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Is Denver The Next High-Tech Center? (newyorker.com)
An anonymous reader write: "The spread of the tech industry outside Silicon Valley has helped make Denver the fastest-growing large city in the U.S.," reports the New Yorker, saying it's now growing faster than Austin and Seattle, becoming one of America's 20 most populous cities. Cost-conscious investors and tech executives now are opening offices in cheaper "secondary cities" outside of Silicon Valley, like Salt Lake City, and the good universities near Denver mean a well-educated workforce, coupled with a low cost of living.
"Though the city isn't the headquarters for any big tech companies -- like Dell in the Austin area or Microsoft and Amazon in Seattle -- several of them, including IBM and Oracle, have offices here. The presence of those offices, and of the universities, has also helped create a vibrant startup scene: people get educated here or come here for jobs, and then they graduate or leave those jobs and become entrepreneurs." Last year venture capitalists invested $800 million in Demver's tech, energy, food, and marijuana companies, and in 2014 Oracle paid over a billion dollars to acquire Denver-based Datalogix.
Anyone else live in a burgeoning "secondary" tech city? Scott McNealy said he co-founded his data-analysis startup in Denver because in California "The prices of everything have skyrocketed. The regulations. The pension deficit. The traffic. It's just not a fun place to go start."
"Though the city isn't the headquarters for any big tech companies -- like Dell in the Austin area or Microsoft and Amazon in Seattle -- several of them, including IBM and Oracle, have offices here. The presence of those offices, and of the universities, has also helped create a vibrant startup scene: people get educated here or come here for jobs, and then they graduate or leave those jobs and become entrepreneurs." Last year venture capitalists invested $800 million in Demver's tech, energy, food, and marijuana companies, and in 2014 Oracle paid over a billion dollars to acquire Denver-based Datalogix.
Anyone else live in a burgeoning "secondary" tech city? Scott McNealy said he co-founded his data-analysis startup in Denver because in California "The prices of everything have skyrocketed. The regulations. The pension deficit. The traffic. It's just not a fun place to go start."
What does the USA have to offer anymore?
After the steel mills closed down they reinvented the city around banking, healthcare, and high tech. They pulled it off too, it's a nice city with a strong economy now.
In a rare exception to Betteridge's Law of Headlines... Yes.
Reading code is like reading the dictionary - you have to read half of it before you can go back and understand it.
Next question, please.
Yes, if the recent jump in real estate values (and rent prices) across the city are any indicator.
Though that may just be the weed economy at work.
I want the rest of the country to get on-board and legalize pot, if only to thin the ridiculous concentration of pot-heads in my city (and maybe pull the cost of living back down to reasonable levels)!
Thin air. Druggies. Ugly, ugly chicks. Though you may ask yourself, SF? As gay as Bedrock.
Department is just the headline again, Denver spelled "Demver", no tags, topic is asinine.
Cost-conscious investors and tech executives now are opening offices in cheaper "secondary cities" outside of Silicon Valley, like Salt Lake City, and the good universities near Denver mean a well-educated workforce, coupled with a low cost of living.
That could be said for just about any large metropolitan city in the USA.
And what took the Silly Valley people so long to figure this out? Folks have been pointing this out since the dot com bubble.
Ya'll come on down to the ATL!
Hundreds of viable startups here yearly. Big growth and names you know. GA-Tech provides the world-class engineers.
Funding? Over $340M in 1Q16 alone. http://www.hypepotamus.com/new...
Come on down. Lots of jobs. Friendly people, big city lifestyle nearby, or relax in the 'burbs with horse stables and ranch within 2 miles (like I do). Lots of soccer clubs for the kids. Excellent schools (national gold levels) if you live in the right areas. Sadly, this state's average education doesn't lift up everyone, so there is much, much, more work to be done.
Need to get anywhere in the world? We have an airport to go there. Perhaps you've heard of it? Doesn't often close in winter either. ;)
Seattle is killing itself with a lack of access to higher education due to the choking strangle-hold imposed by the University of Washington.
