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Where the Highest Paying Tech Jobs Are
prostoalex writes "Where would you look for a high-paying tech job? If your answer is Silicon Valley or Research Triangle, Forbes magazine suggests some other destinations. When you take the cost of living and consider the net pay adjusted for that cost, places like Montgomery, Ala., Idaho Falls, Idaho, and Fort Smith, Ark. suddenly seem quite attractive."
...after factoring in the personal cost of having to live in Alabama or Idaho?
Taking into account cost of living, try India.
The masses are the crack whores of religion.
Living in Montgomery AL and installing Office on every PC in the air force does NOT sound attractive, thanks.
'Best Places to Live' according to Money Mag/Rag
0 6/top100/index.html
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/bplive/20
1 Fort Collins, CO 128,000
2 Naperville, IL 141,600
3 Sugar Land, TX 75,800
4 Columbia/Ellicott City, MD 159,200
5 Cary, NC 106,400
6 Overland Park, KS 164,800
7 Scottsdale, AZ 226,000
8 Boise, ID 193,200
9 Fairfield, CT 57,800
10 Eden Prairie, MN 60,600
11 Plano, TX 250,100
12 Eagan, MN 63,700
13 Olathe, KS 112,100
14 West Bloomfield , MI 65,000
15 Richardson, TX 99,200
16 Gilbert, AZ 178,100
17 Parsippany-Troy Hills, NJ 51,600
18 Santa Clarita, CA 172,500
19 Carrollton, TX 124,700
20 Henderson, NV 232,100
21 Bellevue, WA 117,100
22 Newton, MA 83,200
23 Sandy, UT 89,700
24 Westminster, CO 105,100
25 Ann Arbor, MI 113,300
Unemployment in the Raleigh/Durham area is sub 4% (statewide is sub 5). Forget the pharm and biotech companies; we have Cisco, Symantec, Red Hat, Microsoft, GFI, and countless others. There are constantly tons of houses for sale because some many "northerners" (of which I am one, an Ohio transplant from last year) are moving down here, and cost of living is more than fair.
There are tons of tech jobs of every kind out there, especially programming positions. My wife is a teacher and the market for her is evening better than it is for me (as a network engineer/admin type).
I love Ohio, and I bleed scarlet and grey, but there is just no comparison between RTP and any major area in Ohio)
And for you elitest types (I keed!), RDP is home to the second highest percentage of PHD's (per capita) outside of Silicon Valley.
Ever feel like you are driving the getaway car?
In other third world countries where these tech jobs are being outsourced to, $USD400-$600/month is very high. I live in Manila, and the minimum wage is roughly less than $USD 6.00 daily. Those who work in outsourced tech-support call centers make $300 monthly and they're very happy about it. I had a short web-design stint making about $450 monthly and I was really really happy about it, to say the least. Single people here could live like kings on that.
As someone who lived in Idaho Falls, Idaho, I strongly advise against it unless you think man-made falls are cool and love a few of the Temple at night, and like the idea of living in a city that has nothing around it for miles except scenery, where the tallest building is nine stories tall and it's a hotel.
... it was a bit of culture shock for me.
I lived there for a year and pretty much loathed every moment of it. Of course, I came there from Atlanta, Georgia, so
If you're going to live in Montgomery, you might as well consider Huntsville as well. Although it might be slightly harder to get a job there as everyone has some sort of technical background for the most part, it's a fairly agreeable city and not at all representative of the rest of Alabama.
Why do I M2 everything negatively?
Without having RTFA I can tell you that's probably Fort Smith, Arkansas (or Fort Worth, Texas, though that seems less likely).
sig has been sent away for a few small repairs...
And the only jobs being created here are at the stores.
I have no idea where the people here work if they can afford to shop at all the new places.
But above all, there are only two kinds of buildings under construction here. Churches and banks.
Where do these people work???
I dislike the high cost of living, traffic, unaffordability of houses etc. in places such as Silicon Valley. But there are lot more companies where one can work for with decent salary. One's chances of finding another job with close to maximum salary in one's field are lot higher there without having to move.
These are not just idle concerns. I have been asking many such questions to myself recently as I am not in high-tech area such as Silicon Valley. There are no easy answers to such questions. These become even more difficult once one has family, house etc. and has established roots in one place.
Osho
For the non-NC types, Cary (Corral Around Relocated Yankees) is the neighbor to Raleigh, and is home to many RTPers.
Ever feel like you are driving the getaway car?
You might as well write an essay on how Pluto has the highest salaries because there's no competition for real estate on Pluto.
I once oversaw moving a firms's HQ and IT functions from Silicon Valley to San Antonio, TX because of the "math" some white collar genius put together like this Forbes nonsense. Sure, the "average" wage was one-half of what it was in Palo Alto, but because of the "quality" of local talent, we ended up hiring THREE TIMES as many staff to do the same amount of work. (For the math-challenged, that meant productivity sucked by 50%.) This wasn't just a drain on company resources, but on the few people who DID know their chops and had to hoist it in for the dullards. Those that made the move and saw the disaster had to in turn move completely out of the area to restore sanity to their careers. And the "icing on the cake" is that San Antonio is the only place I've stood hip deep in mud and had sand blow in my face. No thanky-thanky.
+-+-+-+-+-+-+ "I don't know what's wrong with you, but I'm quite sure it's hard to pronounce."
"When you take the cost of living and consider the net pay adjusted for that cost, places like Montgomery, Ala., Idaho Falls, Idaho, and Fort Worth, Ark. suddenly seem quite attractive."
Not if you consider the costs of therapy that go along with leaving civilization to live in backwaters lik Alabama, Idaho, or Arkansas.
I was excited there for a minute...
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
No one *wants* to, so there's no competition.
Some of the places on this list could be fairly okay for an educated, liberal, free-thinker type.
But a lot of those places are damn scary.
Also, it doesn't make sense that Richardson TX would draw less than half the salary of Plano TX.
I mean seriously, these are both actually the same place for anyone who would be living in that part of the Dallas metro area, and for that matter, so is Carrollton. There may be a factor related to commuting on I-35 as opposed to Central Expressway, but come on... these are all the same damn place.
Also, pointing out Gilbert Arizona as if it's really distinct from Phoenix is pretty stupid too.
$226 for Scottsdale AZ (yes, it's a separate township, but snobs like to point out that it's *Scottsdale* to avoid saying they live in Phoenix)... That is a joke. Scottsdale median home price is in the $250's still, and most of the housing that a mid-career professional would be happy with are well over the $million mark.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Why would anyone assume that pay rates are great here? ("here" being relative, as I work in RTP) The cost of living here is so low compared to the northeastern cities that most of our workers immigrate from that there wouldn't be a lot of justification for high pay rates.
The pay rates here are less than my "home" city of Philadelphia. But the cost of living is so much lower that I actually get a nice net raise out of the relocation. Still, if you are just after a big income, this is not the region to look in.
The nice thing about Montgomery is that two interstates intersect there, making it easier to get away. The tech jobs are mostly civilian jobs on the military base. The only culture to speak of is the Alabama Shakespeare Festival (which I will admit is surprisingly good). The nightlife is terrible. The current mayor is a hundred times better than the previous good ol' boy but it is still a bland boring place. You'll need the extra money you make to make frequent trips out of there.
Anywhere within 30-40 miles of Washington D.C. As long as you have lived a decently clean life and aren't showing signs of severe character flaws, the job security alone is worth it.
Apropros a previous poster who wanted to dis 'Bama & Idaho, how many correspond with the best public schools in America?
Flyover country seems to be mighty well represented on some of these lists...
Wasn't that article called "Best Places to Live -- If You're a Bible-Thumping Redneck" ?
take into account that there is not as much to do in those locations and hence to frivolously spend your $ on?
Confucius say: "Man who associates with smarter men than himself is smarter than the men he associates with."
The small company I work for is based in Florida. I live in Dallas. Other employees live in Atlanta, LA, and a few Florida cities. The modern IT company does not need to be based anywhere in particular.
You also need to take into the account your surroundings and environment... I'd rather pay $1500/mo for a 1 bedroom apartment in Boston, a very progressive and historic place to live, instead of Alabama or Arkansas, where civil liberties and evolution stalled out hundreds of years ago.
According to a reliable friend of mine, the starting salary for IT jobs in Iraq is around $100,000 a year. He says you don't really need much training, you just need to be good with computers and willing to take risks. Of course, working in Iraq is pretty certain to end up more unpleasant than working in Idaho or Arkansas.
Klingon programs don't timeshare, they battle for supremacy.
I'm really not sure that's a very trustworthy list. Santa Clarita is number 18 on the list. My sister and her husband live in Santa Clarita, and while they like it just fine, I can't say that I'd consider it a "Best Place to Live". Maybe "An OK Place to Live If You're Just Starting Out and Want to Buy a Home", but lets face it, it's still Los Angeles, just not the fun part. And it's freaking hot during the summer and extra cold during the winter. It's at a high enough elevation where they actually get snow during the winter. It's a considerable drive to any place other than the San Fernando Valley.
Maybe all those other places on the list are great or maybe it's just me, but Santa Clarita is far from ideal.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
I make over $150K/year telecommuting for a couple of companies who have their physical presences in more expensive areas. I'm just an intranet monkey (PHP+whatever db), so it's not like I'm a l33t Oracle DBA or something...
Lets see: cheaper housing + cheaper food/necessities + NOTHING ELSE TO SPEND MONEY ON = lower cost of living.
Sad as it is, the expensive places to live are often expensive for a reason - people want to live there.
sic transit gloria mundi
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Tuttle Oklahoma perhaps?
Is championship (or any?) hockey! Its the intangables that count, give me RTP.
I know where the jobs aren't... State College, PA...
E
Eric Aitala
www.f1m.com
The biggest factor for me is to consider the possibility that if your job goes south (project ends, company folds, you don't like your boss), then you are stuck in the middle of nowhere. If you are relocating, you need to understand that at some point you will need to move again.
