay a bit more, and just about everything sold there costs a bit less than in IL.
--Also note: the Rams relocated to St Louis because Orange County went broke, and couldn't hand the owners piles of money anymore... -but that's another bitch. - Scooter
But let me guess, you are one of thoise illiterate Linux Monkeys who once read
Fascinating.
Yes, California is the most expensive state to live in, but moving to Canada is hardly an improvement. You are better off moving to a low-tax/no-tax state.
I acutally liked any compiled componant better.
raised in Fort Saskatchewan, Red Deer...
So what's the deal with all of those winter olympians from Red Deer, anyway?
The UN standard is frankly a relic, and is largely derivative of an anti-US bias. Look at the scoring for the UN index and you will see it places society above the individual - its no mistake that socialistic nations come out ahead.
I heard the same thing in the 80s -- companies leaving CA to do business elsewhere. The fact of the matter is that the high tech center is still Silicon Valley and I don't see that changing any time soon. Moving low wage jobs out of state is not all that interesting, quite frankly. The high paying, bleeding edge tech jobs are here. So for those moving out --- don't let the door hit you on the way out!
I currently live outside of Phoenix, and I get into the city about twice a year. Everything that I need is very close to where I live. There are bars, theaters, and stores right around me. I'm sure building a company 25 miles away from the downtown of a city will cost a lot less and there will be fewer problems. And, if there is some sporting event, it will take about 30 minutes to get to it.
Just a guess, red deer meat?
Going abroad is a big deal for a company, even if "abroad" just means to Canada. It's like Vincent Vega said in Pulp Fiction. "Everything's just a little different over there". New legal system, new patent regime, different accounting standards, blah blah blah.
From a worker's point of view, it's hard to say. I live in Seattle. I go to Vancouver pretty frequently. I think it is one of the world's great cities. Unfortunately, there's a pretty big disjoint between the cost of living and the salaries. Take housing. Vancouver property is similar in real dollar costs to Seattle, while salaries are merely similar in that a tech professional who makes US$n per year will probably also be paid C$n in Vancouver. At the same time, you will be taxed rather heavily.
A techie can make a good living in either place, but even with the quality of services in Canada (health care, education, etc.) it's hard to make the numbers add up.
and i see the "baren glacier as soon as you hit the border" misconception is still alive and well. Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, and others are massive metropolatin centers with similar climate to many US cities. in Vancouver it rarely freezes and typically has winter temperatures in the mid-high 40's. (that's around 8degC... eh?)
There isn't a huge glacier at the 49th parallel? How d'y'all keep yer igloos cold all year then?
Calgary has a climate similar to Chicago I suppose. I never understood folks who lived there either. The salary:cost-of-living ratio is better in Calgary, but the problem is... you're in Calgary.
j.
Techies who go to Tim's are there for the best damn coffee they have ever tried. I agree that KK donuts are better tasting, but if you pack more grease than a big mac and more sugar than cotton candy into ANYTHING, then deep fry it, its going to taste pretty damn good. Oh, and being up here in Canuck land, where are all these damn tech jobs?
Have you left yet? I would love it if more ungrateful people like you packed their bags and left. You're free to take the next flight out of here so chao!
Actually, unlike the the U.S. Social Security system, the Canadian Pension Plan enjoys statutory protections from raiding by the government. It is not possible for politicians to divert the funds to other purposes, so any money that goes in will end up getting paid out as benefits. Add to that the recent CPP rate increases, and you can be pretty sure that the CPP will be around for a while (the Globe and Mail had an article on this a while ago, but their website only has 7 days of freely searchable archives).
There are 15 Robin's and 32 Tim's in Calgary.
5 55 001B7&AL=&T=calgary&N=robins&PG=L&STYPE=S&R=N&SRC= alberta&S=AB&NA=&PM=00040000&LC=15&PI=1&MC=1&CB=&P P=
5 55 001B7&AL=&T=calgary&N=hortons&PG=L&STYPE=S&R=N&SRC =alberta&S=AB&NA=&PM=00100000&LC=32&PI=1&MC=1&CB=& PP=
http://yp1.superpages.ca/listings.phtml?CID=001
and
http://yp1.superpages.ca/listings.phtml?CID=001
A friend of mine pointed out some interesting facts about these three cities.
First, no natural disasters. Not susceptible to earthquakes, tornados, flooding, or fires (nothing to burn). Makes an ideal location for data centers and call centers.
Second, power. Hoover Dam. Need I to say more?
Third, within three hours (by air) of most any location in the US. Not to mention, cheap airfare and in the case of Las Vegas and Reno, cheap hotels.
