Slashdot Mirror
Study Says Massachusetts Best State For Technology
Anonymous Coward writes "The Milken Institute (site is cnn/msnbc/wapo dotted it seems) has released a study claiming MA is the best state for technology while Texas has dropped to 26th. I'm curious on everyone's thoughts on this. It seems to me Arizona and Austin are most attractive because of the low cost of living and lots of open space. I just don't see (in my job hunting) very many start-up or expansion in the states they list at the top.
Lots more at Google News."
Reader footh adds a link to a PDF of the results.
India is the Best state for tech.
Is that the heat produced by your CPU is a dry heat.
(It's a joke, I lived there for 16 years.)
Maybe it's an election year ploy. Think about it - MA on top, TX dropping hard... hmmm... Either that, or a precursor of things to come...
Read it in the paper this morning. "The index is a composite of indicators such as the growth of venture capital funding, number of new start-ups, research and development spending, percentage of workers in high-tech fields, number of technology companies and percentage of people with college degrees."
And as the owner of a venture-capital-less internet small business in Texas with no college degree, I find the survey a poor indicator of technology in a state - especially coming from a company that can't even keep their server online.
How you say? I fart in your general direction.
RadicalBender.com
With all those colleges in MA (including MIT), it's not surprising that it's the top state for technology. It's virtually a breading ground for it.
Good thing about Massachusetts:
MIT.
Bad thing about Massachusetts:
Ben Affleck & Matt Damon.
I've lived in Austin my entire life. I've seen the town grow from peaceful and comfortable to rude and crowded.
You may THINK there is lots of room in Austin... but really, THINK AGAIN! The traffic here is AWFUL!!! I have an hour+ commute each day one-way (and it use to be 20 minutes before the big boom). The city is just not prepared to deal with all you folks from all-over-creation trying to come and live here because its some sort of "fairy-land-great-place-to-live." It USE to be. That's before everyone and their dog moved here.
State Rank(2004) Rank(2002) Rank Change Score(2004)
Massachusetts MA 1 1 0 84.35
California CA 2 3 1 78.86
Colorado CO 3 2 -1 78.77
Maryland MD 4 4 0 78.19
Virginia VA 5 5 0 72.27
Washington WA 6 6 0 69.87
New Jersey NJ 7 7 0 69.03
Minnesota MN 8 10 2 67.49
Utah UT 9 9 0 66.49
Connecticut CT 10 8 -2 66.26
Rhode Island RI 11 21 10 64.01
New Hampshire NH 12 13 1 63.43
Delaware DE 13 11 -2 62.51
New Mexico NM 14 20 6 61.75
New York NY 15 12 -3 60.66
Pennslyvania PA 16 16 0 60.36
Arizona AZ 17 18 1 58.47
Georgia GA 18 15 -3 58.10
Oregon OR 19 23 4 57.76
North Carolina NC 20 17 -3 57.28
Illinois IL 21 19 -2 56.59
Vermont VT 22 31 9 56.00
Texas TX 23 14 -9 54.91
Ohio OH 24 27 3 54.18
Michigan MI 25 24 -1 54.01
Kansas KS 26 22 -4 53.12
Wisconsin WI 27 25 -2 51.76
Nebraska NE 28 32 4 50.91
Indiana IN 29 30 1 50.73
Idaho ID 30 26 -4 49.03
Missouri MO 31 28 -3 48.11
Florida FL 32 29 -3 44.47
Maine ME 33 36 3 43.47
Tennessee TN 34 40 6 42.77
Oklahoma OK 35 37 2 42.65
Alabama AL 36 33 -3 42.36
Iowa IA 37 35 -2 41.90
Montana MT 38 34 -4 40.65
Hawaii HI 39 43 4 40.05
Alaska AK 40 39 -1 39.91
Wyoming WY 41 38 -3 38.72
Louisiana LA 42 44 2 36.66
Nevada NV 43 42 -1 36.09
South Carolina SC 44 41 -3 35.94
North Dakota ND 45 45 0 34.55
West Virginia WV 46 48 2 33.65
South Dakota SD 47 47 0 33.31
Kentucky KY 48 46 -2 32.61
Arkansas AR 49 50 1 29.53
Mississippi MS 50 49 -1 27.48
State Average 52.64
As for living here -- I'm a New England native and can't stand the Boston area. Crowded, difficult to get around, insane taxes, the Big Dig and so, so expensive. I make 7x what I earned in grad school and still feel poorer now than I did then. I'd love to get a job in, say, north Route 128 that allowed me to live someplace cheaper/nicer without the insane commute, but if you're in a comfortable situation elsewhere, don't go thinking the grass is greener on this side.
And don't get me started on that long-term capital gains worksheet...!
