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America's Most Affordable Cities For Tech Workers: Seattle, Austin, and Pittsburgh (prnewswire.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the perks-of-Pennsylvania dept.

"Seattle tech workers who own their homes can expect to have about $2,000 more in disposable income each month than tech workers in the Bay Area," according to a new study from LinkedIn and Zillow. An anonymous reader writes: "For technology workers who rent, Seattle, Austin and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania came out on top among the housing markets analyzed, with the Bay Area at #4..." the two companies reported. "Salaries for other industries don't hold up as well in the San Francisco area, though. Even highly-paid finance workers keep only about 32 percent of their incomes after paying for housing and taxes. In Charlotte or Chicago, they can pocket a median of 61 percent."

The Bay Area's high housing prices are apparently offset by the high salaries paid there to tech workers, according to the study. Even so, both home owners and renters pay roughly half the median income for housing on the west coast, "while a rental in the middle of the country costs more like 25 percent of the median income."
The report also identified the best cities for health workers -- Phoenix, Indianapolis, and Boston -- as well as for finance workers, who do best in Charlotte, Chicago and Dallas. The top 15 cities for tech workers also included those same cities except Chicago and Phoenix, while also including known tech hotspots like Denver, Atlanta, and Washington, D.C. But surprisingly the top 15 best cities for tech workers also included Detroit, Nashville, St. Paul (Minnesota) and Tampa, Florida.

75 of 127 comments (clear)

  1. Silicon Valley sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Silicon Valley is pretty much a wasteland now. A lot of the real innovation is taking place elsewhere in the country. Silicon Valley is full of companies built on advertising, which is a bubble that's bound to collapse. I can't see why anyone would want to move to Silicon Valley when there are far better options available now, including all of the cities listed in the summary and many others.

    1. Re:Silicon Valley sucks by ctilsie242 · · Score: 1

      What is real innovation? The problem is that the VCs in SV have a narrow focus of what companies they want to get behind. The companies either spit out ads, suck as much data as possible, or both. This is why the Meitu app is such a media darling, even though it does so relatively little. Nothing else appears interesting to the VC people.

      Companies that build foundations (say a company that is looking at an offline messaging protocol as a secure replacement for E-mail internally) will never get funded. While companies that have no revenue except ads are the unicorn startups.

      I would say that things might change. The US military will be getting a shot in the arm for budgets, so it won't be surprising to see a lot of businesses trying to sell the same stuff, except with a camo, "tacti-cool" flair. However, the companies doing this will likely not be from SV, but from states like Texas and Virginia where there is more of an entrenched DoD contractor base.

    2. Re: Silicon Valley sucks by KramberryKoncerto · · Score: 1

      Ads are tried and true so it's hard to argue against it. Technology is often overlooked but making a scalable product at low cost is still highly non-trivial and that has driven internet businesses more than anything else. Yes these inane apps started up in SF really suck off open source and scalable technology and don't contribute much back, but that just proves how low-cost they are and thus how easily they can be profitable as long as they get enough eyes... When it come to business models it's hard to argue with money.

    3. Re: Silicon Valley sucks by ctilsie242 · · Score: 1

      What we get is a lot of people that have great stuff... but do we really need yet another fleshlight app in the store competing with many others, doing the same thing with spewing ads and slurping as much data as the device/user allows? What we really need are companies who pave more roads, be it writing new protocols, doing new peer to peer things, offering better bandwidth at the Internet's edges, etc. It may not pay more for the quarter, but it will be something for the long haul. A few things that come to mind:

      An upgrade to the OpenPGP standard with SaltPack's improvements (forward secrecy, etc.)
      A file archive standard that is a superset of OpenPGP's "PGPZip" packets, with error correction, ability to split files and have recovery records... pretty much what WinRAR brings to the table, except F/OSS so people can build on it.
      A better WORM filesystem than UDF, with cryptographic signing of written packets and ECC in the filesystem to easily find/repair bit rot.
      We used to have 400+ DVD autochangers in the 1990s/early 2000s. Why not replace the DVD player with a BD-XL player. Or, why not have something like Sony's 3.3 TB optical drive (with $188.57 cartridges) be made into a popular, consumer grade appliance. This would be great for ransomware-resistant backups without relying on the cloud.

