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Ask Slashdot: Undervalued, Livable American Tech Towns?
An anonymous reader writes: I've been working in tech as a software developer for about 15 years. As I've gotten older I'm starting to see the appeal of living in a city that's not crazily blown out and expensive like most established tech markets (think San Francisco, Austin, Seattle, Los Angeles, etc.). Are there are any good tech job markets that are normal, affordable, livable, American cities, or am I forever doomed to be subjected to the rat race found in these overheated and overcrowded markets? Lots of cities have at least some vibrant tech scene; Omaha, NE, Raleigh, NC, and Ann Arbor, MI are three that spring to mind, but everyone's tastes and tolerances will vary. What do you find in your neck of the woods? (Even if it's one of those "crazily blown out" examples.)
Like food and shelter... Who needs jobs?
Actually, after 15 years, either you're doing it wrong, or you should already have enough money saved to semi-retire in a low-rent area.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Bangalore is pretty good. You can literally live like a king on tech money.
This is probably true for very small values of "king".
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Nice town. Just an observation from Scandinavia
eh, Austin isn't quite like the rest of Texas. I mean, it's consistently favored Democratic politicians, often by a 2:1 margin. Also has a decent music/art scene. And there's a nudist park on the edge of a lake, supposedly the only one in all of TX.
I'm not quite sure how it happened this way but, I think the soundest the theory is all of the smart/sane people in TX banded together in one city to make their last stand, Alamo-ish style.
Because there's "fixed" things about every place in the country that will not be changing.
For example, if you can't stand heat and humidity, you can eliminate the South. If you can't stand snow or cold winters, you can eliminate much of the Northern parts of the country. If you can't stand commie liberal bastards running everything, that's going to eliminate some places. If you can't stand conservative religious nutjobs running everything, that's going to eliminate other places.
Once you have your list, go to a big-name job site and look at the count of job postings in the last two weeks for your kind of work.
If the place has 5 listings, you better REALLY love the companies, and be ready to move if there's downsizing. If the place has one thousand job listings, you'll have your choice of employers.
From that quick search, cross off any place that doesn't fit well. That should leave you with a relatively small number of places, which you can more thoroughly research and possibly visit.
Orange County Culture? Sounds like an oxymoron to me.
You're right about the other two, though. Especially the weather.
Really? I was born and raised in St. Louis. Spent almost 40 years of my life there working in tech. And I'm really glad I got out. Same sentiment many of my tech-savvy friends had too when they left.
I'll grant you that for a city its size, it does have affordable housing, and it's VERY good at offering family-friendly attractions.
But beyond that, it's in decline in many ways. First, you have only a few major employers there who employ the bulk of the I.T. workers there. One is the Busch brewery, who ever since getting taken over by InBev, let go of a whole bunch of full-time I.T. workers, preferring to use contractors (often of the H1B variety). Before that, they scaled back much of the advertising/marketing they used to do. (I had friends who lost good jobs there as graphics artists and the like, when they eliminated the "creative services" division.)
Another is Boeing, who IMO really just took over McDonnell Douglas in St. Louis so they could eliminate them as a competitor. There's been a slow shuttering of buildings on that campus ever since the takeover. They still employ a lot of people, but I'd say Boeing is much more interested in work they're doing in places like Seattle at this point.
It also has the HQ for Emerson Corporation, although it happens to be located right next to Ferguson. Luckily for them, they've always been walled in like a fortress, so I doubt the rioters ever had a chance of damaging anything of value in there. But needless to say, a job there means you're traveling through questionable neighborhoods every day for work. Not a lot of pleasant places to go out to lunch or what-not, out there, either.
If you remember the "glory days" of St. Louis, you'll also note that the riverfront is TERRIBLE compared to what it used to be. Ever since the casino went in on the landing and started buying up adjacent properties, it killed the nightlife down there. The riverfront used to be a popular destination that had moored ships and barges of all types, including a floating McDonalds riverboat, an old aircraft carrier you could walk around on, and riverboats (Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn) that actually did riverboat cruises/tours daily. One place let you take helicopter rides too. It also had a wax museum, a coin-op arcade game museum, a cool magic store, and many other neat shops that are all gone today.
I'm sure there are a lot of random opportunities out there, but my experience is, many are tough to find and fleeting. Many I.T. people wind up working in manufacturing for a struggling business someplace in the city for wages below the average, or working in medical I.T. - which is kind of its own beast, with a unique set of challenges and problems. It's not for everybody....
its too expensive up here it really is that simple
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same