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
I go to San Jose, more often than I care to. I talk to people who work there, and the horror stories they tell. Many of the H1B types I meet are "hot-bunking", 7-9 people living in a 2 bedroom apartment. Sending as much cash as they can back home. Certain valley companies engage in a kind of white collar slave labor, IMO.
For other Americans, who actually want to make a living wage, and go home to a family, you need to think out of the box. If you have a clean record, and are US born, look at the Aerospace industry. Look at Florida. I met an entire group of high level EE/CS types who were relocating to Alaska to work on a missle defense program and one other had a job with the State of Alaska.
Yes - it's that Michael Milken - the securities fraud guy.
It seems to me Arizona and Austin are most attractive because of the low cost of living and lots of open space.
:-/. (Last year, Governor Davis raised UC fees by 30%, and this year Governor Schwarzenegger is raising graduate UC fees by 40%. For the professional [law, med, business] schools, there's almost no difference between UC and private institutions... except that the privates tend to be better at getting you scholarships. The UC system used to do a great job at keeping our best and brightest in the state, as well as attracting those from far and wide... but we're seriously losing that edge.)
The low cost of living argument doesn't help anyone in the US anymore. If a company is interested in relocating some of its jobs (like call centers) to somewhere with a low cost of living, they have *no* motivation to choose somewhere inside the US. They can do much, much better by relocating overseas.
On another note, I saw Ross DeVol (cited in the article) speak at a panel on Southern California's Regional Economy at UCLA last fall. He had some interesting stuff to say/show about the differences between Southern California and the rest. The issue of importing well-educated labor came up then, too... and he wasn't the only one who brought it up. California is going to keep falling behind as long as we keep raiding our school systems for money
Don't you wish your girlfriend was a geek like me?
Those are a few hundred jobs that are staying here instead of going to India. Would moving call centers to MS/AR/KY help those states improve?
It's probably better to move the call centers to India rather than MS/AR/KY. On average, Indians speak better English.
U.T. Austin.
When businesses move to a place the cost of living eventually goes up
The cost of living in Austin did skyrocket during the boom. Then the bust hit and many of the companies moving/starting here went bust. Cost of living then came down some.
Here are a few reasons why Boston is a great place to work for techies:
1. Get to work with smart, old grizzled veterans. They have taught me a few things about discipline, engineering and adaptation. Having a mentor has been invaluable in my career experience.
2. The girls here are hot, and for the girls there are a lot of very fine and eligible bachelors for are actually nice - sometimes too nice for their own good. This place is like "Logan's Run". It seems like nobody is older than 25 at times.
3. You can walk and bike anywhere. Everything is so close. I don't own a car.
4. Compare to New York, you got nature basically right in your backyard - Blue Hills is a 6,000 acre reserve that's 5 miles from downtown Boston.
5. Great, thriving geek culture and community. I never miss the 6.270 autonomous robotic contest at MIT, for example, or the fact that you can take holography classes in adult education schools.
6. Energetic, creative nightlife. If you're into bars, clubs and dancing, it's here. But if you are into performance art, experimental music, hacking groups, murder mysteries or pot luck dinners w/strangers, they are here also.
There's a lot more. Of course there are problems with the city too, but I think the good outweighs the bad.
Psst: the Big Dig ended.
:)
I know MA taxes are higher than, say FL, where I grew up. But I'm afraid the "Taxachussetts" moniker may be more mythical than you realize.
MA: 5% income tax, 5% sales tax
CA: 9.30% income tax, 6% sales tax
Like I said in another post, it may have something to do with "Taxifornia" sounding so odd
But, to each his own -- I don't put much faith or stock in this study, but I know I'm happy (and very gainfully employed, with lots of local oppotunities should I want to change jobs) in MA.
everything in moderation
You'd do well to back up some of those "traditional Mass-bashing" with some current stats.
.5 acre in Natick (15 in from Boston) for $370k. $1M+ for similar in CA.
High Taxes (income, property, real estate, car, excise).
MA income tax is 5%. California's is 9.3%.
MA sales tax is 5%. CA is 6%. MA property tax is average 1-2% (mine is 1.232 in Natick). CA is 3%. Car taxes are much higher in CA (don't have number, but neither did you, and I lived in both). Excise is town-specific and easy to avoid.
Lots of gubmint interference
Where in the US isn't there? This is meaningless.
High fees for lic, reg, insurance, title, etc. etc.
It was cheaper by 3x to buy, reg, and license my car in MA than CA. Look it up.
PITA to own a gun for self defense.
PITA if you're a felon. Yeah. So?
Outrageous cost of housing
Only valid point -- but why is housing expensive? Because it's a good place to live -- the market couldn't bear the prices if people wouldn't pay it. I just bought a nice 3BR on
6 months of winter, and the roads are salted so your car will rot out (sheds tear for his decapitated but loved car)
4 months of winter, and some of us like not sweating anytime we're outside. Skiing is nice. And you can always put on a jacket. Back in AZ or FL or even So. CA -- you can only take off so much clothing before you get arrested. And if you have a job, you can't stay in the pool all day. Nice places to vacation, since you can spend it in the water, but I hated living there. To each his own, I guess.