If you are used to an environment where you can lose your job today and have a new one by the end of the week, then you will be shocked when you spend 6 months unemployed.
Now don't get me wrong, I grew up in Idaho, but you need to realize that it is a complete backwater. =)
I do what the voices on my console tell me to do.
I grew up in Fort Collins, CO, and I have no idea why it always makes the tops of these lists.
Some fun facts about Ft Collins:
-It is closer to Cheyenne Wyoming than Denver
-After the Matthew Shepard incident, CSU students paraded a burning effigy of him throught the streets
-It has one of the lowest ratios of blacks to whites in the entire nation
Apparently Ft Collins is not a wonderful place to live for just anyone...
So I went looking for which cities have the highest Ph.Ds per-capita, and found just about every City claiming this. Anyone got a link? (I'm in Pittsburgh, which claims the same thing.)
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
Considering I was just in Idaho Falls today, I recommend you stay away. Yea... I definately recommend you stay away from the general Idaho area (I live here and MAN am I glad I'm moving soon). Going to school up here was a DUMB idea. Choose a city that you will actually be able to be happy.
You've obviously never been to Arkansas ...
Yah. If I were still Catholic, I'd consider my 7 years purgatory already served.
And while I'm sure it's a great place to live on the weekends, driving in and out of there during the week is an absolute nightmare. You have 3 major highways, 80(yes, the one that goes to San Fran,) 287, and 10 all converging in town which is a major source of traffic. There are three other smaller highways(202, 46 and 53) that get jammed up as well. My friend that I work with lives 4 miles away and it can take him 40 minutes by car some days. He's more than willing to take his bike if it's not too hot or cold. I live 16 miles away and it takes me 20 minutes because I'm coming from the opposite direction of traffic.
Maybe they are saying it's nice because Intel has a large office on Rt. 10. Or they like the Jimmy Buff's that is in the next town over. Mmmm...Italian Hot Dogs.
No jobs dere, eh. Just those at Mead-Wesvaco-whatevernameitisnow, and Quinnesec. That's why I live in Indiana now and work in Louisville, KY. I may live down here, but I will always be a Yooper.
Say yah to da Yoopee, eh?
The article's selection of cities seems random at best. Huntsville by far has the largest tech industry base in the state, and is roughly the same cost of living as Montgomery. Growing up here, roughly 40-50% of the kids I knew had at least one parent in some form of engineering. The defense/aerospace industry is huge here, so there are plenty of SW Engineering opportunities.
This place sucks! The job market is bad and you're going to be pretty much stuck working for either the state government or the DoD if you can find someone that has the right connections to get you a job. If you don't have a secret clearance, your chances seriously go down. Tech here just ain't it. Most places in Texas have lower costs of living with larger populations and better job markets. That's why I plan to head there in 2008.
I've GOT to get out of this redneck filled, racist, little freaking town!
They are damn fine though.
The defective kid rate is 3%. The normal defective kid rate is 1.5%. Not good, but not hopeless either.
You can keep property in the family this way. You already know the in-laws. There are fewer screwy traditions to deal with, since you already share some grandparents. In general, bad surprises are unlikely.
I live in the Columbia/Ellicott City area, and I can tell you that it is not really a great place to live, so I do think the list is credible to me. The cost of living is extremely high - there are a ton of government workers and government contractors, so yes there a lot of tech jobs that pay more money than other areas of the country. I should know; I work in one. There are a lot of service based industries to serve all those people too - restaurants, strip malls, and every chain store you can imagine. But the extra salary does not begin to make up for the high cost of living - restaurants cost 10-20 more for a dinner for two, grocerries cost 20-50 me more than they did when I lived in PA. Taxes are a big pay killer - about 5% higher here than in PA for local taxes and let's not forget that my bigger salary is taxed high by the federal government too. Homes in Columbia/Ellicott City are out of reach for young professionals starting out in life. Oh and depite the rich service based industry I previously mentioned, restaurants are still packed, stores are always crowded, and the roads are clogged. The Federal government's Base Realignment and Closure will bring 20 some thousand new families to the area in the next few years, but Howard County (the county where Columbia/Ellicott City is) will not approve the necassary permits for new housing to accomdate the influx. It's a bit of a mess and it's not going to be get any better. The city may have ben hot 10 years ago, but is on the decline as far as quality of life goes. There are too many people chasing too few resources.
I'm afraid "cost of living" isn't a very good measure.
First off, there are a LOT of things which aren't going to be price-adjusted, no matter where you live. Computer ports will cost the same ammount, whether you're earning $200,000 a year in California, or $50,000 a year in Alabama. Some things like car dealerships may charge you a bit less, since their employee and rent costs are cheaper, but that'll only be a few percent overall.
And, cost of living doesn't really take into account the QUALITY of living. Where land costs more, you'll find that all the houses are better quality, since $20,000 in better designs, workmanship, and materials, is a minor detail in the $200,000 sticker price. In places where land is dirt cheap, and people don't make as much, they have to build the houses as cheaply as they can to be competitive. The point is, you can get a house cheaper than elsewhere (so cost-of-living is lower), but you'll have just that: a cheaper, junkier house.
Though, the truth of the matter is, I'd personally be happy to take a pay-cut to get the hell away from big cities.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
The numbers in the GP posting are population, not salary.
Makes me smile seeing all these comments about how people would never move to a backwards place like Alabama. I make a great salary, own a very nice home on several acres of land (that I can easily afford), and send my kids to one of the top schools in the country. http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7723397/site/newsweek/ We shop in the same stores, eat at the same resturants and watch the same movies that you find everywhere else in this country. So go ahead and look down on us poor backward southerners and keep telling yourself the quality of living is so much better in those over-taxed, crowded, crime ridden cities up north. I will continue to enjoy the peace and quite and breath fresh air as I laugh all the way to the bank.
I grew up there to, and I'll second the parents post. I cannot understand why anyone would choose to live there. It's certianly not the worst place to live, but it's pretty far from the best. Strip malls, rednecks, box stores, a million soulless housing developments, religious nuts, and pretty much no real culture. Seriously, how does that rate?
You don't need to use euphemisms on Slashdot.
I'll translate: an atheist, unamerican, queer type
You can laugh about Alabama. I did, until I came down for a job interview. Huntsville, AL is a great place. Because of the research park, there are people from all over the country. NASA and the Army's Redstone Arsenal have need for 30K to 50K high tech jobs.
Huntsville is a very high tech city, it has the 2nd largest research center in the US.
Brick houses (new) for under $100 a square foot. A brand new 4 bedroom, 3 bath 2500 square foot brick rambler on 1/3 of an acre in a new neighborhood for $240K. And it's not ramshackle construction.
Overall, AL has the lowest taxes in the US. Good schools, thanks to NASA and the rocket scientists at the Redstone Arsenal.
Insurance is a fraction of what I used to pay. Property taxes are less than 1/2 what I used to pay in a top 10 city for a house half that size. Electricity is cheap, thanks to the Tennessee Valley Authority. Gas is about the same as anywhere else, but there's no commute! No traffic! No crime! Do you know why there's no crime? Most of these people go to church! They have morals! It's not like NY City or Chicago, where you have to have Police on every street corner to keep the peace.
On top of all this, I'm making more than I was in the big city! It is 3 hours to Atlanta, 5 hours to the Gulf Coast. 90 minutes to Nashville, Birmingham, or Chattanooga. 3 hours to Memphis. It's 4 hours to the Smoky Mountains.
Winters are really mild, summers can get hot, but aren't as bad as Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, or Florida. It's not as humid as Florida or the other neighboring states. It's not as dry, or as hot, or as polluted as Southern California or Phoenix.
The only bad thing... no Pro sports of any type unless you like the Atlanta teams.
It's at a high enough elevation where they actually get snow during the winter.
:)
Hmm... I live in Edmonton Alberta, Canada: latitude: 53 degrees, elevation 2192 ft.
Santa Clarita: latitude: 34 degrees, elevation 1200 ft.
No offense, but you're a *huge* pussy.
Excellent, thanks for that list. I think I'm going to move to Sugar Land. If it's as good as they say it is, life will be sweet!
They throw out places with income below 90% of the state median. As long as I can do fine, low income is sort of good. Crime is counted elsewhere, so that is taken care of. Low income makes my own income do better when I want to buy services. The same goes for education, unless I'm single.
They assume you care about public schools. Even if you do have kids, you might not use the public schools.
A lot of stuff relates to state averages. A bad school in New Hampshire probably beats a good one in Mississippi, but they don't consider that.
Leisure and culture is quite silly. You can't just trade a golf course for a museum.
Weather is one to argue over. I like it 80 and overcast. They consider overcast to be a negative.
Unbelievably, they count the money spent on vacation. I think they count it positively. Vacation is trying to escape the place!
Huntsville is a northern city transplanted in the south.
:)
Read what the AC said in this post. I'd write everything he said but I'm lazy. I'm an engineer, I work on Redstone Arsenal here in Huntsville, AL. Housing is cheap. Taxes are cheap. Utilities are cheap. While I was in college (I went to UAH) I was paying $350 a month for a 1-bedroom apartment. My wife and I just purchased a brand new brick home for $80 a square foot. Other homes in town, new, brick are going for $51 by reputable builders. My utilities bill is averaging $150 a month, including getting the lawn started (lots of water) and kids. Summers are freaking hot, being from Wisconsin, but the air conditioning is good and the house is well-insulated. Get a DirecTV so you can watch "real" sports
Huntsville has more PhD's per square mile than anywhere in the world, except Silcon Valley. Second biggest research park in the US, fourth in the world. Tons of R&D goes on here, both NASA and all aspects of Defense, biotech, etc. Benefits for most companies that I've seen are exceptional and educations (masters, PhD's) are admired. Most companies will put you through school if you want them.
talking about substantial 6 figures, are for COBOL programmers, ColdFusion/JavaScript experts, and Y2K specialists. Better get training for one of those if you want to live well.
Oops... old data. Sorry.