      There is so much that can be done... it just needs people to not focus on what the crowd is doing, but actually blaze a trail and have a payoff that might be incredible.

  2. Wrong about Austin by mattwarden · · Score: 5, Funny

    Article is wrong about Austin. It's very expensive. And there are no jobs for tech workers. And it's dirty. With marauding gangs of looters. Many reports of paranormal activity. High risk of pandemic or terrorist attack. No housing supply.

    And no Uber!

    No, no. You don't want to move to Austin. Don't even bother checking it out.

    1. Re: Wrong about Austin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      And don't forget that Texas college girls are universally unattractive.

    2. Re: Wrong about Austin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It's not quite right about Seattle. That was true a few years ago, but the housing market has blown up. I blame the cost of home ownership on a combination of large hiring sprees with vestments and housing speculation.

      I have a nice home not too close to the city, but the commute can be a terror without the motorcycle.

      I was considering some other tech cities, but everyone seems to suffering the same issues. I miss the sun ;)

      Also it's hard to find a place that will pay me gobs of cash. The up and downside to getting there first.

    3. Re: Wrong about Austin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Also, there's no bars or nightlife. And no weed either. Nosiree, there's definitely no weed.

    4. Re:Wrong about Austin by Carewolf · · Score: 1

      Haha, what did Austin do to you? :D

    5. Re:Wrong about Austin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Nice try, but you won't keep people away like that.

      You should have said - Austin is in Texas, and you will be forced to watch football and go hunting.

      Watch the techies scream and run away.

    6. Re:Wrong about Austin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      My bet is - it gave him a good house, and a nice place to live, and he doesn't want it invaded by hipsters and techies.

    7. Re:Wrong about Austin by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 2

      Article is wrong about Austin. It's very expensive. And there are no jobs for tech workers. And it's dirty. With marauding gangs of looters. Many reports of paranormal activity. High risk of pandemic or terrorist attack. No housing supply.

      I thought South by Southwest was over already.

    8. Re: Wrong about Austin by NatasRevol · · Score: 1

      Friend moved there. Has 4 kids, so 5 br house. He's looking at about $1.2M for a nice house. Yikes.

      --
      There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
    9. Re:Wrong about Austin by dane23 · · Score: 1

      Too late

      --


      Warning! Keep Out of Eyes! Wash Out with Water! Don't Drink Soap! Dilute! Dilute!
    10. Re:Wrong about Austin by plopez · · Score: 2

      Why would I want to move to TX? Any state that slaughters its own citizens is a horrible place to live.

      --
      putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
    11. Re:Wrong about Austin by mattwarden · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Thank you. I forgot to mention that one. Don't move here unless you want to be slaughtered by the state government.

    12. Re:Wrong about Austin by nbritton · · Score: 2

      I concur, traffic is worse then Chicago, also the summers can reach 120 and North Korea is targeting Austin...

      http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...

      Don't move here, don't even come to visit... traffic is already a bitch.

    13. Re: Wrong about Austin by thundercattt · · Score: 1

      They're also wrong about Seattle. You know Seattle is expensive when Vancouver is called poor man's Seattle by tech workers.

    14. Re:Wrong about Austin by buss_error · · Score: 4, Funny

      All kidding aside, I had to drive through Austin during SXSW... Took almost 4 hours. A family member lives in Austin, about 2 miles from the grocery store. It takes an hour each way by car on days of "normal" traffic, longer if there's a traffic jam. Much faster to walk to the store. And this is Texas. We don't walk up the isle to get married - we drive.

      --
      Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
    15. Re:Wrong about Austin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Yeah, and they don't even use the meat.

    16. Re:Wrong about Austin by mattwarden · · Score: 1

      Thanks, I forgot that one too. Austin has a severe undersupply of coastal elitism.