Forth, Nevada corporations...
Fifth, low housing costs.
On the negative side there is the unbearable heat, the large amount of old people, and, well, the unbearable heat.
I suppose the ideal situation would be to have the corporate HQ and data center in one of these three cities and the developers all up in Ottawa. Best of both worlds!
You forgot"
"Hey hon. Get me a natty bo"
"No way, we're goin' to bow-haygurs!"
Die CPP DIE! I fucking hate contributing $1600 and up a year to the old folks who never did pay in their share. I'm going to leave this country sooner or later because of the taxes...
And the whole 'raiding social security' thing is a bunch of nonsensical rhetoric, too.
Bravo to you! For the longest time during the .com heyday my gut instinct kept telling me this, but the hype possessed me too and shooed it away. It is my dream to succeed just like you did, not as a slave to the VCs and the stock market.
Does it hurt to hear them lying? Was this the only world you had?
Which is why many Canadian cities are doing OK in attracting hi-tech co's: that's where the geeks are. Canada is built on multi-culturalism and tolerance. Vancouver (where I live) has a huge gay&lesbian community, amazing arts and sub-culture (just have to look for it), and has very high education standards which are accessible to much of the population (plus a BSc/BASc will only put you back $25K CAD for the whole thing, not some retarded amount like $25K USD a year). Add AMAZING quality of life, outdoor activities, scenery, oh yeah and WHISTLER. 'Nuff Said. ;-)
Sure I hate paying as much tax as I do. But I do it for social welfare reasons: if I'm well off, I should support those who are less fortunate (like the fellow who loses teh ability to work due to MS); if I fund the education system, so more people can get degrees and high(er) paying jobs, they too will pay more taxes, which will help with my retirement. It's like karma, baby: what goes around comes around.
Besides the gap between what Americans and 'Nucks pay in taxes is not as big as most Americans (and Canadians) think it is...
Sorry for the rant.
"Content's a bitch."
Why the coast? A colleague just sent me a miserere complaining about the snow and cold in St. Louis. Here on the coast, it's sunny and clear.
Why the coast? The air is so clean I can see three mountain ranges from my office and one of them is across some 50 miles of ocean.
Why the coast? If I walk down the street with a woman who isn't the same race as I am, I don't get a second look.
Why the coast? I was standing in a grocery store checkout line and overheard 7 different languages. With those speakers come different perspectives and that makes for some really interesting dinner conversations.
Why the coast? Did I mention the physical beauty of the place? This country is unbelievably gorgeous and varied. We've got ocean and mountains right next to each other.
Why the coast? John Steinbeck called this country Eden and he wasn't too far off the mark.
That's why the coast.
Start learning how to say "eh" immediately if you plan on moving to Canada. Otherwise we might have to look harder for a reason to kick your ignorant asses.
Fair enough, I always seem to typo that.
The truly ironic thing? I work in the Guinness Tower in Vancouver, BC. I shit you not.
Every few years, there are news stories in the Bay Area talking about the great new outpost for technology: Ireland, Boise, Reston, Columbus (OH), New York, Albaquerque, and now Canada. Everytime, a few companies move some business units out of the area, or maybe the whole company. And then the moving stops.
What people forget, and then soon relearn, is that the Bay Area is a very damn fine place to place your technology company, and a damn fine place to work in technology. This is an area with: a well educated populace; some of the best technology education in the world; dense population centers; a young workforce; great technology infrastructer; a critical mass of technology companies.
Sure, manufacturing, call centers, data centers, and developers, and even some companies are going to locate elsewhere. But the Bay Area a technology ghost town? I'll believe it when I see it.
The welfare of the people has always been the alibi of tyrants. - Albert Camus
Chicago's not that horrible. But if you want to live in a great midwestern city, Milwaukee is a whole lot of fun. Big enough to feel like a real city, but still lots of green open space. Cheap housing, etc. Not easy to find high tech jobs though. Too bad no one locates there. Mpls/StPaul is darn nice too. Unless your candy-ass can't take a little cold weather. Wimps. Better yet, get a telcommuting gig and live in some quiet rural community...
That is absolutely hilarious man. Any job openings for a UNIX coder (C preferably, but PHP/Perl will do) -- I would give my last pint to be able to have that on my business card. At least until I went to buy more.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
It HaD tO bR SaYd.
I worked for American Express. I recently got laid off, but before I did get laid off, they outsourced almost all our IT to TATA in India. It's all gone. They sent indians here, we trained them, then they sent the indians back to india, then laid us all off. Now they have outsourced the management to IBM. This process took about 3 years, but they did it. Ain't it great?