I don't like being a grammer nazi but in modern American-Englsih the title should read: Where the Highest Paying Tech Jobs At
Just do it, take off, travel a bit, see what you like, look for a job there or create one (or two). I did it a few years ago, just got tired of major urban living. Girlfriend came home in tears and told me she couldn't get gas for her car because of all the winos and crackheads hanging around the station near our house, they were harassing her. I said fuck it, we're moving! A month later or so we had sold off most of our junk-and that is all furniture and whatnot is is junk, easily replaceable. We stuck the stuff we really wanted to keep in a storage unit, then took off camping. Within a few weeks we had found a nice rural area we liked, not terribly wilderness, no way serious urban, an in between kind of place. Two weeks after that had a full time job. I kept my (still small) net work going the whole time hitting public libraries for access. Now, we're happy. Got plenty of space, nice little cozy house, whole comfy rural scene. Walk out on the porch see hummingbirds hitting the flowers, it's *nice* Lack for nothing. Trust your instincts, "go with the flow", look until it feels "right", settle in. Camping is cheap, gas is still affordable, just take off! if you wait for it to be perfect you'll never do it. Ya, less money, but less expenses, quality of life so much higher. Now the two or three times a year I am forced to go to "the big city" I can see how absolutely termite mound dismal it was, how dirty loud and stinky major urban areas are, and kick myself for waiting so long to make the move. That crap about big cities being "better" is consumerist bullshit. About the only thing "better" about big cities is how much you have to work to feed the pigs money habit as they suck your wallet dry. A traffic jam to me now is someone stopped next to the mail carrier to talk about something for a minute, big deal.
Make the move before millions more get the urge, the real estate bubble pop is right around the corner and all those exploiters/grifters pushing that get rich quick crap will be branching out looking for new areas to trash out with their greed. That and the morons running the foreign policy, they could screw the pooch and really bork stuff out in the middle east, better to get rural where life is more sustainable for the long haul and you can actually develop "neighbors" and local ties. Big cities can go to pure hell in one day as soon as anything gets turned off, electricty, water, food deliveries, etc. We got a well, a garden, and a generator and a firewood lot, screw it, let that other stuff back in town rot. Let them enjoy their "ambience". See if "starbucks" will support them.
Anyway, if you needed a nudge, take this as an official big NUDGE;) Good luck!
shhh!! It's part of our secret plan to keep annoying city folk away. The Canadians know the U.P. is part of Michigan and leave us alone. The rest of the U.S. can't read a map and think we're part of Canada. In any event they don't realize we're here and leave us alone too. We like to keep our paradise (and the occasional pasty) to ourselves. Pretty neat, eh!
every place being equal. People will move (and change housing/resource prices) until the average person is indifferent to living in any two places between which substantial barriers do not exist for moving.
In the end, it all cancels out. Your best bet is to move to a place YOU like, taking advantage of your differences from the "average" person. Do you like eating at exotic restaurants and seeing theatre regularly? Lean towards the metropolis. Are you a meat-and-potato type who likes hiking? Go for the small town. Want to raise a family, but still be close to the big city? Move to the suburbs. This really isn't difficult.
This is article is amazing in how completely inaccurate a picture it gives of the Montgomery job situation. From someone who seriously considered moving to Montgomery from Atlanta (for family reasons) and actually looked for jobs in Montgomery, I can tell you the only thing you will find are mediocre defense contractor jobs. Of all the big cities in the southeast, Montgomery is perhaps the worst city if you are looking for tech jobs. If you absolutely must move to Alabama, then Huntsville or Birmingham would be a drastically better choice.
Someone please hit the author of this article with a clue by 4.
If you can't lets your kids play outside unsupervized because of crime, it's rather uncivilized.
(either that, or "civilization" isn't all it's cracked up to be)
The same goes for angry commuters, panhandlers, not knowing the people on your street by name or even recognizing them...
From Wiki regarding Orlando/Central Florida:
"Lockheed-Martin has a large manufacturing facility for missile systems, aeronautical crafts and related high tech research due to Orlando's proximity to the NASA Kennedy Space Center. Since the 1970's and 1980's the area is also home to many computer software and hardware firms, such as IBM. Other notable engineering firms have offices or labs in the Central Florida area: KDF, General Dynamics, Harris, Westinghouse, Siemens, Veritas/Seagate, multiple USAF facilities, Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division (NAWCTSD), Comair Aviation Academy, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, GE, Air Force Agency for Modeling and Simulation (AFAMS), Army Simulation Training and Instrumentation Command (STRICOM), AT&T, Boeing, CAE Systems Flight & Simulation Training, HP, Institute for Simulation and Training, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon Systems. The Naval Training Center until a few years ago was one of the two places where nuclear engineers were trained for the US Navy. Now the land has been converted into the Baldwin Park development.
Nearby Maitland is the home of Tiburon, a division of the video game company Electronic Arts. Originally Tiburon Entertainment, it was acquired by EA in 1998 after years of partnership, particularly in the famous Madden NFL series and NCAA Football series of video games.
The U.S. modeling, simulation, and training (MS&T) industry is centered around the Orlando region as well, with a particularly strong presence in the Central Florida Research Park adjacent to UCF."
Libertas in infinitum
I work and live in Lincoln, Nebraska. I agree with most of the comments here - don't move out to middle America.
We have no crime, no overcrowding, no traffic, no city nuisances, relatively little stuck up rich people. Can you walk downtown at night with a $100 bill displayed prominently from your pocket? Last year, we had 3 homicides for - a big jump for this town of 225,000. If I want a "big town" feel, Omaha is 50 minutes away.
I personally like being able to get a nice, quality home for around $100k.
Nebraska. Don't move here. We don't want you to.
As a government employee for the state, I can say that the demand for tech jobs isn't as good as some would like to believe. My understanding is that the civilian jobs on base are starting to dry up. Some state agencies IT jobs are more challenging than others, but there is a lot of red tape involved in getting a job, and there are a lot of people that have been in the system for years, thus making career growth a challenge. Pay ain't too great as a state employee. Everytime the administration changes, hirings and promotions are frozen, as well as any sort of pay raises...sometimes for more than two years. If it were not for wife's family, I'd seriously consider moving. Birmingham, Huntsville, Atlanta would be better choices. As to the parent post...what nightlife? Well, we do now have a minor league ball team, which nobody thought was a good idea, and it cost around 25 million to get them here. Attendance at the games has been better that I would've thought. However, not much else, especially considering we have several colleges/universities in town. I guess everyone goes home on the weekends. Also, most folks that I have talked with believe that things were better with the previous mayor. I don't really know myself, but I don't know of anyone happy with the current mayor.
"It's a dog eat dog world out there, and I'm wearing Milk-Bone underwear."- Norm (from Cheers)
You should not simply be adjusting the net salary by cost of living. If you did that then somewhere like India wins hands down, for sure. To get an idea of what the 'best paid' jobs are, you should subtract the cost of an equivalent lifestyle from the net salary, and then compare what's left because that's how much you'll be able to *save* for your kids college funds, mid-life-crisis porsche, or that carribean cruise. I can't imagine someone working in Mumbai for $5,000 per year is going to have much in the way of savings in 10 years time. Neither are they going to be able to afford vacations in Hawaii twice a year, no matter how good a lifestyle they're able to live on that salary.
j'ai découvert une démonstration vraiment admirable (de ce théorème général) que cette si
Article: "The average for programmers in all industries is $67,400. Not bad, especially when you think about it this way: That's six times as much as a similarly qualified programmer earns in India."
The pay better be good, because the stability isn't. It is just like regular investments: the more volitile ones have the best average returns.
Table-ized A.I.
Good Morning Vietnam!
;)
Well that's the time here as I post this. Anyway, it's very interesting living in Ho Chi Min (rated the #12th best major city in the world to live in and the best in Asia)*. I've got to say that, in a country that has a per capita GDP less than a tenth that of the United States a dollar goes a long way.
The key is how to make it. If you can make it by working for a major foreign corporation here (read: oil company) and get a Western salary, you will live like a king. Unfortunately local opportunities to make that kind of money are otherwise almost nil. Even if you can speak Vietnamese you will find that even a very high salary here (doing a job like coding) in not much relative to the U.S. Also you may find yourself thought of being overqualified; I do very high end media and some people here told me they were afraid to contact me after seeing my CV because they thought I'd charge a fortune.
While you can make a good living here teaching English I doubt that would appeal to the skilled professionals that make up Slashdot's readers. No, the best job is one in which you can work "at the end of a wire", that is live here but work for some U.S. company via the internet. The internet infrastructure is just sufficient to do that (which is one reason why I can't live in Cambodia). Internet telephony here is good (at least from my location). If your job is portable so you don't have to physically see your clients more than once or twice a year then this might "work" for you!
By the way, the cost of living here is not going to be one-tenth that of the U.S. unless you live like a native. Instead if you insist on all the perks of the U.S. it's probably about half the U.S. cost of living (more if you want a car!). On the other hand, wealth is relative; compared to the natives you WILL be very rich and will be treated as such. That has its own perks.
* this recent study (which, to my travelled eyes cannot possibly be true) was based on a bunch of factors including how much (or little) the average person "impacted the environment". Since Vietnamese people are still very poor they don't impact the environment very much which led to a inflated score. Still Ho Chi Minh City has its charms; zero violent crime (it's a police state), pace of life (you can actually meet people and develop friendships), scale of the city (more like one giant neighborhood than a forest of skyscrapers). But act soon, things are changing fast and in 5 years it'll be unrecognizable. In that case you'll:
Miss Saigon.
. . . you could just send the US to hell in a handbasket and look overseas. Australia, for instance. They might even trade the US a Koala for you if you're an IT guy (or girl).
Putting the 33k in G33k.
I checked the FAQ to determine how they compile this list. They chuck every town that has a population over 300,000 and under 50,000. They also eliminate all cities that have absurdly high housing costs. This list ought to be called the "top 100 cities that are too small to have any real culture, too large to feel intimate, and too uninteresting to naturally attract attention."