North Dakota? They have lots of space, cheap housing now that the oil workers have moved out, and it's cold enough that cooling your data center involves opening windows. For that matter, why stop there? Canada is probably pretty good.
I spent a lot of time in SLC last year. Yes there is booming high tech corridor all along the Wasatch front. Yes there is lots of outdoor activities to do within a very short distance Yes the weather isn't half bad with sunshine almost all of the year (suck on that Pittsburgh!). Places like Pluralsight have their headquarters there.
The downsides being that they are starting to have large issues with traffic (the tech corridor is literally a 40 mile linear expanse and everyone has to travel along the same one freeway). The political and religious environment can be constrictive compared to a lot of other states EG any alcohol over 3.5% can only be bought in state run shops that have very restrictive hours. The Mormon church has a huge influence on politics behind the scenes. But that is being offset by the influx of outsiders EG as indicated by the consumption of alcohol doubling in the last 10 years, and Salt Lake City itself just (last year) elected an openly gay mayor.
Probably what was the most disturbing for me was that I have never seen more homeless people in my life at one time. This could be because SLC is a "Sanctuary city", but I am not convinced of that.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Aside: When I went to Reykjavik all the most annoying tourists were from Denver.
I went on a meandering road trip last summer. I really liked Denver, but once I started looking at real estate and rent prices it lost the appeal. I talked to a lot of locals who are having to move farther out and take on roommates.
And the thing is, after driving through most of the country, it's all the same. Same stores, same microbreweries, same suburbs. I wanted to find a place to get excited about but it's all the same with different marketing...
Denver is not that cheap, and the price/enjoyment ratio is approaching the point where you are better off in a bigger real city or going really, really cheap in the Midwest.
I don't know that it is high tech jobs, or legal pot, but odd things are definitely happening in Denver. We just refinanced our house after less than two years, and the value shot up by almost $100k. Thankfully we bought when we did, but I don't know how my kids will afford to live here in the future. The townhomes they are building a block away will go from $350-$650k! Denver proper is mostly landlocked so prices will continue to rise.
Traffic is awful and getting worse. Getting up to the mountains to play on the weekend has become a real chore. We leave for skiing at 5:30am to beat the traffic up I70. Driving in or out of the city during rush hour is completely awful.
The bad traffic has brought the return of toll roads on most of the regional highways that weren't already tolled. Even the interstates have or are getting toll/express lanes now. Be prepared to pay up for your commute.
One bright spot - after decades of wrangling, our light rail network is finally being expanded out to serve much more of the metro area. Even the cheaper suburbs will have rail access to downtown in a couple of years. (Not Boulder, they hate you, sorry).
Please bring your hipster programmer selves here so I can continue to have someone local to work for and keep feeding my 401k until retirement. Then I can sell my house for a small fortune and move out of this crazy town.
Yours Truly, Generation X.
Raleigh has been seriously gearing up to become one of the next High Tech centers. Not only because it's HQ for Red Hat, but because the city itself has adopted many open source principles in terms of outreach, data presentation and analysis, open participation, etc. It has hosted many important open source conferences (most recently FOSS4G). However, the North Carolina General Assembly seems to have decided that politics come before economics, and ideology before technology, and they have passed numerous laws that specifically reduce or eliminate Raleigh's ability to compete the way other cities and counties compete for business. Cutting/gutting renewable energy means that big datacenter wins are likely a thing of the past, because nobody wants to build a coal-powered datacenter when other states have better developed renewable energy resources. Public education, which is one of the most important precursors for innovation and hence technology companies, is struggling under a combination of budget cuts and generally hostile treatment of the teaching profession by legislators. And of course there's civil rights and equality. Numerous state legislatures across the country have tried passing laws to punish the LGBTQ community (the minority du jour, apparently), but most of these state's governors were sensible enough to veto such legislation, avoiding boycotts, cancellations, and costly lawsuits. Raleigh is a very tolerant city (as is the whole Research Triangle), but the legislators who sit in Raleigh have cast a cloud over the city and the state that have cost hundreds, perhaps thousands of jobs already, and hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars already.