    17. Re:Wrong about Austin by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      To be fair, the citizens are pretty scary. :-)

    18. Re: Wrong about Austin by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      I realize you jest, but a couple of points:

      1) If you're a tech worker looking at moving to a new city, unless you're a fresh-out looking for your first job, chances are you're far enough past college-aged that college girls are not at all a consideration in a new location.

      2) While American college girls can be very pretty, just wait until they pass the age of 30. They'll mostly turn into fat, unpleasant, entitled and spoiled women. No thanks.

    19. Re: Wrong about Austin by mattwarden · · Score: 1

      You may not be from the US, so you may be unaware that we, the patriarchy, have burdened every attractive college age woman with many tens of thousands of dollars of student debt in an effort to make older men who can afford a Big Mac or better appear quite a catch.

  3. Seattle? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Seattle is expensive as hell, the internet is garbage, and the weather is cloudy every day. Your two major companies, Amazon and Microsoft, are constantly looking for ways to outsource you or get you to work extra hours for free.

    Fuck Seattle.

    1. Re:Seattle? by cheesybagel · · Score: 1

      Yeah but a lot of companies are there or moving there as well like Occulus or even SpaceX who started their satellite division there.

  4. It's one of the things that bother's me by rsilvergun · · Score: 4, Interesting

    about the H1-Bs (and I know I'm being petty, but hey, I'm getting my ass kicked here financially). They're a captive audience for the renters. There's no way they're gonna buy a home while they're here on work visas. So they drive up my rent substantially. Maybe if I made enough to afford a down payment on a home but, well, with my wages depressed like this that ain't happening...

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:It's one of the things that bother's me by Mashiki · · Score: 5, Informative

      Come to Canada, guess what happens when they can buy houses(or family who can do it for them)? The price of housing goes through the roof, and now you can't afford a house or rent. It gets compounded because of the outside real estate investment that goes on too. Vancouver is one of the worst places for this double-whammy, and then there's the whole "empty house" problem(8.8% in Vancouver). Watch Seattle(and Toronto, Ontario), since Vancouver put in a foreign buyers tax they've started buying up there as well.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
  5. Funny, that's not what I've heard about Seattle by darthsilun · · Score: 1

    I've been told it's quite expensive, although it's not San Francisco and Silicon Valley expensive.

    1. Re:Funny, that's not what I've heard about Seattle by Osgeld · · Score: 1

      depends, if you want to live in a modest older house without a bunch of updates, and live more than a bike ride from your work, its not that bad... if you want to live in a fresh HGTV mcmansion then yes its very expensive (but again not like the bay area CA expensive)

      now I will tell you the traffic is horrible, I had to go to kirkland for a IPC training class last summer, which is the first time I set foot in the area in 10 years, so in 2006 that 20 min drive would have taken about 45min maybe an hour, it took us from airport to Kirkland almost an hour and a half, at 6pm, no wrecks or anything just congestion

    2. Re:Funny, that's not what I've heard about Seattle by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 2

      depends, if you want to live in a modest older house without a bunch of updates, and live more than a bike ride from your work, its not that bad... if you want to live in a fresh HGTV mcmansion then yes its very expensive (but again not like the bay area CA expensive)

      Please define "not that bad".

      I work at UW, but live an hour away (by train + light rail). A friend who lives in Seattle was recently telling me about her $1600/month rent for what is basically a studio, within walking distance of UW. Is that considered inexpensive nowadays?

      We bought our house (where I am commuting from now) in the 1990s, so it's been that long since I rented in Seattle - so my question is actually intended to be serious. But my house payment is less than half that. :-D

      --
      #DeleteChrome
    3. Re:Funny, that's not what I've heard about Seattle by subanark · · Score: 2

      It's all relative to how much you make. I pay $1600 rent to live 15 minute walk from work (1 bedroom) and still manage to have 20K left over every year in my entry level job (that includes generous contributions to retirement). If I had a family, I probably would take that $1000 house rental that is an hour drive away.