Unfortunately not... just a room full of EJB coders and me as the token admin.
I'm also a software developer born-and-raised and currently living in Louisville, KY. Businesses and people across the USA need to stop thinking of Louisville as a "hick town"--I wildly assure you that IT IS NOT. As a former resident of upstate NY, Charlotte, NC and the SF bay area, I attest that Louisville is a modern city with very upstanding people and lots of things to do for a city its size (and it isn't so small -- 1 million in the metro area!).
Louisville has vibrant arts, sports, architecture, politics, business, attractions and nightspots and a very fun two-week festival in April/May surrounding the Kentucky Derby (including "Thunder Over Louisville", the nation's largest air power and fireworks show). And if that isn't enough, the University of Louisville includes a very good school of engineering.
Of course, the most important aspect of Louisville is her people, among the friendliest you'll ever run into.
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
I can't believe that nobody has mentionned Kanata, Ontario yet. Kanata is considered by many as being North Silicon Valley. Kanata is a small suburb of Ottawa, Canada's national capital. I've been there, and the massive amount of high-tech companies there is quite impressive. IBM, Texas Instruments, Boeing and Lockheed Martin all have at least satelite offices in Kanata (or sometimes a little outside). Mitel Semiconductor has it's world headquarters there, and so does Nortel and Corel (I was told that Nortel has approximately 40 good-sized facilities in the greater Ottawa area, but I'm not 100% sure on that.)
Not only is the NCR (National Capital Region) great for tech companies, it's also great for their employees. The city is just beautiful and there is even some great country land just outside town, with Kanata smack in the middle. My aunt works for Mitel Semiconductor and she lives in a log home surrounded by trees with a view of the river.
And no, this isn't a shameless plug for my hometown. I'm actually a New Brunswicker. However, I will be going to Carleton University next year and I'll be looking for a co-op placement in the years after. The more tech companies go to the NCR, the better. :]
PS: Canadians DO say "eh" a lot, but we don't use it to end every single sentence! And I don't know who started this whole "aboot" thing, but it's actually pretty rare.
The exodus from SF is the beginning of a larger trend. India graduates nearly 40,000 highly qualified engineers *every year*. China, probably four times that, and climbing. The Law of Lowest Wages, combined with increasing commodification of technology will drive many companies out of the US entirely within the next dozen years. Roughly 46% of our working population works directly or indirectly with technology. Think about what boardroon executives probably already considering as they make plans for future capital and physical investment. Capital is 'on the wire'. Domestic fealty just doesn't cut it for public corporations; not in a world where profit is king. There will still be strong technology innovation coming out of the U.S. for many years to come. However, much of the implementation of that innovation will not necessarily have to be performed by people here in the States. We're facing the very beginning of a huge social displacement problem. Look at the San Francisco phenomenon as a micro-trend that will soon snowball. Our domestic planners (an oxymoron?) had better start preparing for this and look for ways to either keep people fully employed, or actively interested in a slowed-down version of the 'good life', or we're looking for real trouble down the road.
Come, High Tech companies! Move to the land where nobody leaves from or goes to!
.6% (if you include the Buchanan votes from Florida that they threw in and counted as his...).
I'm talking about a city with sports teams that *almost* make it, only to screw it all up!
I'm talking about a city where race crimes are committed almost simply for ole' time's sake!
I'm talking about a city whose population hasn't moved in some 2,391 years!
I'm talking about a city who hasn't added a Congressman since the 20's!
I'm talking about the best damn city in the world -- one that can fool you with its dirty slums and its beautiful million dollar homes, with its crappy neighborhood electronics stores and its massive skyline.
I'm talking about Philadelphia. City of Brotherly Love. (Well, the brothers sure do love each other, but the white guys are starting to realize how wimpy and nerdy they are... [and I'm one of them;) ])
Ahh, Philly. A place with state-controlled failing schools and an idiot mayor, who won by
Beautiful, Philly. Where the famous Philly Cheese Steak has produced millions upon millions of added dollars... as well as millions upon millions of added pounds for the police.
Amazing Philly. Featuring one of the most shameless newspapers in the country -- who, during the Republican National Convention, used a dark, low-contrast picture of Philly's skyline that said with text, "It's been great!" -- instead of a beautiful color shot of all the red white and blue balloons falling around the then-governor.
My city -- Philly.
On second thought... stay away, High Tech firms. I LIKE my city just the way it is.
...Just thank God I live an hour away in the burbs!