Raleigh has the intellectual capital to compete at a very high level, but its greatest challenge is not the competitive landscape of the 21st century, but it's own state government, which seems to not understand the 21st century at all.
because in California "The prices of everything have skyrocketed. The regulations. The pension deficit. The traffic. It's just not a fun place to go start."
Hell, I left California 23 years ago for those reasons and more. But Scott's a visionary now? Or was it when he was plowing Sun into the ground so that Oracle could buy the smoking ruins for cents on the dollar?
Is becoming California 2.0- especially Colorado.
I think he worked from home for most or all of the time he was at Sun, so Scott McNealy is probably pretty familiar with the Denver airport and area restaurants and golf courses.
Bangalore ?
When people start flooding into your state from California, it sounds great, right? They're coming for the jobs, the good life you have, the environment that allows businesses to exist without choking the life out of them. But what happens next?
They start complaining that things aren't like they were in California. And then they start making changes. Like all new arrivals, they don't give a shit about you've been doing things, they're going to be doing it their way from now on. And that means the California way. It's what they were fleeing in the first place, but they plan to re-implement it in your home. These people vote, too. Once they outnumber your city's people, what are you going to do?
This is what happened to my beloved Austin. When I left, I think the population was booming over 500,000 and it was already terrible. Today? Something like 1.2 million. Sad, my city will never be the place it was when I lived there.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
... before the Republicans gutted the University system and added some good ol' fashioned legalized discrimination. Yee haw!!
I don't respond to AC's.
One of the things that transformed Silicon Valley into a high tech center was (hard to believe now) cheap land to put office parks up in. By the time that changed, the absurd cost of office space and housing was offset by economies of scale.
From a planning standpoint Denver feels like a lot like San Jose -- plenty of sprawl. In fact in some ways it's better -- not being hemmed in by mountains, it's got unlimited room for a tech region to grow eastward. It's got the Colorado School of Mines, which is a well-regarded engineering institution. The main long-term limitation I see is water. That's going to severely hamper growth eventually.
But in the short term, why not Denver? A one room apartment in Denver will set you back a little shy of $1200; that seems like a lot in most parts of the country, but anywhere near San Jose you'd pay twice as much. And it has a hub airport -- it's a huge plus to be able to fly direct from just about anywhere, and being in the eastern part of the west means it's not a long flight from anywhere in the US. It's four hours to or from New York, and it's close enough to the Bay Area to fly out and back in a day for a meeting. Flying around the country from Boston I used to envy my colleagues from Chicago who had cheap direct flights to everywhere.
Of course you could make similar arguments for Saint Louis. It's reputation as kind of a racist, third-world enclave doesn't make it attractive for young engineers to relocate, but a one bedroom apartment cost $730. The difference between that and San Jose works out to about $20,000 over the course of a year in your pocket. And of course there's WUSTL, which is very well regarded tech school (you've probably downloaded Linux from one of their mirrors). If you could figure out a way to rebrand Saint Louis as a cool place to live, then it'd have potential.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Have you learned nothing from this technology? Centers are obsolete. It'll be a network.
The heat and humidity make it miserable. I prefer to live somewhere where getting about 80F is an oddity.
What kind of infrastructure would you need that makes a "center of high tech industry" sensible? You have no raw materials that you have to send there, so connections to airports, seaports or rail connection is pointless. And as far as roads are concerned, anything that gets your workers to and from you will do. Power is essential, as is internet connectivity. Aside of that you need rather little in terms of logistics and resources.
Why you'd want to move to a "center" again as a company and drive real estate prices through the roof until the sensible thing is, again, to move away (as it is now with the former "high tech centers") is beyond me. Any sensible high tech company would prefer to simply move to the end of the world as long as the internet connection is up to par. And in this economy it's certainly no problem to get your workforce to follow you there.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It already is. Has been for a little while now.