      Protip: leave for work at 6:30, you can beat traffic that way.

    4. Re:Funny, that's not what I've heard about Seattle by Osgeld · · Score: 1

      Please define "not that bad".

      late mid - late 80's not updated but in good condition with of course mechanical upgrades over the years

      and shit even out here in the sticks of TN its 1500$ for a mcmansion 2 bedroom apartment ... or like 800 bucks a month for morgage + insurance + taxes in escro for a decent 3 bedroom house

      rent is not a realistic expectation of property value, its only a realistic expectation of how much a fool will spend to not assume the slightest responsibility

    5. Re:Funny, that's not what I've heard about Seattle by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      rent is not a realistic expectation of property value, its only a realistic expectation of how much a fool will spend to not assume the slightest responsibility

      I dunno, its all tradeoffs. I made out pretty well in one respect - bought my place in the mid-90's paid it off in 15 years, and now have no mortgage. But most people don't work that way. Most takt a whole 30 years to pay it off, or even more when they extract and extend through re-fi's.

      Because the responsibility you avoid is all of the maintenance. When you need a new roof or have a plumbing problem or the furnace or AC needs fixed or replaced you don't get to call the super, you get to call someone who fixes things for a profit, and pay for it yourself. Or of course you can do it yourself, using up your time.

      The idea that buying is always better than renting is how we get ourselves into housing bubbles and overpriced housing. And for many, a financial mess.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    6. Re:Funny, that's not what I've heard about Seattle by painandgreed · · Score: 1

      It's all relative to how much you make. I pay $1600 rent to live 15 minute walk from work (1 bedroom) and still manage to have 20K left over every year in my entry level job (that includes generous contributions to retirement). If I had a family, I probably would take that $1000 house rental that is an hour drive away.

      Sounds like me and I was living right on Capitol Hill. Still, I realized my rent would only go up and $1600 is a mortgage. Now I have a 30 minute commute but have the $1600/month locked in, and extra rooms for hobbies, guests, parties, etc. I was tempted by condos closer to work, but HOAs scare me and I wanted that extra room for hobbies.

  6. Personal opinion: Pittsburgh is the best by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Low cost housing, many distinct old ethnic neighborhoods and restaurants, good school districts. Rails-to-trails have created many wonderful biking walking trails. Will feel all the four seasons. Only negatives are the narrow single laned roads. Very pictureque and beautiful, as long as you don't have to go anywhere in a hurry, it is great.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    1. Re:Personal opinion: Pittsburgh is the best by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Low cost housing, many distinct old ethnic neighborhoods and restaurants, good school districts. Rails-to-trails have created many wonderful biking walking trails. Will feel all the four seasons. Only negatives are the narrow single laned roads. Very pictureque and beautiful, as long as you don't have to go anywhere in a hurry, it is great.

      It's an amazing place. The old smokey city is long gone, and in it's place a jewel was forged.

      My favorite way to come into the burgh is through the Fort Pitt Tunnel. You enter the tunnelfrom the south, with nothing but trees and a mountainside. Then when you exit - its like the Wizard of Oz, a city sprung up suddenly from nowhere, all scrubbed clean and pretty. In recent years they took to painting all of the bridges yellow - sounds odd, but looks cool, and yellow and black are the city's colors.

      And if you run out of things to do there, it's your fault.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  7. Q: How many Austinites... by Nova+Express · · Score: 3, Funny

    ...does it take to change a light bulb?

    A: Eight. One to change the bulb, and seven to talk about how much better the light bulbs were at the Armadillo World Headquarters...

    --
    Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)

    http://www.lawrenceperson.com/

    1. Re:Q: How many Austinites... by mattwarden · · Score: 4, Funny

      I don't get it. Everyone here was born in Cali or the Midwest, and they couldn't pick an armadillo out of a lineup.

    2. Re:Q: How many Austinites... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Armadillo is that city in the North Texas Panhandle, it's where they serve 48 oz steaks.

      I saw it on Man vs. Common Sense.