Cost of living comparisons like this always fail to take one crucial thing into account: retirement funds. The more you earn, the more goes tax-efficiently into your retirement fund. So given the choice between living in Metropolis and Smallville with approximately the same standard of living but with a higher absolute wage in Metropolis, I'll pick Metropolis every time while I'm still saving for retirement.
No doubt about it! =) Although I did brave five summers in San Francisco. =P
I've got several places picked out. All have very mild climates year 'round, even during the rainy season. Not too hot, not too cold. It's seriously a high priority for me.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
First, there's travel. If our friend in Manila wants to go skiing in Whistler, then he's going to have to save his spare cash for a long time. On the other hand, if the Canadian guy goes diving in the Philippines, he's going to be amazed at how far his money goes.
Then there are imported goods. If you have a taste for French wine, or Japanese electronics, or Italian furniture, the price may vary a bit due to shipping, exchange rates, import duties, etc., but there's a fixed minimum amount that you're going to have to pay, no matter how low the rest of your cost of living may be.
Finally, you have to ask whether you're really planning to stay in the same place forever. That may be the case for a lot of people; but if you dream about living in another country one day, then you also need to consider the cost of living there. It works both ways, obviously: plenty of North American retirees move to Mexico, Singaporeans go to Malaysia, and so on, partly in order to make their savings go farther. But if you're picturing a villa on the Côte d'Azur, you won't get there by working at a relatively well-paid job in a less expensive country.
Charlotte is a great area. You have to search a little bit for jobs because the VLB's (very large banks) are outsourcing to India but I got my current gig because of that fact. The customers don't like dealing with people who don't speak English as their primary language or people who's accents are mostly indecipherable so I get to help them migrate to a new version of an application they consider very important to their business. It's a well paying contract position, which is new to me having worked 8 years for my previous employer in DC and 10 years for my employer before that. It's kind of cool being able to be focused on one main task instead of wearing way too many hats on a daily basis because of the historical knowledge I had gained over the years. The job market looks really good here for the future. Big banking isn't going to suddenly go away from Charlotte and there is starting to be signicant bleed over from the Raleigh area in other IT centric businesses. Other Charlotte benefits are good schools, real estate where you can get twice the house for half the price of the DC metro area, people who are mostly civilized (unlike the uptight pricks in the larger metro areas to the north), and almost none of the crappy winter weather of the north but still get the change of seasons. The mountains are an hour to the west and the beach is a few hours to the east. There are plenty of larger city type recreational opportunities in Charlotte while a lot of the negatives of major metro areas are absent. Crime isn't too bad and despite locals' complaints the traffic isn't nearly as bad as the DC or areas further north. You also have all of the rural type recreational activities failrly close to civilization. Life is good here. Don't screw it up for me. ;)
I reserve the right to think for myself. Others' opinions are optional. Puppy on lap = typos...not illiteracy.
Sorry it doesn't always all cancel out. As economists like to say, there may be "significant barriers to entry". For an extreme example the millions of very poor but bright Indians who can't come to America even though they'd be happy with a fraction of the going rate. Why? Because of immigration laws. Another example would be a required certification of a degree you job requires.
;). Or use the barriers to entry to your advantage; go somewhere it is easy for you but hard for others (I don't mean that just in terms of location, think about your skills).
Likewise another factor is the fact that infomation isn't perfect. In order to have an efficient marketplace every participant has to have "perfect" information of what the supply and demand is. I think some economist(s) won a Nobel Prize for their idea that information isn't always perfect (and were able to incorporate it into their models).
So beat the system. Don't just go with the flow, make your information more perfect than the next guy and take advantage of something overlooked. Can you say insider information (in a good way
No one *wants* to, so there's no competition.
Like we go out a lot? (Well, maybe there are less pizza and taco joints. That could suck.)
Table-ized A.I.
Job A:
$50,000/year, $10,000 annual rent.
Job B:
$100,000/year, $40,000 annual rent.
Relative to the cost of rent, Job A is phenominal: You're making five times the cost of rent. Job B sucks: you're only earning 2.5 times rent. By this measure, job A is far and away the better option - by a factor of 2.
The thing is, once you've paid the varying rent, where do you spend the rest of your money? The decent spec new PC will be $2,000 in Rancho Santa Fe, Manhattan or BFI. The new $25,000 car will be $25,000 wherever you buy it. The big TV is the same price wherever. And, most important of all, the internet porn subscriptions run the same wherever you are too.
At that point, would you rather the job that's 5 times "cost of living" but only leaves you with $40,000 or the one that gives a sucky 2.5x but leaves you with $60,000 extra.
Next, on the simple level, let's look at that cost of living. Assuming you get on, buy and pay a mortgage off, in 20 years time the place with the poor salary relative to cost of living will leave you with a $500,000-$1,000,000 home vs. the $200,000-$250,000 place in the "better" area. Now, aged 40, you can up and move to the cheap place, selling your home, buying one of the nicest places in the cheap area and having a nice large nest egg lfet over to let you get to retire early. My in-laws have just done exactly that and apparently a lot of people in Texas are getting seriously pissed at all the Californians coming in, buying huge homes after selling up smaller places in CA and pushing up the Texan cost of living for people who're still paid no more.
And, finally, there's a reason rent and property are so expensive in some areas. Go to California and look out of the window. Rumor has it that other parts of the world have a condition called Seasonal Affective Disorder. Land is expensive in California because you never shovel snow, you rarely deal with crazy humidity, you rarely have the insane heat of Arizona, you rarely get mosquitos the size of Volkswagens and you can sit on the beach on New Year's Day. In short, supply and demand means that when there's a crazy price, there's generally a great reason for it.
So, yes, some areas have high costs of living and lower salaries in relation to that cost. But I.T. is famous for the fact that we out earn most other professions and, once you get past earning about three times cost of average rent, everything else is gravy. Sure, you reach that point faster elsewhere - but once you do reach it (and you do in I.T.), you keep going even further when the numbers are bigger.
I've watched a lot of friends leave California because they're in other fields and it's just too expensive to live here if you don't earn well. But once you get to the kind of salaries I.T. tends to pay, the cost of rent becomes a relatively minimal part of the total cost of living a great life.
The problem with the smaller places is that they tend to be one horse towns. They usually have one big employer (like Micron in Boise) and a few much smaller companies that rarely hire and that is it. If you moved there to work for the big company and got sick of it or they had a layoff you'd basically have to sell the house and move. Your choices are just too limited in those places. Also the cost of living might be lower but so would your pay. Ok you say? But the cost of cars, plane tickets, computer toys, etc doesn't go down for you. You generally pay the same as the guy in NYC. They aren't going to sell you that cool new car at half price just because you live in East Belch MO.
Now if I could get a job in, say, Grand Junction CO so I could hike in some incredible terrain every weekend I might be willing to make an exception.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Wait a moment, what am I saying?
The more people realize this, the more they'll be encouraged to move here, the more demand for the same supply of housing and the more I have to pay.
Iowa is the shiznit. It's the coolest place ever. I'm in California and it's awful here. We have to walk up hill both ways and the hills are steeper here (the land's scrunched up by our daily earthquakes). And hot? Like you wouldn't believe. Don't believe that stuff about coastal areas being cooler - it's hell here. No one should ever move here because, high salaries or not, life's too expensive. Iowa's the place. Des Moines is just super awesome. Off you go!
I had been wanting to relocate from the midwest to Texas for some time; I had visited on a couple trips and put out resumes/talked to people there. Mainly in non-tech jobs, but also in tech jobs that I could apply to with only an associates' degree. In 2003 I got some positive conversations but no job that was outstanding enough to get me to move called me back.
When I went again in late-2005, the tone I got was entirely diferent. Companies were treating applications with all the reverence you normally reserve for used tissues. One HR guy said outright that I had come at just about the worst time, because this was the first time he ever remembered that they had enough good applicants that they didn't have a position currently open. The hurricane season of 2004 and 2005 pushed many people off the Gulf and east coasts. A lot of those people still wanted to live somewhere warm and fairly-near the ocean, so they went (or got sent to hotels, on FEMA's nickel) to Houston and DFW.
Now it is true that many of those that ended up there were poor uneducated people that a degreed tech worker wouldn't be competing with jobs for anyway--but all of them weren't. And they took up a lot of the cheaper housing, they took a lot of the lower-end service sector jobs and the crime rates hiccupped as well. Many of these "transplants" aren't going anywhere--they were lower-income and renting housing in areas that got flattened by a hurricane. Even if the rental properties (and jobs) they left were rebuilt last week, these people couldn't afford the trip to move back.
Not to say that Texas is ruined--but the last couple years weather has changed some matters a bit.
~
No kidding. I went to school at University Park. Trying to find anything techie over $7/hour was a real challenge. I'd imagine that's due to the fact that employers have their pick of the PHD students at rock bottom prices while they're just trying to survive grad school. It's also a small business type of place. There are some major companies around, but not many.
Beautiful, safe town, though. If I didn't have to earn a living, I'd consider moving there again. I liked it a lot when I was in school, and $7/hour was pretty fine for pocket money.
Squeal like a bad cooling fan, boy!
If you want to know where high paying jobs are go to Alberta, Canada it's insane!
McDonald's workers are getting $15/hour, signing bonuses and $100 extra pay if you show up for all your shifts that week.
Housing is a bit of a problem, there's a booming business finding old homes, ripping them off their foundation and dragging them to Calgary.
Calgary is sprawling outward at an incredible rate, it's bigger in area than NY city.
It's all from oil, tar sands that is, Canada exports oil since we make more than we use. The US gets about 10% of its oil from Canada and that will probably increase due to the US public's of growing concern about "foreign oil".
People are going there by the thousands every day, it's crazy!
One problem with cost of living arguments is that many items nowadays are priced nationally, not locally. If I want a brand new MacBook Pro, for example, its going to cost the same whether I live in New York City or Frostbite Falls, Minnesota. Same for HDTV sets, and many other things that we geeks like to buy at a much higher rate than the "typical" family whose needs are used to figure cost of living.
I'm betting (literally) that the housing market out there is headed for a major crash.
