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The Worst US Cities To Work In IT
bdcny7927 writes with an excerpt from CIO.com to inspire some caution before your next job switch: "IT workers have their choice of many great US cities for work and play (Atlanta, Chicago, Seattle), but what are the cities that you probably should avoid? Here's a very unscientific, highly subjective and unapologetically snarky list of our least favorite US tech job locales."
Okay, I don't really believe that. I just always wanted to see what that sentence looked like in print.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I've never seen one proper city that didn't feel like a very suffocating place, full of busy little bees who have no idea what it is to take the time to smell the roses. I could never live in one. Any ideas about which suburban or rural areas are good/bad to work in for IT jobs?
I wish I would be transferred to Alaska. The hunting and fishing is great. There is room to breath. A man can raise a family in a manner more suitable to the American ideal. The commutes cannot be any worse than the suburbs of any major US city.
Sign me up!
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
makes Detroit look like Paris.
Where until recently, your passwords were government property.
The list for people that don't like slideshows:
1. Detroit, Mich. - Jobs available: 449
2. Bentonville, Ark. - Jobs available: 81
3. Cleveland, Ohio - Jobs available: 211
4. Syracuse, N.Y. - Jobs available: 49
5. Tie: Boston, Mass., and San Francisco, Calif.
6. Anytown in Alaska - Jobs available: 24
7. Orlando, Fla. - Jobs available: 235
Where a BS in CS or CIT makes 9 bucks an hour and an illegal migrant housing framer makes 30.
THL phish sticks
I'd gladly take a position in Alaska. Wide open land with relatively few people. No overbearing State government that can't balance the budget, not much of an immigration problem up there either. Thanks to the oil revenues residents get checks from the State. About the only thing I would miss is being able to take the t-tops off on my Z28 even occasionally in the winter and pretty much all summer long.
If I had to name a State as worst State it would be California. Land of tax and spend with no fiscal restraint, holder of first county to declare bankruptcy and likely first State to go bankrupt. Of course the single biggest reason to avoid California for me is that about 3/4 of my firearms are unconstitutionally deemed illegal by the State.
-- Slashdot, making the Left look conservative since 1997.
What a worthless list. What did anything they talked about have anything to do with IT?
Whale
I wouldn't mind working in Alaska - lots of fresh seafood, cheap real estate, small town feel - if I can be sure my job is secure. Just like working in IT in some small midwest town, there aren't many options for switching jobs if you need to switch. How many large companies are hiring if you're an Oracle DBA in Alaska?
That's the beauty of Silicon Valley. I can work at a company for a few years and move to another, similarly-sized company at a higher position without much hesitation or worry. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of small companies looking at hiring IT folks. That kind of job security is what makes California much more appealing than a smaller city.
I love that San Francisco made the list -- I was just thinking last night about how I love everything about San Francisco except for the idea of living there. I'll take the Oakland hills any day and twice on Tuesday.
I'm starting to wonder about California overall. The entire state is slowly sliding downhill (and not in a earthquake-into-the-ocean sense) thanks largely to the proposition system where any shitheaded idea can be made law by a simple majority vote -- I mean, if you ever need evidence that direct democracy is a terrible idea, look no further than CA.
Institutionalized gay bashing? Check. Costly mandates we have no way to pay for? Check. And then there's my personal favorite, a short-sighted effort to limit property taxes whose only real effect is to hurt younger people just starting out and drive the schools into the shitter? You know it.
I mean, maybe having worked with users for all these years, it's a little more obvious to me that people are (by and large) stupid assholes, but I feel there's enough evidence to convince any reasonable person at this point. Which is why we still have the proposition, I suppose.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Ok, so I have lived and worked in IT in Orlando for the past 10 years and on top of it all, I work from home. Trust me on this, there is nothing that beast working out by the pool in January in T-shirt and shorts and a cold one.