    3. Re:Q: How many Austinites... by mattwarden · · Score: 4, Informative

      That's Amarillo. I've been to that steakhouse. Quite a spectacle

    4. Re:Q: How many Austinites... by Bowling+Moses · · Score: 1

      I drove through parts of the midwest to visit family in Texas two years ago and started spotting Armadillo roadkill in central Missouri. You can find armadillos in Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, as well as extreme southern Illinois and Indiana. Prior to ~1850 armadillos were not found north of the Rio Grande. That's not to say that much of the growth of Austin (and Houston and Dallas) isn't due to yankees though.

    5. Re:Q: How many Austinites... by BlueStrat · · Score: 1

      I drove through parts of the midwest to visit family in Texas two years ago and started spotting Armadillo roadkill in central Missouri. You can find armadillos in Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, as well as extreme southern Illinois and Indiana. Prior to ~1850 armadillos were not found north of the Rio Grande.

      Quite a few armadillos in Florida as well. You do NOT want to hit one in a vehicle!! Hitting one is like hitting a rock the same size. For those unfamiliar with the infamous " 'Dillo", Google some images for size perspective. Damage to the tires, rims, and suspension and undercarriage as well as the engine are common and often quite severe, requiring a tow and major repairs. Hitting one while driving relatively fast can easily cause a fatal accident. Hitting an armadillo at any decent speed on a motorcycle means a heavy date with the pavement and a rekt scooter at the very least. Happened to a few friends of mine over the course of years while living in FL.

      Weird-looking animals, but normally quite non-aggressive and will typically curl up in an 'armored' ball when approached if they can't scurry off. Still, it's a bad idea to hurt one, or to corner a frightened 'dillo, as they have formidable digging claws that they will use if they feel truly threatened.

      Strat

      --
      Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
    6. Re:Q: How many Austinites... by SScorpio · · Score: 1

      You also don't want to mess with them as they can carry leprosy.

  8. Pittsburgh is fine ... by OzPeter · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Pittsburgh is a great place unless you want to see the horizon. With all those rolling hills the most you can really see in any direction is about a 1/2 mile. After growing up in a place where I could see the horizon I actually felt a bit claustrophobic in Pittsburgh.

    And it ranks just behind Seattle for cloudy days, so don;t plan on seeing much in the way of sunlight.

    https://www.currentresults.com...

    At the opposite end of the spectrum I loved living and working in Salt Lake City for the vistas and the sunshine (other things not so much)

    --
    I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
    1. Re:Pittsburgh is fine ... by cthulhu11 · · Score: 1

      Listing Seattle as affordable is also ludicrous, it's fast becoming San Francisco Norte. I suspect Redkirkland was included in those calculations, given MS's compensation everyone there can afford a McMansion. The housing price inflation covers the whole region and hits hard those who don't work for MSFT.

  9. Austin's rents keep rising... by Nova+Express · · Score: 2

    ...but yeah, even with that, $250,000 will still buy you a nice house in the Austin area. Good look finding anything like that anywhere near Silicon Valley...

    Just one of the many, many advantages Texas has over California.

    --
    Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)

    http://www.lawrenceperson.com/

    1. Re:Austin's rents keep rising... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      Just one of the many, many advantages Texas has over California [battleswarmblog.com].

      That blog post is a load of bullshit. But, hey, what do you expect from a low reg, low tax state.

      http://www.theblaze.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/RTSHf.Xl_.4.jpeg

  10. But How Much is That in... by pipingguy · · Score: 4, Funny

    "about $2,000 more in disposable income each month"

    That's, like, almost 5 new MacBook Pros every year! If you don't count all the adaptors you'd need.

  11. Seattle.. by HockeyPuck · · Score: 1

    Seattle may be affordable for Amazon/MSFT employees, but that's only because Seattle is about 5 years behind SF. Housing prices, traffic are skyrocketing and if you have a job where you don't get options (teacher/fire fighter for example)... it's time to leave.