I think a lot of companies are realizing they don't really have to be in San Francisco or Silicon Valley anymore. When an area's cost of living gets too high, any company will try to move non-essential operations somewhere else. I live in metro NYC, so this is a really common thing here too. The only industries that are really rooted in New York City anymore are the publishers, fashion, entertainment to some extent and US investment banks. Even those companies have moved their back offices to Iowa, or Atlanta, or even India. Denver's close enough to California for the SV crowd to travel there quickly and still exert some control.
It kind of sucks because if you're not an executive of one of these companies, you're sometimes relegated to a secondary city and the primary city's economy is disproportionately wealthy. No one would stick a call center in the middle of Silicon Valley for example, but you need a mix of jobs and incomes to make a healthy economy and not create a reality distortion bubble. I'm not surprised that secondary citiies' popularity is increasing -- no one thinks the California real estate situation is reasonable. Even here in NY, the second most insane real estate market in the US, it looks ridiculous. Who would pay $1 million or more for a tiny house in a town requiring a 2 hour commiute to work?
The other thing I've noticed living in a primary city is that it's always been en vogue for people and businesses complaining about the high taxes to move to a low or no income tax state. in the 90s it was Atlanta, the 2000s it was North Carolina, and the 2010s seem to be Florida and Texas for where most NY "tax expats" move. Most people I've talked to with families who've taken the deal love living in a huge house and paying almost nothing in taxes, but complain bitterly about the lack of quality schools and low levels of government service. It's funny how quality schools and tax rates correlate...in some states you really do get what you paid for.
I can't possibly imagine what makes Colorado unique that might make it a good choice for tech developers.
What is it that Colorado has that nobody else has?
What is it that drives tech development that Colorado has that nobody else has?
Man, I can't think of a single thing on this green earth.
High taxes, business-strangling regulations, insane housing prices driven by land-use laws that strangle supply, and the future is further imperiled by unsustainable public pension debt and rising labor costs due to the minimum wage hike.
So I'm sure Denver is benefiting from the exodus of high tech jobs, just like Austin, Durham, DFW, etc.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
Anyone else live in a burgeoning "secondary" tech city?
San Jose. They're tearing down two-story buildings to put up four-story buildings and provide more space. Especially since Apple is developing 4.15 million square feet over the next 15 years in North San Jose.
http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Apple-gets-green-light-for-massive-San-Jose-6786465.php
Usually we think of places like Detroit or Flint as victims of business growth. But apparently the troubles centering around San Francisco are proof that any kind of business or industrial growth ruins the area in which it occurs. Miami Florida is another great example. The more business Miami attracted the worse it became as a place to live. Business attracts potential employees and cities or regions swell. It never seems to end well.
I think the "low cost of living" is relative to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles. The author of this article specifically left San Francisco, which seems to me to be the absolute worst in terms of cost of living.
My cousin lives in Denver. He's been trying to buy a condo. He's been noticing that things go for asking price, or above. He walked away from a condo deal, at asking, because of a totally messed up Home Owner's Association. He'll have to keep looking, but he's feeling a lot of pressure to move quickly due to increasing prices.
I live in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I bought some apartments while in graduate school, working as an intern. Granted, the bank that gave me a loan was shut down for giving too many irresponsible people loans, but I haven't had any problems. My point is, that in a place like Albuquerque, with a very good university and national labs close by, the cost of living is insanely low compared to basically anyplace except rural America, or post-apocalyptic wastelands like Detroit. People that work relatively low-skilled jobs (waiters, waitresses) can buy houses and start families. The lack of existing infrastructure is a HUGE opportunity for people building companies.
There's 2 things always required to become a 'tech hub', neither of which Denver has. First is money - and the article points out that Denver has no corporate HQ's. Second, is a world class education community that feeds technology and is benefactored by the first requirement (money) . Unless there's a tech school University of Denver that's on the same caliber as CIT or UW, this is just smoke
In the Bay Area, the anti-technology left hates geeks. They will smash up your company pool bus and prevent your people from finding housing.