The next comment I write will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
Lack of world-class cities? I'm a Calgarian living in New York. Calgary is small, very small, but their transit system, airport, schools, road network, planning, quality of life, nightlife, Stampede, proximity to the Rockies, access to '88 Olympic facilities, etc add up to a lot. It may not be world-scale, but it is certainly a world-class city. It is Canada's No. 2 corporate capital after Toronto (even though Montreal and Vancouver are much larger), has the best winters of any prairie city (which are still bad), gets the most sun of any region in North America (nothern Montana and southern Alberta share this distinction), and has a diverse population. Which, unlike in US cities, is not racially segregated by neighborhood. The University of Calgary has made quite a few important research breakthroughs in the last few years, and is very affordable, along with SAIT, and Mount Royal College.
It is a little known fact that Canada is the most diverse of all Western developed nations, and will be the first among them to become a country with less than 50% of its population being white.
Not only are race relations in general a lot better (note that most Canadian cities don't have the US's trademark ethnic neighborhoods, even though they're often just as diverse), but the attitute of the population and the government towards homosexuals and other often sidelined groups is more than tolerant. It is acceptance. Even the most right-wing provinces (Alberta) generally have more liberal policies and attitudes than the US.
I'm not a lumberjack or a fur trader.
I don't live in an igloo or eat blubber or own a dog sled.
And I don't know Jimmy, Sally or Suzy from Canada, although I'm certain they're really, really nice.
I have a prime minister, not a president.
I speak English and French, not American.
And I pronounce it about, not aboot.
I can proudly sew my country's flag on my backpack.
I believe in peacekeeping, not policing. Diversity, not assimilation.
And that the beaver is a truly proud and noble animal.
A toque is a hat, a chesterfield is a couch.
And it is pronounced zed, not zee, zed.
Canada is the second largest landmass, the first nation of hockey and the best part of North America.
My name is Joe, and I am Canadian!"
Oh, yeah, good tip. I live in the New York area, and I've tried them all: Dunkin' Donuts, Krispy Kreme, Twin Donut, local stores, even the supposedly famous NY bagel shoppes. Tim Horton's and the Great Canadian Bagel ROCK. I always bring bagels with me everytime I travel back home to Calgary.
It's cursed. Once you move here, you can't escape. Much of that comes from the low cost of living. Can you rent a decent 850 sqft apartment anywhere else for $489/mo? My apartment is right off a major pedestrian area of town, and I'm within safe walking distance of two grocery stores, a Blockbuster, numerous semi-fast foods, my bank, and much more.
However, THE NIGHT LIFE SUCKS ASS. Tulsa has ORU, one of the largest religious schools anywhere. Expect to get preached to in the main town square. It happens all summer long, and he never shuts up. Everything is closed at 2:00 AM or earlier. I can count the number of clubs on my hands, and most of them suck. It's all a bunch of frat boys throwing beer around.
The 2600 group here is pretty cool. I hang with them occasionally. If your into wardriving, this is the place. This is also an M$ town. Everything is run on M$.
The main thing is that the town is ultra status-quo. It wants to maintain a 1950's outlook, where everyone goes to church on Sunday and no one stays up late. The city council is completely detached from reality, arguing amongst themselve about road improvements while the one of the largest employeers is getting delisted from the NYSE (WCG). They don't even realize it.
Don't move here. Flee while you can. It's too late for me, but I try to warn others.
Maybe we DID take the blue pill. You wouldn't remember anyway.
Not to quibble (well ok, just a bit), but once a year, Ottawa hosts the largest chambermusic festival in the world. I'd call that world-class. And living in Ottawa gives you tons of high-tech companies to choose from, and the undisputed world-class city of Montreal just a two-hour drive away. For those of you living in San Francisco, that's about what it takes you to commute to work, eh?
On everything you buy from gas to booze to tires.
give me a break, the Bloc turned Quebec into a Fascist province.
hahahhahahaha hahaahaaamuuuuuwwaahahahahaaa ha hhahaaAMAUAAHAAAHwhwhwhwhwwwwwhahaaaaaahahahahahah ahaAAHAHAAHA ae he maybe we'll leave our igloos for a while to ski to work and welcome in this arriving godsend of american consumerism
aahahaaHAAHAHAHAa haAHAAHAHAHAHAHAAAhahahawwwwwwhaahahahahahaa
aha
hehehe
eh
woaaahahahahahaha --- "say eh alot" hahahahehhhamuwaahahahaa that's freakin rich HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahahahaheheh
for a country of 29 million in an area larger than that of the US, I think we do pretty good in terms of cultural attractions.