    1. Re:Seattle.. by afgam28 · · Score: 1

      +1

      There's so many people who seem to think that the solution to the crazy SF rental market is: move to Seattle, Austin or Pittsburgh! They're the best of both worlds; they've got big-city opportunities and small-town traffic/rents! The only problem is that if everyone does that, then Seattle, Austin and Pittsburgh will all become as expensive and congested as San Francisco.

      One of the things that annoys me is that none of these cities are making any meaningful effort to learn from the problems that the SF Bay Area has encountered.

      It's easy to design a transportation system for a small town, and it's easy to make housing affordable in a small town. But try to scale that up to a big city and then things get difficult. You can't have everyone drive to work in a big city, without having horrible congestion. You can't easily make housing more affordable when large numbers of existing homeowners vote down any policies they think will make their property values will go down, or change their neighborhood in some way that makes it a little different from how it was at whatever period that they moved there.

      None of these cities has a good public transit system. Austin is the worst. Even Seattle only has some buses and one "train" line (it's really a tram, not a train) so this does not count IMO.

      So tech workers could move to one of these cities, and maybe they'll even be lucky enough to delay the problem long enough that they can pass it on to their children. But what I really hope will happen is that Bay Area voters will vote for politicians that want to provide better public transport, and build more housing supply. And that voters in Seattle, Austin and Pittsburgh will do the same, and avoid running into these problems in the first place.

    2. Re:Seattle.. by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      The problem is that there simply is no solution to the problems you complain about. The only thing you can do is enjoy the good times while they last, get out of it what you can (which perhaps could mean buying into the realty market before it explodes), and then get out when things go downhill and move on to the next green pasture.

      The problems you cite:
      1) congestion (including public transit)
      2) housing costs

      For congestion, there's simply nothing that can be done. You're always going to have lots of congestion when all traffic has to move along a 2-dimensional planar route: at the intersections, there's going to be congestion. Public transit doesn't work because it has to follow the same roads as cars and stop at the same stoplights (for buses), and for other modes (subways) they're horrifically expensive and completely inflexible. They only sorta-work in places where geography limits the building, like Manhattan. Even in NYC, public transit is terrible if you can't afford to live in Manhattan; go ask the people in the Bronx or Staten Island or even Queens how they like their subways. Add into that that the public transit has to stop at every stop along the way, and can only follow fixed routes, and the larger the city is, the worse it's going to be; there's simply no way to move people between arbitrary points in the metro area quickly. There technically is a faster way, which is personal rapid transit, but no one believes it'll work so it cannot work, and will never get funding to be developed to prove it works, so it'll forever remain something in sci-fi.

      For housing, there's simply nothing that can be done. This is greatly affected by #1 of course, as congestion worsens when more people move farther out to where housing is more affordable. The only ways to change this are to build higher, so you pack more people into smaller footprints, and to change zoning to encourage this. But this doesn't work that well because existing homeowners fight against it politically, so the rate of density increase is always far behind the rate of congestion increase.

      So in summary, there's simply no solution to this stuff which doesn't involve having an unelected authoritarian regime take over and forcibly mold society to their whims. The best thing regular people can do is to take advantage of the situation while they can, and for their kids to help prepare them to do the same.

    3. Re:Seattle.. by painandgreed · · Score: 1

      Seattle may be affordable for Amazon/MSFT employees, but that's only because Seattle is about 5 years behind SF. Housing prices, traffic are skyrocketing and if you have a job where you don't get options (teacher/fire fighter for example)... it's time to leave.

      It seems that is because, unlike SF, Seattle is tearing everything down and building new housing. Luckily, most all of our historic old buildings are in Pioneer Square. Old housing and commercial spots though most of the city are being replaced with giganormous dual use complexes. However, while this does provide lost of new housing, it's all expensive because it's brand new. All the cheap housing of Seattle have disappeared.

  12. Cleveland! by dg41 · · Score: 1

    Cleveland has a growing technology sector. It's highly affordable, we have awesome restaurants and breweries and fantastic cultural sights (art museum, PlayhouseSquare, etc.).