In Denver, these people are legally stoned and will stay out of your way.
The company I work for has a small office (~35 people) in Denver. The entire office is dedicated to data analytics and does a lot of work with massive structured and unstructured data sets.
The company also has a smaller office in Boulder, but from what I understand that office is focused primarily on the energy market.
The OP's observation is really behind the times.
I moved to the Denver area 28+ years ago. Since I got here, the state's population has gone from 3.3M to 5.5M, almost all in the Front Range urban corridor. Much of that growth has been driven by tech, it's just been quiet. The state is consistently in the top several for VC money spent. There's also a long history of Colorado companies reaching a certain size and then being acquired by the giant coastal firms.
The author of the article actually lives in Fort Collins, not Denver, so she'd probably agree.
Fort Collins is no cheaper than Denver. Housing costs have skyrocketed and people lucky enough to find a job here often (ususally?) can't afford to live here. It is no longer a lower-cost Front Range location. If you want that, head for Pueblo or Greeley.
Pot is still illegal under federal law. The entire state of Colorado, Denver included, is subject to federal law.
State police don't enforce this law. But it is still a law and pot possession/sale/use is still illegal in Denver. Once in a while, federal agencies choose to enforce the law (despite the "try not to" executive directive), which they are totally within their rights to do.
It won't be a tech center because Denver has become a magnet for drug related crime and drug addiction. Employers will have a hard time finding law-abiding trustworthy employees who aren't fucking junkies.
ASU Research is top notch. We have 8 months of beautiful weather (albeit 4 months of blistering hot). Taxes are cheap. 4 hours from Vegas. 5 hours from the beaches in San Diego/Los Angeles. 4 Hours from the beaches in Rocky Point, Mexico. You can still buy a house with a pool for about $100K. Roads are mostly brand new and clean. 4 professional sports teams with a pretty lively fan base (Diamondbacks, Cardinals, Suns, and Coyotes). Sure, we don't have the hipster culture like Austin or San Francisco, but if you're into making money and want to live in a nice place and not live paycheck to paycheck, Phoenix area is awesome.
Yeah well it's all fun and games until they win the civil war and declare themselves the capital. Next thing you know they will be breaking us into districts and making our teenagers fight to the death in tournaments that are just rip-offs of Battle Royale. I see what you are doing over there Denver!
Like Calcutta, Manila, Bhangehajabhadad...
If you want to live downtown Ft. Collins, then sure, the housing prices are crazy. If you're willing to live in Wellington or take a longer commute and live up in Livermore or Red Feather Lakes then the housing prices are hilariously low. The house that I own in Livermore would be a multi-million dollar "ranch" in most parts of the country. But, it was probably cheaper than your average downtown shitbox condo in the majority of US cities.
Ask Al Bartlett
"...explained the impact of unending steady growth on the population of Boulder, of Colorado, and of the world. "
http://www.albartlett.org/presentations/arithmetic_population_energy.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI1C9DyIi_8
The result is an influx of narcissistic "high tech" culture, a ballooning of real estate prices, and annihilation of the existing way of life for the people of Denver.
My brother lives in Ft. Collins, I live in North Denver. I speak from personal experience when I say you're full of shit. Ft. Collins is WAY cheaper. Like my house is 2/3 the size of my brothers and on a lot half the size, yet it's worth 50K more.
Orlando, Florida.
You've heard it here first folks.
Denver and Boulder each have have a Startup Week, mostly free seminars to encourage techies and businessmen to talk to each other. I've learned there are native VCs, incubators, coding academies, etc. plus there are major branches of all the major SV companies. Google is building a new 2000 person campus in Boulder. One of the more interesting theme sections this months Boulder Startup Week was you guessed it, the cannabis industry. With over a thousand licensesd businesses there is a need for tech support services. Especially withnthe labyrinth of state and federal laws. There is even a cannabis startup incubator called Boulder Canopy.