UHHH!!!!
Not true.
Governments have been raiding the CPP fund for years. It is the EI fund that has statutory protection.
You can blame Quebec for that since they decided to use their fund (QPP is seperate) to prevent any english company from ever buying anything in quebec as well as to buy up companies outside of Quebec (ever wonder where a severly indebted company in quebec got enough money to buy up Sun Publishing, from the pension fund). After Quebec started doing this, the other provinces whined and complained and got the same deal.
The only difference now is that the provinces have actually started to pay the pension fund back (with no interest mind you).
Oh yeah, and nobody here speaks with a drawl or says "eh".
And spuds are tasty!
-h-
After WWII, the US economy had a serious expansion for about 2 decades. People got to think of it as the norm.
When the economy tanked hard in the 1970s, they were shocked, they didn't have a word for it. They sure as hell didn't want to call it a depression. That conjured up images of soup-lines, the dust bowl, failing banks, etc. So they called it a recession, but it was a global depression.
The banks that failed were in South East Asia and South America this time, the soup-lines were in Eastern Eurpoe this time, but it was still a depression. The pain was on foreign faces, so it was easier to miss.
We just came out of a fairly long sustained economic expansion again. And peole think that is the norm, again. We are now in a recession / depression again. (They are now afraid of the word 'recession', they call it a down-turn, etc.)
You can't just pop out of school and into a 6 figure job quite as easily as you could in the 90s. Get used to it. People have to make sacrifices, even move to other cities sometimes.
We, the techies, are used to having the world at our feet, being sought after. That may change for a while.
=brian
Your attitude is the whole problem that caused the issues the target article is dealing with.
I'm so sick of coastal snobbery it's not even funny.
All 6 of your "reasons" are nothing but naive pretentiousness.
Climate? Whatever. Like Seattle doesn't have its rain and the Bay its earthquakes. And like it doesn't get cold on the East coast, either. Whatever. In any case, maybe you should try enjoying snow for a change.
Air quality? What the hell? Since when did the midwest have bad air? Need I mention the smog-LA association that has been burned into our cultural consciousness?
Racism? Bullshit. Racism is a problem everywhere. I hear twice as many complaints about racial problems from people on the coasts than I do here in the midwest. Racial problems are probably worse on the coasts, if anything. Homelessness certainly is.
Cultural diversity? Again, you must have last been in the midwest in 1950 or something. The midwest has the largest pockets of many minority groups anywhere in the US.
Physical beauty? Have you seen Lake Superior, Michigan, or Erie? Have you been to Northern Minnesota, Wisconsin, or Michigan? Have you been through the river valleys in the midwest? Seen the Mississippi? Prairie has a beauty all its own.
Steinbeck? I'm glad your're smart enough to have read your high school literature. Have you read Hemingway's accounts of Michigan? Or how about the Great Gatsby? Or how about Willa Cather?
I don't know where this attitude about the coasts comes from, but it's bullshit and it's got to stop.
There are more people, but they're not smarter, more cultured, or more civilized; the coasts are pretty, but not any more pretty than the midwest; there are big cities, but they're not any more resourceful or sophisticated than those in the central states.
Maybe you should try visiting the midwest for a change instead of spouting the crap you do.
Then again, maybe not. The midwest is better off without you.
They're all WASP cowboys. At least there is some diversity (some, ahah, try a LOT) of diversity in Houston.
The copper bosses killed you, Joe. 'I never died', said he.
And, keep in mind there were only two such votes. The last time was close, but current polls don't make it out so close. The premier at the time said a lot of stupid things after being defeated, and this may have played into this as well.
As far as your points go:
However, if you wish to live there permanently, you should probably learn French. In times of economic crunch, bilingual people do better than unilingual. I have an Anglophone friend who would have a job by now, had she spoken French.
French isn't that hard a language--just a bit weird. And Montrealers don't mind if you're not completely fluent--they are actually very happy if you only try. We actually make more fun of the France accent than of the english accent. Of course, the France people pretend that we have an accent, but we know better.
One of the reasons we get a lot of ethnic groups is because university study here is so cheap, and we have both McGill and ConU which have an international vocation (U of Montreal is only international if you speak French, I'm afraid). Both universities are downtown, so you can expect a lot of diversity walking down De Maisonneuve.
The post high-school system is pretty impressive, and university is very cheap at this point in time if you actually settle in the province. Cégep (kind of like senior high school) is pretty good, and usually public Cégep is actually as good as (if not better in some cases) private Cégep.