I witnessed the madness out there first hand. I shopped around for houses and found that there's just not much available below half a million dollars. I asked the real estate people how people can afford anything, and they told me "Most people take an adjustable, interest-only loan." All that means is that they're gambling that the price of their home will go up and then they can sell it before their mortgage readjusts to some horrendous amount.
And to get an idea of just how bad the situation is, there's this (from the NYT): http://www.dailynews.com/portlet/article/html/fra
In other words, the number of people whose mortgages will readjust will roughly triple in 2007, resulting in over a trillion dollars in mortgages that people are desperate to get out of. I don't see how home prices can continue to go up when suddenly everyone needs to sell their homes (that they never had any intention of paying for in the first place) all at the same time. And when home prices do stop going up, now all those people (who haven't paid one cent towards the principal) are faced with selling their homes for less than they paid. Bad times. Oh well... Maybe I'll be able to buy a foreclosed home at a more reasonable price.
Boise has already gone through a great deal of it's growing pains. In many ways, it has learned that people will come whether you build it or not. In the 90's, Boise stated to change directions in its look to the future. Although it maybe difficult to see, they're preparing the infrastructure for tomorrow. The rest of Idaho might need to learn that lesson, but there's only so many people who are going to want to move to a place that only has agricultural jobs. Y por eso, hay mas mexicanos que otras en el sur. In the northern portion of the state, they'll just shoot your smart ass.
Recently, I moved from Boise to Idaho Falls, and I'm not sure if it is worth it. There isn't a damned thing to do, and none of the restaurants have food or service above McD's quality.
I've been somewhat involved in interviewing software engineers (from fresh grads to a couple of years experience), and have observed our local talent has been somewhat lacking. I've been part of the 2nd (and final) interview process, which typically lasts an entire day for the candidate. I think about 1/3 make it pass this gauntlet to a job offer. I spoke to a co-worker who's involved in the 1st screening stage, and he said less than 1/3 make it pass him - for the most part, he would ask textbook questions about Java programming, and basic OO concepts like inheritance. In the past year or so, we've had a lot of attrition in our team just by chance, and we're now having a heck of a time recruiting someone capable.
I'm getting just shy of 100k as a relatively senior software engineer (6 yrs experience). Living costs do vary since some areas are ridiculously expensive, especially if they're close to Washington D.C. otherwise if you move westward they become quite affordable. Move far enough (e.g. West Virginia), and you can buy your own farm. Lots of interesting stuff in D.C. so you're unlikely to get bored. My only real gripe is that people here are pretty conservative, and don't seem very nice. They are also especially inconsiderate drivers, e.g. about 1/3 would bother to stop at a pedestrian crossing (once I even saw one almost side swipe an already crossing pedestrian). This is of course just a gross generalization, since I did meet my wife here. Big international community in the region, and lots of diversity 15 miles in any direction.
Been there, worked there. Get paid over 2x as much in NYC now... And Parsippany isn't really cheaper than the outer boroughs of NYC, so no price advantage there. Not to mention, it's boring as all-get-out and the traffic is appalling since all of the big companies have located on Rt. 10. At least in NYC, you can take the subway and it gets you there quickly 99% of the time.
-b.
I know you meant "Des Moines is just super awesome" as a jab, but it really is a great place to live. Granted, it has terrible weather just like the rest of Iowa, but if you can get past that, it's wonderful. And, I'll have you know, that as of 2004 Des Moines officially employs more people in the insurance industry than any other US city -- Hartford, CT is now the Des Moines of the east. Mind you, that only employs tens of thousands of information technology people, but no worries. Wells Fargo is moving 30,000 jobs here over the next few years. Terrible life for a programmer, I know. Sadly, each year, my salary just keeps going up and up as competition for talented IT people increases.
Really, though, it's a great size (about 400,000 people), has fantastic restaurants for a city its size, great shopping and attracts great entertainment (the Iowa State Fair excepted) Oh, and did I mention that you can get wherever you want to go in a matter of minutes? That's right; the city is spread out enough that traffic is rarely a problem. Well, OK, traffic won't be a problem as soon as they finish the vastly new and improved Intersate 235 through town.
And, if you're smart like me, you live in one of the bigger nearby suburbs (ahem... Ankeny) where the housing is cheap, plentiful, and largely new construction. If that's not your thing, you could live in one of the dozens of new lofts they've built in downtown Des Moines.
It annoys me when people who live on the coasts, and have never lived anywhere else, can't imagine that life in the square states could be anything but hellish. I've got firends and family who live in California, and you couldn't pay me enough to live there. Mind you, there's nowhere else in Iowa where I'd want to live, but Des Moines is, in my estimation, the shiznit. Living in sunny California is not without its problems too. What's that you're paying for gas there? And it takes you how long to get to work? My house has an attached garage, a big yard and is twice the size of your place and you pay three times as much?
Both of the jobs I've had while living in Des Moines have paid quite well relative to the cost of living. I've actually turned down job offers elsewhere -- you know, in the "good" part of the country -- because I simply couldn't live as well there.
But wait! What am I saying? People are going to want to live here and increase the demand for the same supply of housing and then I'll have to pay more! California is the shiznit. Coolest place ever. I'm in Iowa and it's terrible. We have to walk uphill both ways -- in the snow, mind you -- we have blizzards every day. Even in the summer! California's the place. Los Angeles is just super awesome. Off you go!
If it's not one thing it's your mother.
On the other hand, if you're not actually able to be happy in Rexburg all I can say is your experience there is the opposite of mine...
Where are the highest paying jobs? Let me guess... In the areas with highest cost of living. What's the "news that matters" here, again?
I relocated to Westminster,CO (24th) from Atlanta and love it. Westminster is almost halfway between Boulder and Denver. Many tech companies are nearby: Sun, Avaya, Ball Aerospace, & Level 3 to name a few. The weather is great. Commercial expansion is at it's highest. Nice view and close proximity to the mountains.
Not that I hate people in general, just all the fricking people moving to Idaho. Our valley has some of the highest growth rates in the nation because of all those dam californians moving in a driving up real estate prices. Property values rose 60% in my neighborhood (15yr old neighborhood) just because of all the demand from CA investors.
DAMMIT. GO AWAY.
And leave those jobs to all the HP people trying to leave that sinking ship.
jason
It's been my experience that salaries in competitve fields are set by cost of living, sure. But that means that after covering living expenses, at the end of the day, one has the same percentage of income "left over" for savings and investment whether he lives in say San Francisco or Alabama. Let's just say 20% as an example. Which would you rather have working for your future (or spending on fun now): 20 percent of the high San Francisco salary or 20 percent of the low Alabama salary?
Cost of living comparisons assume you spend all your money where you are.
Truth is *you don't*
Example:
Assume you work in San jose for $140k. You probably also get $30 in bonuses, and $30k in stock etc if you pick a decent company.
Maybe you have $150k after taxes or $12,500/month.
Now pay for house and food, and you have $6k left to save.
If you find another place where everyting is half of San jose, you may live just as well, and still save almost 50%. You are however only saving $3k
(And you will not find such a place. Your car, your TV, your PC and all other stuff cost just the same)
When retirement comes, you will feel the difference. Twice the money will be the difference between retiring in style or just staying put.
You probably can retire early from your job in San Jose as well.
"Fix it"
I"m sorry this can be regarded as Troll - but since it shot soda out my nose into the screen - I'll take humor mods too. If only because my sinuses still sting from the Dr. Pepper. Ick.
How was that 2 to 3 feet of snow you had the year before last? Was that part of the "great"?
Speak of great - that doesn't scream "Sun Microsystems". Perhaps you meant Storage Tech - dang - Quark? Shoot they jobbed out all their devs to their India offices um - Sun?...
Get the best of both worlds - telecommute from a cheap area to a job in an expensive area. Works for me, and means I might actually be able to afford to buy a house before I retire.
You know, Forbes put out an article about a year ago saying Seattle was the most overpriced city in the USA. As I had just started working when this article came out, I was mildly concerned about that statement.
Turns out Forbes is a rag. Seattle is cheaper than any other city I have ever lived in. Rent is cheaper. Wages are about the same. Gas is just as bad here as anywhere. Fruit is decent quality and only slightly worse than california prices. There's no state income tax.
Considering the rather 'innovative' reporting they've done on the SCO v. IBM matter as well, I really do wonder if there's a substantial difference in quality between New Scientist and Forbes.
I'm not saying THIS article is crap, but quality of life and cost of living can be very different matters and are not easy things to sum up. I'd advise that nobody use an article like this to make a life-altering decision.
>all those dam californians moving in a driving up real estate prices.
I can only imagine that there are Idahoans, born and raised there, playing their part in this phenomenon by selling their houses to Californians. And developers, with the full consent of the state and local government (presumably comprised of, and elected by, many natural born Idahoans) making it all possible too.
Do you not think that Idahoans share the responsiblity with Californians?
If high real estate prices are a problem, does that indicate that you neglected to buy a house when prices were low -- a house that I imagine you, a good honest Idahoan, would refuse to sell to a Californian at 300% appreciation?
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Let's see -- college town in the middle of nowhere -- with college girls who are very, very bored --
I'm not sure that would be such a bad idea.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Sure... if you can stomach living in Bumblefuck, USA.
... or China ?
The quality of life than many Americans does not require public transportation. In fact I would be a good number actually see public transportation as a sign of where NOT to live.
Some of course will take that and run off spouting racism,bigotry, or whatnot. The simple fact is that at the end of the day many aspire to nothing more than being away from it all. Stand alone housing and visual separation from the "business world - read: minimarts/gas stations/grocery stores" is key to the happiness of many. Sure we want them to still be convienent and a short hop in the car isn't an impediment.
I'm even moving further out simply because where I bought has changed so much in 9 years that its no longer the area I desired to live in. Lots of good people are here but the little businesses have creeped down the road to where its no longer "open".