And climate, well.. for 9 months of the year, the climate is perfect, warm and not humid. For three months, July-September, it's hot and humid and that is also the peak of hurricane season. But I prefer 95F and an occasional hurricane over months of waist deep snow and below zero . Hacking ice of the windshield before freezing on my way to work is way too overrated!
Not to mention that I can see each shuttle and rocket launch from my living room!
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
I wish they'd enlightened us as to some of their 'subjective' reasons for their choices. The Northwest Arkansas metro area (Fayetteville, Springdale, Bentonville & Rogers) regularly makes the top ten of 'best places to live' lists. It's not New York, if that's your thing, but then they listed Boston & SF, too, so WTF?
The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer. - Albert Einstein
...the worst cities are those with no jobs. The best cities are the ones with jobs. If you want to pay your bills, you go where the jobs are.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
doesn't include Troy, NY? Or Urbana, IL? Or Waco, TX?
Or how about Washington, DC? Hint: IT guys are low on the totem pole, and politicians, lobbyists, and AOL execs let you know it.
And San Francisco is a BAD place to work? Sounds like these guys sampled the local flora. Hint: if it really did suck, real estate prices would be as in Detroit or Cleveland. And if traffic really is the issue, what about Atlanta, Dallas, and Los Angeles?
FWIW, Cleveland and Pittsburgh aren't THAT bad. And yes, I do mean it. It's been 40 years since the Cuyahoga burned, and it's actually kinda nice now. As is the Erie waterfront.
I live and work in San Francisco and quite frankly I love it. I've never experienced any of the issues the article claims plague our city (I'm not sure what iJacking is, but my eye sockets are just fine).
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
I live here, and I've got a friend who works for SourceForge ... I'm not sure in what capacity, though. There's definitely a demand for people with technical skills. There's also ample opportunities for infrastructure development if you're interested in the hardware side of things. The state is working pretty hard to improve broadband access (http://www.newsminer.com/news/2009/jun/21/fairbanks-representative-hopes-highlight-lack-alas/ and http://www.newsminer.com/news/2009/mar/16/internet-companies-hope-stimulus-boon-bush/).
This is all you need to know, math guys: Syracuse holds the title for the U.S. city (pop: 50,000+) with the highest average annual snowfall (115 inches), besting even Anchorage, Alaska (114 inches). It also has a bit of a problem with Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) due to all that snow and not a lot of sunshine. It's called the Salt City: A good thing, since there's all that snow and ice on the roads.
Available IT jobs in Syracuse (as posted on June 18 on Dice.com): 49
I'm tired of seeing people endlessly trash Upstate because of what they read about the winter. What the summary doesn't tell you about the 115 inches of snow is that you rarely have more than 10 inches on the ground at a time; the weather trends for this area lately have seen snow coming primarily on the leading edge of warm fronts in the winter. The result of this is of course you'll shovel your driveway on Monday and then put on sunglasses and a very light coat by Wednesday. In reality every winter in Upstate New York has been near-record warmth for the past several years, and after the short winter season (only about 3 months in reality) the rest of the year is temperate.
That said, the economy of Upstate New York does leave something to be desired; but that can be said for many other parts of the country as well.
But I might be brought to disembowel the next person who reads about Upstate New York and then trashes it over weather that they have not experienced for themselves.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Having worked for 4 different tech companies in Cleveland, I'll speak up for it. Cleveland does have a few things going for it if you're in the tech sector.
There's good higher education to hire from (CWRU (of which I'm an alum) and CSU (from which I've had a couple of excellent co-workers)), good cultural institutions (Cleveland Orchestra, Cleveland Museum of Art, Playhouse Square, The Cleveland Playhouse), good restaurants, affordable housing, decent enough public transportation, and bearable traffic. There's also a national park within about 30 or 40 minutes of downtown (Cuyahoga Valley National Park).
The tech sector is a little small, but it's fairly close-knit as a result of that. I don't think you need 6 degrees to get from anybody to anybody else. One or two is probably sufficient.