University education is pretty good. I personally went to Concordia, and I found their engineering program to be pretty decent--a lot of lab time, pretty well intermingled with theory. McGill's reputation is not to be denied, although us Concordians think it's a bit overrated.
Well, what can I say? I love my city.
Actually, you missed the biggest minuses of living here (a non-resident wouldn't know, I suppose):
I think you've also missed what I think are the biggest pluses:
For sure, don't take my word for it--ask other Montrealers (they may have a different tack on things--of course, we all complain about the weather
Maybe this will end up finally bringing the real estate prices in the Bay Area down to the level of the middle class... A shame that its one of the most beautiful cities on Earth and has been made so utterly impossible to live in decently without being a millionaire.
mje0w!!!1!
I love how Canada is referred to as some rural backwater nation....
But seriously.
Isn't this what we always talk about in the tech world? Telecommuting? If a person can work from home, why can't a company work from the boonies?
The country has benefits over the city.. I once had teh opportunity to work at a high-tech startup in a beautiful small canadian town on a lake in BC.
Now... THAT was perfect. Sure, eventually the office moved to a major center for more political reasons than anything.... but it was excellent. *especially* for those with families.
No city hassles. Fishing. Community.. etcetera... and the high tech job you like.
So you are a Dot.com... You have no storefront, your customer never has to walk to your office, you wear pajamas and play foosball all day.
WHY IN THE $%#& do you need a giant office in the middle of downtown ????
Most of these Dot.coms really needed a white collar staff of 20 and rest should have been workers in their warehouse in . Pets.com was in San Monica for goodness sakes!
Of course, even companies that once understood this basic principle are forgetting it. Can you say "Gateway Country" ?!?! They used to say, "Our computers cost less because we build them here in South Dakota. Low Overhead!" Now they should say, "Forget Low Overhead! We are renting expensive storefronts all over the country!"
One of two people are paying for Gateways move:
1. Consumers - Higher Prices for Higher Overhead
OR
2. Stockholder - Profits go bye-bye with the "High-Overhead/Low Prices Model"
I do not have an MBA but considering what I have been seeing in business plans recently, an MBA is just another bad investment.
Well if you're an American high tech worker that graduated from MTU (Michigan Technological University) you won't have to learn. At least after spending 5 years there I sounded like the locals who all sound like canadians and northern Minnesotans (ever see Fargo?). The positive side of things is at least we didn't have flapping jaws and beady eyes.
"Say ya to da UP, eh!"
If you max out your RRSP contributions. And buy a house. And have kids. I'm sitting at 30 some percent, though I have yet to do my taxes, there will probably be a small refund this year.
Them's fightin' words, pardner.
Well, that's easy eh.
;)
.. that is, you can always have lots of personal space because there's plenty to go around. I can't say the same for London or New York..
You spell it C, eh. N eh., D, eh.
:)
Before anyone flames me, I'm a Canuck, born and raised..
Personally, I know that Canada as a whole will welcome any of our high tech friends from the States that want to set up shop. In fact, the provinces are practically tripping over themselves trying to attract business with tax breaks for all kinds of things.
We have to resort to such things, as I'm sure a few people have pointed out, it's a bit colder here, eh.
But seriously, the summers can be quite hot, and we actually have ALL 4 SEASONS.. I'm always laughing when some recruiter from the states tries to call me during the summer and uses the "good weather" angle on me. I LOVE Canada's summer, it's hot but not sweltering, and the days are longer because we're further north.
Not to mention the air is cleaner, and you generally don't suffer from the "crush of humanity"
Well, my own opinion is that people living in the states don't know what they're missing. If you don't mind being a little behind in company's release schedules for new technology rollouts -- witness the Palm i705's wireless coverage or lack thereof for Canadian cities -- then Canada's a great place to live!
My $0.02
f u cn rd ths, u r prbbly a lsy spllr.
I am not surprised that Baltimore is mentioned in the article. I lived there for three years and it was definitely a great city to live in. It is big enough so that there are things to do (culture, food, night life, sports, shopping), but it doesn't have the problems that a lot of big cities have. The cost of living is very low (especially compared to Philly and DC), and it hasn't been overdeveloped so there's still isn't the same amount of traffic and crowding as in other big cities.
As far as high tech goes, there are a surprising number of software and tech companies in the Baltimore region. If you don't mind commuting to the DC area (45 mins south) there are even more jobs.
Of course, don't forget the crab cakes!!
PS: I had to move away because my better half got an academic position in another city. Otherwise, we would have stayed there.
------
www.moneybythenumbers.com
I'm surprised no one has given one of the biggest reasons why multinationals have moved their R&D operations from the US to Canada - and that is the huge tax breaks the Canadian government makes to companies that do R&D.