As for your "pay and arm and a leg to massively pollute". Yeah, whatever. Three dollar, heck even 5 dollar a gallon gas isn't going to change my behaviour and I doubt that it will change that of others who live where I do. Cars are far better today than ever and that simpleton slight of yours is just silly. If I want massive pollution I will go to the big city with its public transportation because even there in the land of so called "enlightened" thinking a great many of them seem to not use that very public transportation they deem "good for others". I can go see the trash piled in alleys and cigarette butts lining the sidewalk. Oh yeah, massively pollute. Cities have no ground to stand on.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I was speaking within the US. Obviously, our the substantial barriers we set up to immigration are what help us maintain our wealth differential.
Problems such as imperfect information and barriers to movement are now largely irrelevant in this market. Information and people move quite easily within the US labor market, and it generally gets better over time.
Do what YOU like. Take advantage of YOUR specialties. No one place is better than the other. Each place has advantages and disadvantages, and housing prices will cancel out any native net difference. Yes, San Fran has much nicer weather and more cultural opportunities than my mid-size town. It also requires 50% higher salary to put a roof over your head.
Adjusting for the cost of living isn't that easy. Since a large portion of the money you're earning is being put into retirement savings, that money needs to be compared to the cost of living where you plan to retire and not where you earn it. (A large portion of your money is being put into retirement savings, right?)
Devon
I'm sick of surveys like this that purport to rationalize why we should all be happy to move to west bumfuck for $9/hr. We DON'T WANT to LIVE there. Instead of sending all the jobs to Bangalore why don't tech firms pay people a good enough wage so that they can live somewhere urban or at least at the median cost of living in the US?
What next? A column from Forbes telling us how great it is for IT workers to live in Mexico?
Living in the York-Hanover, PA area, I can tell you that the statistics are lying. The author should have dug at least slightly deeper here. If you look at the site used for the article, the "Computer Application Software Engineer" sub-category is way out of line with every other sibling under the "Computer and Math Occupations" major category http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_49620.htm#b15-0 000/.
Also there are spreadsheets available that include additional data... And sure enough, when you find the data that is used in the article (listing York-Hanover Computer Application Software Engineers), there are 4 columns where data is missing.
I could get on my soapbox to rant about journalism (or lack there of) today, but I will spare you all.
Just work for your local city,schools, or town governments. I am making $50,000 a year right out of college, As long as I keep taking the test my salary will continue to increase. It also helps that I have the best health insurance in NY state, have a pension, full dental and eye insurance. High paying jobs are out there but people dont look very well.
If you lived outside Silicon Valley and were an engineer, you are probably in very bad shape now unless you were able to find one of those rare "cradle to grave" jobs that were so typical of the GI generation.
But now, the bubble may be bursting finally.
Seastead this.
Holy Crap. I lived in Cary, NC for a year. I couldn't get out quick enough. Sure, good salary, and good housing. No nightlife, no good food, you had to drive 10-20 miles to get anywhere. I'm originally from NY, and that's not my idea of a 'city'. Boston suits me much better, and while 'biotech' is big in RTP, the largest research centers are in Boston/San Fan. RTP seems to have as much manufacturing as research - which makes it sound like a 'center', but there are not nearly as many PhD's in the area as you'd think.
I'd have to wonder if any of the other areas are any better.
Plus, I'd hate to have to mail order all my food. I love to eat, and large cities tend to have resturaunts and grocery stores for immigrant populations. I love to go to the local brazillian, or japapese, or korean, or pakistani grocery store to buy all those ingredients you can't get at a chain store.
I think a lot of smaller cities offer good ratio of salary to housing, but what if you need more?
South Carolina blows. It is too hot in the summer, too cold in the winter. We have ice storms, mosquitos, a wee bit of snow, rednecks, and nothing for miles. Looking at my region of the state (NW) from the sky shows we live in a big forest. The roads are tiny and dangerous, the schools are 2nd to last in the nation (suck it 50th!), and we ceded from the USA first during the civil war.
And I'm not saying that because I like it...........y'all.
Ignoring the ethical issue of working for the defense industry, wait until the next election and there is a backlash against defense spending and the war in Iraq. You will be in the middle of hicksville trying to sell your house along with every other engineer that got canned. Skepticism is a gift. Losing my job was the best thing that ever happened to me because it forced me to factor that into my plans going forward.
I can tell you quite easily that the answer to this question in Not Atlantic City, NJ.
Telecommuting sounds a great plan until you analyse it.
One: Which region sets the competitive salary for telecommuters? Obviously, the cheapest. Welcome to Bangladesh salary levels. Oh, you wanted to live in the USA? How unreasonable of you!
Two: Even if you are willing to take a Bangladesh salary, there are about a zillion people competing with you for the 2 telecommuting jobs currently open. Most people in jobs that don't require personal contact would like to telecommute. Why wouldn't they? It beats commuting on rush-hour roads ...
There is only one way I know of to get a telecommuting job, and that is, to get an ordinary non-telecommuting job, then after a few years, persuade your boss to let you work from home. It works until your boss wakes up to the fact that he/she is overpaying you.
You may be wondering why, in view of the cost advantages, most firms do not let their knowledge workers telecommute. You have to remember that managers do not make decisions for the good of the stockholders; they make decisions that benefit themselves. It strokes a manager's ego to be surrounded by peons at his beck and call. Having them sit at home where he cannot see them is just not the same.
Not quite like that, but how about a rocket bicycle. (Not that you can do much commuting on a bicycle in the area - it's just as car-ridden as the rest of the country.)
Oh, and there's Jesus as an Eggbeater and God's Rocket (the latter offering an eggbeater pic, too).
I hate call waitin`~+~~~
NO CARRIER
Since you misinterpreted the data, I don't think +5 Insightful is fair. However, it would have been nice if the person who posted the data had used column headings. OTOH, he did provide a link.
Your point is basically valid though, the D/FW metroplex is one ginormous city. No one knows where the boundaries are between all the dozens of named towns and cities. I used to live in Plano, worked in Dallas, then Richardson, then Addison. Drank in Farmer's Branch, and had friends in Carrollton. It was all the same. Horrendous traffic. And sheesh, Plano had ~50,000 pop. when I lived there in the 1980s.
Most people don't even think inside the box.
Please get the fuck out of my state. You probably keep running into all the yankees that have migrated here and thats where the bad driving comes into affect. Orlando traffic is horrible because of all the tourists, and NJ/NY and Chicago are always a cluster.
www.qsopht.com ~q
Many of the cities they mention in california aren't all that. Stanislaw for instance is a artificial town with very little going on in it- a mediocre schooling system. they've mentioned high pay scales for places like San Jose and San Francisco in other articles. Let me tell you their's a reason why it's not unheard of to pay 900 and up per a square foot in San Francisco. It's a awsome place to live. but it is expensive. Their local rags (Tribune The Gate and others) frequently report on how a person (other than one living in the financial district) may get have a pay rate of 10.50+ a hour. but that it's also "common" for people to need to pay 40+ for Public Transit (forget parking-it's 1.50+ per two hours or 5+ for valley). Cost of groceries (100-130 for a single white male and mabie a little more others).and fuel cost in California is a bit higher than US average as well.
There is plenty of computer research ( LG, Intergraph, 3D Labs), biotech ( CAS, Dynetics, Camber), and manufacturing jobs not relatted to gov't funded defense.
There are people of all beliefs, colors and creeds. Yes a lot of southern baptists. I'm not one of them. Who cares what your neighbors believe?
So I have gas money to spend. Thanks.
I think a lot of people have been missing something here. If you work in I/T in Silicon Valley, your wages may be lower, but you also have a low switching cost. On the other hand, if you work in Montanta in I/T your wages may be higher, but there is also a higher switching cost. Example: If you get layed off in Montana, it will take longer to find another job in the I/T field, and if you get laid off in the Silicon Valley, it won't take you as long. This is basic economies of agglomeration. So while it may seem wages are higher/lower in one area or another, what is really happening is that firms in Montana have to pay more because of the high switching cost associated with finding a new job in the field. More than likely the person will end up having to move and/or spend some time unemployed.
The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success. -Elliot Carver
At the risk of being off-topic I have to point this out because it kills me. What you just said is "That and the fact that there are more jobs And For All I Know".
Leave the "A" off!! I also hate it when people say..."Yes, I read RTFA". Just sounds silly when you're reading it in your head. Sorry, end rant.
I notice that they didn't even take Oregon into account, even though the Portland-metro is on par with the Silicon Valley numbers they referenced.
http://www.google.com/profiles/malachid
Except that "AFAIK" traditionally expands to "As Far As I Know". In fact, there's no expansion to "And For All I Know" in the first page of Google results for "AFAIK". So AFAIK, you're the only person that expands it to that.
HTH, HAND.
- fader
Often it seems like people overlook an important aspect of Cost of Living: Durable Goods are still the same price!
To illustrate, I hail from Northern Ohio. The CoL in Chicago is twice what it is where I grew up, and the salarys are nearly twice as high, but a new Honda doesn't cost twice as much in Chicago. Either does an xBox or Airline ticket or clothing at the local JCrew. Similarly, the higher the CoL the cheaper it becomes to take vacations.
Even though $47,000 a year in Arkansas might be better then $120,000 in San Jose but I'd still take the $120k.
If you make a lot of local money, and it's not a lot nationally, you will live well where you are but find your savings are not enough to allow you to MOVE. So low pay/high value locations are a trap -- not necessarily a bad one, but they make you vulnerable.
It can be better (financially) to work in New York, make scads of money, pay 90% of it on rent, and stockpile savings. This allows you to things: savings for mobility and the ability to buy mail-order.
'Cause remember: if you live in the cheapest place in the world, Larry's Online Computer World is going to charge you the same thing for that monitor as he charges some poor person making five times what you do in New York City.
I do pretty well here... housing outside of the main city is extremely affordable. For a 20+ year old with a wife and two kids and low personal debt - can't be beat.
"To work for libertarianism -- to oppose the growth of government and aid the liberation of the individual -- used to be
I live in Phoenix, guess I need to agree with the GP and say *pussy* =P
Although I agree with you, climate is also on my list of priorities, gotta get out of hell, unfortunately I haven't found a good place to move to that has both affordability and a nice climate.