Lots of rudeness and Hate (A house for sale near Boston was set on fire by White neighbors when they discovered the people buying it were Black)
Nice anecdote -- I'm sure nothing like that has ever happened anywhere else. Never any race riots in CA, always in MA, right?
The RMV is staffed by people who actively enjoy being rude and hateful.
This, my friend, is universal.
everything in moderation
The only industry I know thats in Texas is the video game industry." That's because you are stupid. Massachusets has less people in it than Houston does. Texas has Austin, Houston, and Dallas/Ft Worth, which all have significant tech corridors producing a hell of a lot more than video games. The University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M, and Rice University are all superb schools, and depending on what subject you are talking about, everybit as good in some cases as your vaunted ivy league schools (oops, Rice IS an Ivy League school).
I liked your post until I saw what I quoted in bold-faced type. Rice is in fact NOT a member of the Ivy League. Goddamnit, people, look up your facts before you call someone *else* stupid. Here are the 8 Ivy League schools, in no particular fcsking order.
Harvard
Dartmouth
Cornell
Pennsylvania
Yale
Columbia
Brown
Princeton
Don't argue with me if you don't believe this -- just read the fucking history. The term "Ivy League" has been distorted from it's original(and still valid, in the right circles) meaning. I say this partially because I go to Dartmouth. I'm not a snob, though -- I think that there are several non-Ivy League schools that are better than Dartmouth...MIT, Berkeley, and Rice come to mind. I think all three of those(maybe only two, I can't remember) are ranked higher in Mathematics, which is my area.
~jared
- I am a viral sig. Please copy me and help me spread. [strain #2] Thank you
Massachusetts consists (economically) mostly of the Boston metropolitan area, which also includes the south of New Hampshire. Things don't look so rosy business-wise in the western part of the state, but it doesn't affect the average for the state all that much. (as opposed to e.g. California or Texas, where any averages are going to include a lot of farmers and oilmen, kind of bringing down the tech index)
Lots of people on this thread have talked about cost of living and whatnot, but let's face it - if you're starting a new company, you want to locate where you can steal someone else's employees without their needing to move. And if you work for a little startup company, you sure as hell don't want to have to sell your house if they go under or turn weird and you have to jump ship. All of which means, if you want to work for a hot company, your cost of living is going to suck. Such is life - when engineers are expensive, houses tend to be expensive as well.
Which sort of leads into another point - I think that Boston, and Massachusetts in general, is a center of technology just because it is. It's not just because of the universities - there are other places (Amherst/Northampton, for one) with even higher concentrations of college students, who leave as fast as they can after graduation. Boston (or 128/495/whatever) is a good place to start a company because you can find people who started companies, and you can find them because it was a good place to start a company a few years ago.
I think the thing about Bostonians is not rudeness per se, but a kind of manic pace. Researchers a few years back compared American cities by things like how quickly people talk, the amount of time transactions took to complete at sales counters, how often people interrupt each other, etc. Boston was by far the fastest paced city in the US.
This pretty much bears out my experience. Bostonians are always rushing around, with their mind on the next place their going to be. We don't spare any time for things like making eye contact and polite conversation with strangers,and people who do are probably immediately suspect of being muggers or con-men.
One thing that constantly struck me when I started to do business in other parts of the country is how long people take to get to the point. Of course, this may mean by standards of other parts of the country Bostonians are rude, but the converse is also true: Bostonians consider wasting peoples time as rude. Is this any way to live? I don't know, it seems natural to me. It's just a difference in cultural norms, like the way different cultures have different norms about the appropriate distance to stand from another person when having a conversation. Cities have different norms as to how much beating around the bush is enough to express polite human interest in another person; Boston is on one end of the bell curve, and certain southern cities are on the other. When it comes to more fundamental things like true consideration for others, Bostonians not worse than residents of most other cities, and better than some.
Speaking of bum raps, New Yorkers have a reputation for rudeness that in my experience is totally undeservered. Despite what you see in the movies I've found New Yorkers to be far and away the most helpful and genuinely friendly big city dwellers I've ever encountered. Perhaps their reputation for rudeness has some part in this, because many New Yorkers seem to be almost consciously acting as civic ambassadors.
As far as the Mass RMV is concerned, it's a hell of a lot better than it used to be. It used to be so grossly understaffed and training levels were so low that the people working there had an attitude that making an effort made no difference so why bother? I can attest to this myself having seen examples of amazing incompetence and indifference personally. However RMV went through major reorganization that included increasing staffing, and improving training, systemizing customer service, and expanding regional offices so people don't have to travel as far to get service. Since the 90's my personal experience with RMV is that it is quick, efficient and friendly.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.