Up to 40% of an engineers salary is paid by the Canadian government!!
Check out The Washington Business Journal for just one idea of why a company might want to move expensive R&D sites from the US to the great white north.
As someone with experience I'll just say that the US's immigration is screwed up horribly. It isn't just tech workers that get screwed with. They are such a abusive agency that I as a native American was just sick when I started having to be involved with them. IMO they treat people as if they were third rate. It's nothing short of discrimination. It was simply insulting to know our government is sponsoring this sort of filth.
This new thing where all immigrants and suspected as terrorists is just amazing. As if we didn't have a ton of home grown psychos.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Why not move the entire operation to where Osama is hiding, where everything depends on Allah ?
Don't ever think of Osama Bin Laden and his Al-Queda gang is low-tech.
You see, they hide their messages with cryptos.
They have ultra-special, Allah enhanced stealth technology, and they use to hide Osama so well even the SMARTEST bomb of the "great devil" - U.S. of A., that is, - can't find the bearded one.
And oh, those who slammed the two planes into WTC are HIGH-TECH junkies - for they learn their ways into flying Boeing jets with the flight simulators.
BTW, you may want to move your operation to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, for the Moslem government there still supports Osama Bin Laden, even when they give lip services about "anti-terrorists".
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Especially for an established company, there are huge negatives and few positives in the high cost areas. And who wouldn't want to slash their wage and real estate costs?
It's about time companies got a clue and left the high cost areas. You couldn't have made me move to Silicon Valley for anything. Or California, for that matter....
While it's true that ASP is flexible in letting you choose which component you wish to use, the fact remains that VBScript is the overwhelming favorite.
As an independent contractor seeing a custom component or app written in something other than VBScript running on IIS happens once in a blue moon. I've never seen it, but I always read about someone doing it.
The bottom line is that VBScript is the dominant choice for ASP much like VB is the dominant choice for writing apps for MS Windows. Other alternatives exist, but they are in the minority.
#50 for economic growth in the country - I can believe it too - especially when a former unix/windows sys admin is applying for a hotel desk job and 20 people show up to apply :(. I'm sure they ended up with the best hotel desk clerk on earth - maybe not.
"and will be the first among them to become a country with less than 50% of its population being white."
And you consider it a plus ?
Are fucking nuts ?
Seriously, show a fucking SINGLE prosperous region (beside Japan) which is not controlled by whites ?
Sorry, but history shows that every time percentage of non-whites (with exception of some Asian groups) increases, crime rates and general degeneration follow.
It is true in Canada, London ( which is quickly becoming one of the most dangerous cities in the world) and other places.
It is simply a fact, you can try to deny it, explain it or whatever but it is a fact.
St Louis city practically gives away land, tax breaks, and everything else to tech companies. Of course, everyone here wants to locate their business in the county where most of the people live and that negates a lot of the savings if you do. Of course, St Louis county doesn't give you "free" land. heh.
Freedom is merely privilege extended unless enjoyed by one and all.
What is fucking wrong with segregation by race ?
It is not like some governmental body enforced that policy.
In fact they do everything to prevent it yet people still end up in racially separated neighborhoods.
You know why ?
Because it is basic human nature.
People tend to prefer to live among people with the same cultural and social background.
It is equally true among Blacks, Whites, Latinos and Asians.
There is nothing wrong with.
Don't come back.
You seem to like Canada a lot so please do us a favour and stay there.
Well okay,,, -Canada does have Rush, but Alanis Morrisette's shrill wench-yelping more than offsets that. How about maybe just one gun, please? A little one? - Scooter
Just think, no more H1B visas (is that what you call them). Would it make it easier for us other Commonwealth residents to move to .CA ??
or even cities in Canada... What the f**k is that supposed to mean?
It may be a moot historical point, but the reason Canada produces cars for the North American market has nothing to do with unionism. It is due to the 1965 Auto Pact, which required a certain percentage of cars sold in Canada to be produced in Canada.
Automobile manufacturers consequently gravitated to Ontario (Windsor)... from where they could tap the Canadian market, but also be able to accessthe American market. In his later years, Lyndon Johnson would vehemently claim that Lester Pearson (the Canadian PM) "screwed him" over the issue. In Canada, Pearson is remembered fondly for his role as the "father" of United Nations peacekeeping in the Suez Crisis.
Ironically, Canadian unionism is probably worse than its American variant. At least, this is one of the explanations for the fact that unemployment in Canada is persistently higher than in the US. This last December, for instance, the unemployment rate in Toronto was a "low" 7.5 percent, whereas it peaked at an "outrageous" 6 percent in Silicon Valley.