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
I do have a question about the Dallas, TX area. One of my friends grew up in Dallas and had nothing but praise for the area. (He lives in St. Louis, Missouri now - and I think inserts a comparison to Dallas at least every other time I talk to him.)
I really never got a chance to spend any time down there until I was sent to some training in Carrolton, TX one week. (This was around 1999-2000.) I tried to drive around and get as much of a "feel" for what it was like to live there as possible, as opposed to just holing up in the motel.
My impression was, the whole area was really void of "culture". Sure, they had a big Hispanic district - but that seemed to be treated as sort of the "ghetto" part of town. Mostly, it was an expanse of highways with chunks of unused, open space between exit ramps - and packed with commercial buildings and retail chain type establishments off the exits. I saw a lot of upscale suburban subdivisions, but they looked pretty "cookie-cutter" to me. Lots of neat little lawns, all in a row, and so forth. If you wanted to do a lot of shopping, it seemed like an *awesome* place to be. There were huge shopping malls and outlets everywhere, willing to sell you anything you could think of. (I fond an amazing video rental store that looked like the size of a WalMart but was just filled with rows and rows of videos and music CDs. Everything was labeled with 2 prices - a rental price and a sale price if you wanted to buy it.) But on the other hand, I went on a quest to find a little hole-in-the-wall coffee shop and all I found was some lame place in a strip mall that looked like they just took over a 7-11.
Was I just missing something, or does that pretty much sum up the area? I don't think I'd care to live in a place quite that "commercialized".
*nods* I can certainly understand that. Myself, I think I'd find the same weather all year 'round incredibly boring... I'm so used to the cycle of the seasons that to live without them would be... strange. But, some people just aren't confortable with those temperature extremes, not to mention those with health problems (eg, respiratory illnesses... asthma sucks during the winter).
;)
On the flip side, I had my first chance to visit Hawaii last December, and I gotta say... that place is a frickin' paradise. I think I could live there for a few years and not miss the seasons too much...
Lots of tech jobs in metro Phoenix - Tempe, Chandler holding Intel, On Semi, Microchip, and Freescale. Gilbert, Scottsdale are in the top 10 list. Yes, it's too hot in the summer, but weather is great for 7 months and the dust is more of a problem to me ( a LOT of building). Move north or east of of Phoenix valley and temperatures drop 20F. If you like the outdoors (mountain biking, motor boating, hiking, golfing) you will be surprised - and get used to doing the above starting 6AM at the weekends in summer to catch the cool.
Can't get enough software or hardware engineers here - I work for one of the above!
When you take the cost of living and consider the net pay adjusted for that cost, places like Montgomery, Ala., Idaho Falls, Idaho, and Fort Smith, Ark.
How about China? Cost of living is extremely low here in Beijing, but it's fun as hell, unlike some of these outback joints. Furthermore, I'm making an American salary by doing contracts remotely. My work has nothing to do with China, but I know plenty of Americans who came here to study chinese, but then got a job at Microsoft or some other local American tech company at either a Chinese or American salary, depending on the position.
LS
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
Too many people neglect to check salary offers against income taxes - you'd be shocked how much of a bite they take out.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
A nerd would have realized that while the bus does have less stringent emissions controls, the fact that it transports MANY people as opposed to ONE person, works out to less pollution per mile traveled per person.
There are many ways to get to an airport or trainstation which do not require a private car or a publically supported transportation infrastructure. I'll leave it up to you to figure out what those ways are.
Blar.
The weather is absolutely horrible: miserably hot in the summer and biting cold in the winter. With icestorms. OTOH fall in Texas is splendid, much better than most places I've been.
As you noted, Texans are big fans of big box stores and zoned areas. With cheap gas maybe it all made sense and was worth it, but I just don't see it anymore.
I'd love to return, as I miss my college friends. But I don't think I could forsake Denver for Dallas.
You lived in a shitty part of town if you had problems with crackheads and winos. What kind of job did you have, WalMart cashier?! I don't think your experiences are representative of 'major urban living'.
As for life being more sustainable in rural areas...sure...if you can grow enough food to survive the winter. And can you afford to fuel that generator for weeks on end if Doomsday happens like you predict? How long a drive to the gas station, the grocery store?
I'm glad you enjoy where you are now, but if the arguments presented in your post are even close to what your thought process was when leaving the city...you are retarded.
Blar.
Cary NC, is a lower quality clone of Reston, VA.
It's important to consider CoL when comparing salaries in different areas. However, there is at least one benefit of living/working in a high CoL area, specifically when it's due to real estate pricing: If you buy a house while working in a high-priced area, you're in much better shape when you eventually move somewhere else.
If you're moving someplace "cheaper", you can buy an equivalent house and have a big chunk of money left over (or you can upgrade to a mansion). If it's another expensive area, at least you've already got equity for a straight swap to a new home. Meanwhile, people moving from low-cost areas don't have nearly enough to buy the same house in the more expensive area right away; the full (paid-off) value of their old home may barely cover the down payment on an equivalent new one.
So if you can get a similar CoL-adjusted salary in two locations, the more expensive location is actually a better deal --if you plan to buy a house, and if you think you might eventually move again (and who doesn't these days?).
The zoo is rated #1 in the country by Zagat (and it is FREE), symphony in the top 5, art museum in the top 5 (FREE as well)...Forest Park is bigger than Central Park in New York...if you are a baseball fan, there is simply no better place to be. Football hasn't been too bad here either in the last few years. Great place to raise a family. And drive 45 minutes in any direction and you are in the woods.
When I was younger (I'm in my early 30s) I did complain that there wasn't anything to do, and compared to New York or LA, I was right. But I have kids now, and I have more things to do with them for very little cost than I know what to do with. May not be great for 20 somethings looking for excitement, but sure suits me.
Contrary to what you see on South Park, the Denver metro area is not snowy mess year round. Anybody who lives here can vouch that it may snow 2 feet, but disappear in 2 days. It's so arid that the snow literally evaporates, unlike many cities where it just stays on the ground all season. Thanks to Orographic lift and Chinook winds the winters are rather mild. The east side of the state normally gets hit hard. I can handle a few days of snow vs a 6 months of sweaty humidity where I used to live. 100 degrees F here is a walk in the park.
As for work, Westminster is ~20 minutes to either Denver or Boulder with plenty of employers. It costs less to live in a suburb like Westminster compared to directly in either of those two cities. If not, Ft. Collins (#1 on the list) is an hour away.
I lived in Ozark (~45 min east) from 79-85 and that is bigtime middle of nowhere. Ft. Smith is roughly midpoint between Tulsa (OK) and Little Rock, neither particularly cosmopolitan and ~3 hours in either direction.
mind you, the Ozark mountains are amazing and if you're into outdoor stuff it's a great place to be but when we moved in summer 85 the "tech sector" of the region consisted of a new graphite plant that moved for cheap labor.
just curious if anyone in that part of the world can shed some light since I have no plans to go back...
2 Naperville, IL 141,600
Crap! That's where I live right now... and I was reading this
in hopes of finding a better place to move to.
Fort Collins, CO it is then!
I always see these comparisons of the best places to live, how to get the most value for your dollar, etc. In most places where the cost of living is very high, it's usually because a lot of people want to live there. Why? Because it's a great place to live. Places like San Diego, San Francisco and Boston are beautiful cities which offer a style of living and things to do that can't be found in Idaho or Alabama. If all you want to do is save your pennies and have a big house, then these are good places to live. But money is most definately not everything.
Sugar Land, TX - I remember reading an article about this place in Newsweek or something some years back. Apparently, it's so conservative there that they drove out all the movie theaters or something like that to protest the "war-protesting" Hollywood. Funny how movie theaters are also banned in Saudi Arabia.
Olathe, KS - been there on a business trip. Wow...you can see 360 degrees around you. Lots of aerospace jobs there, though.
Bellevue, WA - a friend's house went from $250K to $430K in the first 6 months of this year alone. Crazy. Downtown Bellevue has at least 4 skyscraper condo developments undergoing right now. If you think traffic is bad in downtown Bellevue now, wait until it gets clobbered with 3,000 more people, each trying to get around in their BMWs.
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
does anyone have a definitive source on this? i just moved from research triangle park, where cary claims to have more phd's per square mile than anywhere else...
(alternatively, phd's per capita)
I live in a large southern city whose culture is immersed in religious fundamentalism. Co-workers proselytize at work, put up crucifixes, prayers, posters of Jesus, play Jesus rock music on their office radio, and hold prayer-meetings at lunch and after work. At any time in a conversation, Jesus may be introduced as a third-party referent (e.g., "Some of the things you say remind me of what Jesus said..."). And although I was raised in such an environment, I have long since abandoned those beliefs.
I am a moral person and an atheist. Not a flaming atheist: I don't push my beliefs or seek out conflict. As a rationalist and a scientist I do my best to base my beliefs on science and logic. While the intent of my co-workers is appreciated (they truly believe that conversion would improve my life), much of my life was spent where they are and my journey is away from that place.
Where in the USA can a rationalist atheist find a home? Note that I'm not seeking a "Sodom and Gomorrah", but a city like Huntsville, AL where there is a significant technical community but without a strong culture of religious fundamentalism. [Perhaps Huntsville is like that; but some posts here indicate otherwise.]
If not in the USA, then where in the world is such a city?
That's about right. People in Dallas who want culture drive to Austin. Or fly to Houston, I guess.
Nice otters in the aquarium, though.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
There are also companies out there who have pretty cool web tools to check how much people are actually making in any given job. (http://www.payscale.com)
and here i left Idaho for exactly this reason. what're you telling me, to go back to that hellhole?
grey wolf
LET FORTRAN DIE!
Ahem. I'm from NC as well, and Cary is more often referred to around these parts as the Containment Area for Rich Yankees. :P
In the middle of nowhere is a lot different than what I am used to. Denver/SLC/Seattle. Now that's where I think the happiness lies. If you can find some happiness up in this place. Good for you. Move there for all I care. All I'm saying is that the REST of the world needs to stay away.