While the professional sports teams are perennially frustrating, that's not what I look for in a city. At the end of the day, a city is what you make of it. Cleveland comes with a lot of big city perks without a lot of big city hassles.
In this economy, any IT job is a good job.
Of everyone who was in my circle of friends working in the IT and computer industry in the mid-to-late 1990s, the only people who have jobs today are in middle management. Not one non-manager I knew back then and know today is working today in the tech industry.
I became an ex-pat, teaching English, translating documents, and helping with the Windows machines in an accounting office in Mexico. I would like to return, but there are just no jobs stateside where I want to live right now.
One friend saved enough money to semi-retire; he, right now, is living with his family to minimize expenses and off of savings. He's not really sure he even wants to return to the industry; the last job he had a couple of years ago left him really burnt out.
Another friend lost his job at a video game company in the late 1990s. He never got hired in the tech industry again, and is currently living off of a military disability pension, paying his debts and planning on returning to college.
These are my luckier friends. Two friends, who have families to raise, both very recently lost jobs in the tech industry and have no idea when they will get work again. One is living off of savings and is really scared when he will get a job again. Another didn't have as much savings, had to leave the apartment he was leasing, and is currently shacked up with a buddy who lets him sleep in the extra bedroom in exchange for computer help; his wife and kids are living with their family.
I am sure either one of these guys would accept a job in Cleveland or Alabama or anywhere else where the company is willing to pay them enough to support their family.
It's a really scary time to work in the tech industry. If you have a job, and it pays enough to support your family, thank the lucky stars you're still working. Not everyone is as lucky as you right now.
We'll throw "might get mauled by a moose" for free!
Washington D.C. The entire metropolitan area is one big mess. I have to plan my WEEKEND trips to the grocery store with severe traffic in mind. The area/weather/people are nice enough. However, with the addition of the commute times, I am basically holding down another part-time job just to get to work and back. I work 10-12 hour days just to avoid sitting in that mess for 3-4 hours a day.
I couldn't fail to disagree with you any less.
That was true during the pipeline construction era, but it's far closer to 55-45 male/female now. Funny how a rush of 50,000 male construction workers will skew the demographics of a state with a population of fewer than 300,000 (in the '70s) people.
My personal worst list:
I agree with Bentonville. Wal-Mart has to outsource development because it's such a crappy place to work and then you have to live in podunkville, AR, for the privilege of working in a crap shop. Their turn over is high and even the really good people I know who have worked there hated it.
Even with the economy in the toilet there are too many good opportunities out there to be stuck in a dreary job.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
I've worked in IT in the Orlando/Central Florida area since 1996. It's not that bad. It's not some perfect Utopia, but nor is it one of the worst places to work.
The Good
The Bad
The Ugly
The tourists aren't that bad, unless you are hanging out in the tourist areas. Which you aren't going to do after your first month here.
In all, there's more good than bad.
Thats how they plowed into being the world's number one low-price retailer. They move a half trillion of product a year and know where most of it is any anytime to the single item. I not interested in business IT, but I have to admire their results. (Maybe they should have used some of that dough to hire style consultants like a Martha Stewart.)
After reading TFA which brings a tie between Boston and LA as awful places to work, the link right below this article entitled "Where the IT Jobs Are: 10 American Cities" lists BOTH Boston and LA.....
Just for reference, the article from this thread is from June 18th or so while the second article praising cities for IT jobs is from May1st.
Although the original article mentions both places as a heaven for IT geeks, it also warns against the quality of life in the areas....or maybe I'm just trying to find the silver lining?
A black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going somewhere. -- Groucho Marx
... Redmond, WA.
Yeah, mark this as flamebait. But sometimes its not about how many jobs are available, its about the quality of the work. I don't see anything attractive about a career that involves having to clean up after the 800 pound gorilla.
Have gnu, will travel.
Remember that these articles are written by people who have only a passing interest in IT or technology. They like and buy gadgets. They never choose the OS their computer runs. They have no clue what geeks really like (for example quality import or locally brewed beer, instead of massive quantities of major brand junk).