The Bank of Canada's refusal to follow a flexible monetary policy is more responsible for Canadian woes than anything else (we live and die by Alan Greenspan too...), but perhaps American techs might be less quick to condemn their northern counterparts if they knew how horribly the economy was managed up here....
As opposed to saying "Ahmm..." between every other word like they do now?
And remember kids: Never trust a computer you can actually lift.
while I agree that this persons perception is off in my own opinion, I find it highly amusing how people can do their best to try to sound rational and logical, yet basically only pretty up personal attacks and phrases that only exist to elicit an emotional response. The black helicopters, aluminum hats, etc is really stupid. Instead of being a trained monkey that has a knee jerk reaction and yells out this crap when you can't think of anything else to say to combat someone you don't agree with, why not try being a little mature about it. Otherwise you are only the same rhetoric and irrational fool that you are attacking as such.
I have yet to ever meet a sensitive, compassionate or openminded (tolerant) liberal ever. Arrogant, elitist, tyrant-wannabe's are more like it. Try education and setting examples before you hypocritically force others into doing what you yourself are unwilling and unable therefore to do.
- get paid less as a skilled worker;
Personally, I make the same number of CA$ as I did US$, and the cost of living overall is different by approximately the same as the exchange rate. The city you live in makes more difference.- almost 1/2 your paycheck goes to income tax, employment insurance, and the Canada Pension Plan (which will by dry in 10-20 years)
My taxes in Alberta are a bit lower than they were in Michigan. Canadians think their taxes are high pretty much the same way Americans do.- only one airline, and man does it suck
Unless you're used to US airlines -- this person obviously never few cross-continent on Northworst. Air Canada, by comparison, is fabulous, although it's gotten worse since merging with Canadian Airlines.- yeah, ok - it's a little colder
Ontario weather is basically the same as Michigan or Upstate New York weather. Alberta is colder but sunnier in the winter, but comparitively dry. It really does feel less cold when there's less humidity, and cooler in the summer (and it's as warm as Michigan summer but without the humidity).- the healthcare system is spiralling downwards due to funding shortages passed onto the provinces from a sneaky federal government that wants to report a "surplus"
This is true, and it's worst in Alberta. In another decade, it might be as bad as in the US!- lack of world class cities and attractions
That would be the Canadian inferiority complex talking. Here in Edmonton, it's driven them to build the biggest mall in the world (competing with the Japanese, not that little "Mall of America"), not that a mall with a roller coaster at one end, water park in another, dolphins in a third, and a skating rink is that much of an attraction, throw the biggest folk music festival in the world (efmf.ab.ca), and maintain the most wooded city parkland of any city in Canada (or maybe North America?) -- off the top of my head.Yes.
Canberra, Australian Capital Territory : Only 100 out of our 135 snake species are poisonous.
Zoe Brain - Rocket Scientist
The only people that should be raising hell about marrage, in any form, are heterosexuals. Homosexuals should not be getting in line for the beurocracy and police state of marrage.
It should be none of the government's business who you married, dumped, dumped you, etc.
If you want to make arrangements to arbitrairly steal property and future wages from each other after you break up, do it as a business partnership and have it on paper first.
Before you start that nonsense of women not making as much money as met blah, blah, blah, then you must advocate every woman being "issued" a man for her care. Sorry, I believe women are perfectly able to care for themselves without the help of a man and without the help of a lifetime paycheck from a man too.
Same deal with homosexual marrage. What do you want, poor gays assigned to rich gays for financial life? How about being orientation neutral and assign poor people to rich people, on a personal lifetime basis?
BTW, the guy defining tolerance/intolerance on this thread is dead on. Nobody cares what your sexual orientation is in this country. Just because I can do without the public announcements by ANYBODY about their sexual activity does not mean that I am intolerant of your orientation.
I never said that Americans don't talk funny, or hear funny, for that matter. Being from the Beantown area myself, I am the first to say that we sound odd to those not in the area, and also to say that writing the Canadian "about" is difficualt to do. "Aboot" is as close as the written word can really come without a footnote.
Also, Bostoners don't say the word "car". They say the word "cah" and the rest of the nation spells it wrong.8)
Virg
I'm from the coast, and thus the deserving butt of all those jokes people make about Vancouverites (and their wimpy southern cousins from the Oregon Territory as well). Any place where a nice winter day is -20 is unfit for man or beast. Go ahead and say it's a dry cold. I don't buy it.
:-)