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NYC Tech Sector Growing Faster Than City Can Keep Up
BioTitan writes "New York City's plans to build its tech sector have turned out like a party gone wrong — someone inviting 100 people expecting 10 to show up, but finding that not only did everyone come, but they also brought their friends. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg wants to build NYC into the second Silicon Valley. Dedicated spaces complete with 3-D printers, workshops, and computers with design software are being built — with the Brooklyn Navy Yard leading the way — yet there is far from enough space to meet demand. Tucker Reed, president of the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, said, 'Despite the presence of a considerable number of commercial buildings in downtown Brooklyn, longer term leases have tied up much of the current space over the next five years.'"
Well... Really good technology workers tend to be well-paid, for starters. But beyond just being paid well, such people also like to have enjoyable life experiences. In fact, I saw some fascinating coverage (which I was trying to look up to link you to but failed, thanks google) about the divergence in the fortunes of various cities, suggesting that places such as New York and San Francisco in fact can offer higher real wages for high-income people like software engineers when you use a high-income person's market-basket of goods and services, because they have a variety of goods and services (and opportunities for life experiences) which would be more expensive to get out in the middle-of-nowhere suburbs.
in summary... because that's where the cool kids want to hang out. and you want to hire the cool kids.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
The part going on now where in one breath they tell us the recession is causing unemployment and wage freezes and everyone is working oh-so hard to get that fixed and in the next we hear about Wall Street rallies, now highs being reached and record corporate profits. OH, and we need more H1-Bs because there's not enough people looking for a job here.