Denver is closed, thanks for inquiring. We'll let you know the next time there is an opening.
One thing I notice in Austin is how people move here from the Bay Area or LA, then they move to Denver. The people I know who move there like it there and plan to stay, mainly because of the push and pull factors:
The push factor: Austin has extremely few amenities compared to other cities of its size, and what it does have, are way overcrowded to the point of not even trying. Just heading to a park requires you to pay a parking fee, assuming you can find a place, which is impossible on weekends. There isn't that much scenery, and the local watering holes and parks are extremely overcrowded to the point where you can't just decide to go to a park, you have to plan it well in advance, likely adding a taxi service in the mix. Even Houston, you can go to Bear Creek Park, which has a zoo in it, and insane amounts of parking, all for $0... far larger than Zilker or anything in Austin.
Austin also has weekends where there is just no point in going out. SXSW is a good example, because just parking is $80 a day, and a ticket to events goes in the quad digits... if you are lucky to get one and not have to pay more than that to a scalper. Hotels, similar.
Then there is the cost and issues of living. Austin has no public transportation system to speak of, and the only times light rail hits the ballot, the only places it goes is to take people from an extremely rich section to another extremely rich section for shopping, doing zero to alleviate congestion. The only major construction since 1995 on a highway is to turn it into a tollway, which the price goes up when more people use it (Uber's surge pricing, except applied to tollways.) Rents are so high, I've had co-workers move back to SF, saying it was cheaper to live there.
What I commonly hear is people saying, "I hate Austin, but I'm here since the paychecks are here."
Then, there is the pull factor:
Colorado has a lot more to do. There is public land, when in Texas, there is little to none. Virtually all rest stops have been torn down in the past few years. There are state parks, but they tend to be extremely crowded. Colorado also has places to go and scenery, from higher elevations down to near sea level. The weather is also better than Texas, where in the summer, camping is not fun due to the 100+ degree heat for 2-4 months of the year.
The politics play as well. Most of the people heading to Austin are from blue states, wind up with shock realizing that if they step past Austin, they are in a deep red state (where people still "stump break" their donkeys, and possessing more than four dildos is a state jail felony), and want to move somewhere more aligned with their political views.
Then, there is the crime aspect. Colorado has virtually no crime, and Denver is a place where you can be safe at all hours. Austin? Try going down Dirty Sixth after 11, and learn what being curbstomped will mean.
I've spent the last 2 years working overseas, at a dangerous job in a corrupt country, away from family and friends so I could afford to buy my grand parents house built in the 1980s with asbestos. It is not in Denver per se but in the Denver 'area', similar to how Houston sprawls, so does Denver.
Unfortunately their house is now worth about 500k-600k. Between HOAs, state income tax, and property tax and asbestos liability, I can't afford the house. So much for keeping it in the family.
The fact of the matter is, there is not enough housing many of the cities where many people now want to live. All of the major west coast cities (SF, LA, Portland, Seattle) are having housing problems. Yet the other inland cities (at least for Oregon and Washington) remain affordable but have a significant lack of jobs.
Like it or not the U.S. is facing a housing crisis, at least where the jobs are. Where the jobs are not, housing is still pretty cheap.
I can definitely see some people wanting to move to Colorado for the mountains/outdoors and the legal pot.
I wonder, though, if the legal pot part of it would inhibit established corporations from adding or expanding operations in Colorado. I'm sure a lot of them have the usual corporate employee conduct section that prohibits drug use and some may have the whole company wide drug testing regime.
Would these kinds of companies not want to open/expand offices in Colorado because it creates conflicts in their drug stance or they're worried that it will limit the pool of applicants?
I wonder if any are opportunistic enough or cynical enough to make exceptions in Colorado over this or maybe even smart enough to consider changing their entire corporate policy over it. I would think companies in Silicon Valley would already have dealt with this somewhat considering how easy it is to get a medical marijuana card there.