LOL. You took a trip to Carrollton.
:-)
The band Ten Hands has a song about that
http://www.doomsday.com/john/10hands/jazz.html#2
You needed to go a little north, and discover Denton. Or way south, and discover Austin.
There are parts of Dallas that are way cool, different parts depending on what you think is cool,
but you almost have to be from there to know about them.
It's a nice place to live, but I don't know why you'd visit there.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
I grew up in in Montgomery, attended the public schools and AUM (the best local university for Math majors), and worked as a programmer for a government contractor for a year before moving on to greener pastures out of the south (I have been in Chicago for over a decade now). Montgomery is growing like crazy not just from defense but the auto plants they keep building down there. My wife and I have settled in Chicago and love it here, but Montgomery would be a great place to live if are a conservative who can take the heat and enjoy spending lots of time with family (there isn't that much else to do on a week night). Would I ever move back, unlikely (I'm a "heathen" liberal who never really fit into the culture down there), but there are a lot of people who do really love it down there.
Every time I see one of these lists, I start to consider how the compilers could even imagine a way to combine all the factors that go into living in a particular area. The smaller things like that people you meet, the options for spending a free Friday night and the availability of a local coffee place and bookstore I love is so much better than moving to the middle of nowhere even if it's cheap. After all, even if you save a few thousand more a year, does it really make up for the people, options and excitement of the larger metropolitan areas? In NY, you're just a few minutes on public transport from some of the best live jazz in the world, major sports teams, museums, comedy clubs, bars, parks and dozens of other things that in most of the places listed here you just simply can't get. Of course, you can spend that free time counting the money you've saved, but I'd rather be out and trying something new. To each his own...
Best Trivia answer ever... Name the largest aquatic man eater... Contestant: Tsunami
Wow! Talk about driving people to vote Republican.
Or how to convince people they don't need to take the left seriously.
Or convince people that public transit advocates are nutcases.
Here's a formula for success - insult anyone who disagrees with you even slightly.
Encourage people to murder others who disagree with you.
Give them a picture of the forced relocation that would result if you came to power.
Don't leave all the compasion to the conservatives.
So services have to be taken out to the suburbs and beyond.
And food has to be taken into the cities.
You could argue that every bite you eat polutes the air becuase of the trucks that
have to bring it in to the city.
The world's overpopulation is largely concentrated in cities.
Some people prefer to live in cities. Some perfer to live in the country.
Some take their preference and turn it into a virtue.
I have friends that work for Sun. If you don't believe me, you can always look it up.
I personally like snow, so living in Denver is a real disappointment. We get maybe 3 big storms every decade. Most winters are warm, dry, sunny. Every so often a dusting of snow or a cold snap. It's disgusting.
Man, you really need that seminar!
If only residents were growing their households and purchasing new construction for new households, then growth would be about 4% ish. But the influx of new residents has artifically driven up prices due to scarcity of the product. The incomming residents are from states whos mean income is about 2x that of the average Idahoan. There are investment companies in CA that buy a dozen homes at a time (I have met with and talked to them in my search for a home) jsut so they can rent them out and sell them a few years later earning $50-100K in profit from the sale, and a few thousand a year in profit from the rental.
/. as well informed and researched.... I just don't want people moving into my state from CA. Strangely, few people move here from Montana or Alabama / Mississippi or some other low income state.
I didn't say the state was ignorant of nor innocent of their part in this problem. The selling by Idahoans is voluntary, mostly. Some areas, by proximity to downtown only, have had their appraised property values increase by 100% in the last 7 years just because the only place to build homes is farther and farther away. Many of these areas overlook downtown Boise and are owned by 2nd generation Idahoans, mostly retired and on fixed income. The property tax alone on these sites is as much as an entire house payment so several high profile individuals have been forced to sell out and move because they cannot afford the taxes. But again, this is because the local economy has been nased solely on property taxes.
But hey.... Don't take my post on
jason
"But the influx of new residents has artifically driven up prices due to scarcity of the product."
I refuse to acknowledge the laws of supply and demand as "artificial."
"There are investment companies in CA that buy a dozen homes at a time"
And there are realtors in your town perfectly willing to sell to them. If you were on the supply side of this equation, I'm sure you would defend your actions.
"The property tax alone on these sites is as much as an entire house payment so several high profile individuals have been forced to sell out and move because they cannot afford the taxes."
The city government is a rogue instrument that operates without the consent of the people it represents, or are its officials put into office via at-large elections?
"I just don't want people moving into my state from CA."
In my book, that just makes you a bigot. You could just as easily replace "CA" with a race, religion, or nationality, and it would express precisely the same sentiment.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
There's no place like home. http://www.paragonitpros.com/itphonehome.aspx
I mean as long as there are UIL sports and rec leagues who would miss watching overpaid, overprivildged twits on parade.
go ahead and shave your chest and paint it in the local high school's colors, you'll feel right at home under the friday night lights
I know Denver is a slush zone - but in regards to the I36 corridor - Broomfield got CLOBBERED with snow not too long ago. When I say clobbered - I mean roofs falling in clobbered. Yes, if it's a spring fall then it melts in no time. But - if it's an October-surprise - oh you've got good snow for months to go. Remember both in 1998 and particularly in 1986 when Pena got into hot water because the city streets were so fouled up with snow-ruts that people were losing axels?
Yes it's rare - but at least twice a year the whole of the city is shut down for a few days (or at least if you're not telecommuting - I dare anyone to jump on the I25 from Cap-Hill and go to a Job at the Tech-Center during one of those). Not Minneapolis weather mind you - but not San Diego / SunnyVale CA either. IE - not "great".
I haven't scraped my car in years (Phoenix and back to California), and I really like not getting body work done by people whacking my car every year in parking lots and on the street (downtown).
I haven't been living here but just a little over two years, so I can't say I've experienced any of those events. Maybe I'm due for a rude awakening, but so far it's been a pleasure.
The places you mentioned are nice, but pros and cons to living there exist as well.
I guess different strokes for different folks...
I probably fudged the typo and you thought I said "scraped" as in "I junked my car" - I ment "scrape your windows". No biggie for most - until you're in a rush for work. You've never had to do this - in Denver?
If that's the case - global warming is 100% real and we're all gonna fry.
Can I have your stereo?
Hehe...must have been through some hell weather if you had to junk your car...
I only have to scrape windows a few times during the season. Usually after a daytime dusting while parked at work; I have a garage at night. Maybe it's just lifestyle differences. I have a sweet job only 2.6 miles from my place. Never have to drive far or get on the highways in bad weather. No traffic.
It has to be global warming because I never see snow on the ground longer than 3 days after a storm up in Westminster.
I grew up in Idaho Falls and have lived in New York City for a few years. Each has their attractions: NYC is very large and busy. It provides a very wide range of civic events, and a significant mix of ethnic groups. However, the only nearby outdoor opportunity is in Central Park, where there is still someone within seeing distance at almost all times.
Idaho Falls, on the other hand, is more of a bedroom community: very conservative socially, almost completely caucasian, with a small but growing latino population. It is clean, the roads are good, traffic isn't bad, which hasn't changed much in 15 years. The civic opportunities are few and muted compared to any large city. However, what you loose in civic opportunities you can make up in outdoor activities. There is camping, offroading, hunting (I don't hunt, personally) in the vicinity, with a few excellent parks within reasonable driving distance (Island Park, Yellowstone, Forest land, etc.).
As always with the question "which city/town is best", it depends on what you like.
For those with more civic oriented tastes, Boise, ID may be a good destination. It has more concerts, has a bigger feel (200k people in the valley), and has a variety of tech jobs available. Yet, there are still excellent outdoor opportunities nearby.
Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your point of view), this richness in outdoor opportunities is not lost on Idaho's elected officials. This year, the state will have a Tax revenue surplus. The former governor (Kempthorn, now Secretary of the Interior) pledged to put about $240k into higher education... and $38 million into parks.
The Theory of International Hotness states:
In every country at every time (except, possibly, during major famines or crises) there are some incredibly attractive women (and men). In some cases, you may not *know* it because they are not out in public, or are covered head-to-foot in conservative clothings (e.g. Women from Iraq, Afghanistan, etc in head-to-foot black shrouds).
If someone says that XYZ country doesn't have very good looking women, they are either looking in the wrong places, or it just reflects their own aesthetic sense.
The Corrolary to the Theory of International Hotness states:
In every country at every time (no excpetions) there are nearly an unlimited supply of mildly attractive and downright unnatractive women (and men), and you can find them everywhere in public.
They've got those in the Southeastern US, too. I grew up in the Florida Panhandle, and the 4" long flying kind were the standard cockroach, also in Alabama and Houston. I didn't know about the smaller, wingless, kind until I moved to California.
Be careful with what you communicate with your eyes, too though: I know someone who got beat up and nearly died because he looked at someone funny (I am dead serious on that one, although it happened in Hawaii not Costa Rica).
Only a few people on this planet have enough courage to flip-out like that. You never know when the ninja will strike, so hide in a dumpster -- or better yet, take Oscar the Grouch's advice by living in a trashcan-armoured battle-ready suit. I remember of History lessons of this one country that practically everyone important lived (eat/shit/screw/die) in a vested trashcan. Oh, now I remember, it was Europe!
without prejudice
Interestingly enough:
11. Plano, TX 250,100
15. Richardson, TX 99,200
19. Carrollton, TX 124,700
are all suburbs of Dallas.
It'd be interesting if the list had more correlation.
I grew up there (five minutes from Carrollton) and would agree that it was a nice combination of:
-near a high population city, so there's stuff to do and good jobs
-nice weather (brutal in the middle of summer, but everywhere is well air-conditioned, and the rest of the year is very nice)
-low cost of living
Yes, it's the suburbs, so yes it requires a car.
I'm currently living in NYC, and have also lived in upstate New York (Troy/Albany) and in mid New-Jersey (Bloomfied), so it's not like I have no frame of reference.