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Bottom 7 list: small/mid-market and rust belt cities. Way to dig deep, CIO.
Sure, Cleveland has it down side, but compared to the 'top 10 cities for IT jobs' that they also have a slideshow for, the place is WAY cheaper to live in, and if you're smart you're not living in the city anyway, when a nice clean house in the nice clean burbs is dirt cheap. Plus if you get overworked and have a heart attack, head over to the Cleveland Clinic; they'll patch you up real good.
So people from SoCal, how's LA to work IT in, what with the crappy traffic and screwy government?
I'd have a personalized plate on my car, but "toxic bachelor" won't fit into 7 letters.
Were building. Residential and commercial vacancy and foreclosure rates are very high, among the highest in the nation, throughout the entire region.
There are a few positives, if you can land a job: commuting is tolerable; culture is good for a city its size; cost of living is fairly low. Some of the suburbs (e.g., Lakewood, Cleveland Heights) are quite interesting and livable. Reasonably good healthcare. A handful of great colleges (CWRU, Baldwin Wallace, Oberlin). If you have very marketable skills and can mostly avoid the central city, a great quality of life is possible here.
But the negatives absolutely abound, especially in and near the central city. No large IT shops left. Small and shrinking middle class (consisting mainly of tradespeople; very little gainful employment of knowledge workers). Random violent crime against ordinary people (not just gang violence, and not confined to the inner city). World-class corruption at city, county, and state levels. Pervasive air and water pollution. Among the country's worst schools, in a country not known for good schools to begin with. Little sunlight. High rates of depression, thyroid problems, and various cancers. Low life expectancy. Very low average household income and wealth by developed world standards. Severe racial segregation and very poor race relations in general. Crumbling infrastructure. Bridges that are literally falling into the river, but cannot be closed for lack of any alternative. Public transportation limited to city-to-city or suburb-to-city commutes, while of what few jobs remain very few are in the urban core (most are in suburbs unreachable by transit). Rapidly aging population, well over national average levels of obesity and chronic health problems, mostly caused by pollution and/or poverty. Competes every year to top lists of poverty; always makes top 10 lists for crime. Entire streets boarded up and essentially abandoned. Most inner city neighborhoods ruled by thugs and/or organized crime. I could go on but I think you get the point.
I'm still lucky enough to have an IT job (for now at least) but if not for that job, plus most of my family being here, I'd have left long ago, probably for Eastern Europe where I also have family connections. Cleveland epitomizes just about everything that is wrong with this country. Both the causes (irresponsibility, entitlement mentality, government-worship, racial and economic prejudice, provincialism, anti-intellectualism) and the effects (poverty, disease, ignorance, near total lack of upward mobility, and the overwhelming feeling of hopelessness and resignation). It could be fixed, if enough people cared enough to act, but they don't, so the only real chance anyone has to better themselves and their families is to leave if they possibly can.
Nonaggression works!
In this economy, all internet posts are being cut down by 30%. Or more as in
Your ad here. Ask me how!
They sarcastically slam Boston, but then list it as one of the 10 cities where "all the IT jobs are". So make up your mind already.
And as someone living in Boston, screw you and your list :-)
"Doubt your doubts and believe your beliefs." -- Switchfoot, Ode to Chin
When I was planning to move here to Denver, I had countless people on forums tell me how annoying it is that it's sunny all the time, how you have to practically ration your water, and other tales of woe. Only had one come right out and say that the residents don't want other people moving here (particularly Californians who drive up property values).
Public use of any portable music system is a virtually guaranteed indicator of sociopathic tendencies. -- Zoso
They don't typically post pay rates. But it isn't unusual to also see them demand expert knowledge in six or seven obscure and unrelated technologies, I'm sad to say.
Still, if experience requirements mean anything, it is very unusual to see a job posting willing to hire anyone younger than 35 or 40. You can say anti-old-people-ageism exists, but all of my experience suggests the opposite.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.