  13. News stories say that is true. More detail: by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 4, Informative

    News stories I've found indicate what you said is correct:

    Seattle: Together with abusive companies and bad city management, Seattle is a miserable place.

    Houses in Seattle are expensive: Seattle bumps Boston as the most expensive U.S. housing market that's not in California.

    Rent is expensive: Seattle rent is 5th most expensive in U.S.

    Traffic: Seattle one of the worst U.S. cities for traffic congestion, tied with NYC (March 31, 2015) Quote: "An additional 23 minutes a day spent in traffic may not sound like much, but when it adds up over a year it becomes 89 hours." (Whoever wrote that must be accustomed to Seattle misery. An additional 23 minutes a day spent in traffic sounds HORRIBLE.)

    Slow internet: Many areas of Seattle have poor internet connections. See the article, These places have the slowest Internet in the country. (June 25, 2015) Quote: "... Seattle ... CenturyLink (CTL) customers trying to access particular sites from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. will have unbearably slow speeds."

    Microsoft: Microsoft Is Filled With Abusive Managers And Overworked Employees, Says Tell-All Book (May 23, 2012)

    Amazon: Worse than Wal-Mart: Amazon's sick brutality and secret history of ruthlessly intimidating workers (February 23, 2014)

    Amazon: Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace (August 15, 2015) Quote: "The company is conducting an experiment in how far it can push white-collar workers..."

    Amazon: Amazon Under Fire Over Alleged Worker Abuse in Germany (February 19, 2013)

    1. Re:News stories say that is true. More detail: by sphealey · · Score: 1

      = = = Seattle: Together with abusive companies and bad city management, Seattle is a miserable place.

      Houses in Seattle are expensive: Seattle bumps Boston as the most expensive U.S. housing market that's not in California. [geekwire.com]

      Rent is expensive: Seattle rent is 5th most expensive in U.S. [curbed.com] = = =

      Your points 2 and 3 and difficult to reconcile with point 1, at least from a microeconomic point of view. And all techies are good free market purists, right?

      sPh

    2. Re:News stories say that is true. More detail: by painandgreed · · Score: 1

      = = = Seattle: Together with abusive companies and bad city management, Seattle is a miserable place.

      Houses in Seattle are expensive: Seattle bumps Boston as the most expensive U.S. housing market that's not in California. [geekwire.com]

      Rent is expensive: Seattle rent is 5th most expensive in U.S. [curbed.com] = = =

      Your points 2 and 3 and difficult to reconcile with point 1, at least from a microeconomic point of view. And all techies are good free market purists, right?

      sPh

      I've been in Seattle for the last 20+ years. I don't find it miserable and neither do my friends. Housing has exploded in the last couple of years and rents are increasing but remember that WA has no income tax and gets taxes through property taxes which is included in rent, so when comparing, you need to compare WA rents to other places rent plus stat income tax. People are having to move out of Cap Hill and central Seattle and many are buying houses. Two years ago I was looking at $200k houses five miles away from downtown that hit all my bullet points, half a year ago when I finally got serious, that had become ten miles for $350k and a high chance of getting out bid anyway. Traffic is horrible, mostly because of geography since Seattle is a penninsula with lots of hills and the main highway goes through the middle of town, was built in the 60's, and has no room to be expanded. Most of the people I've known that have worked for Microsoft have liked working there, but the past constant re-orgs make that difficult and some groups do suck. Amazon also sucks but you have to understand that both the company and the workers with a clue are gaming the system by having unexperienced employees work to death for 18 months when they leave with their padded resume for a better job.

      Not to say that parts of Seattle are no longer there as the population has doubled since the .com boom. The small venue new music aspect of Seattle was killed in the late 90's. Cheap dive bars are hard to find in Seattle proper if any still exist. Things are too expensive for a good art culture which has been moving out to places like Georgetown since the .com boom also, and now they are being forced out of there. Not sure where it will be moving next. Tacoma is cheap (houses were a quarter of what they are in Settle 30 miles away) but the commute is an hour and half one way and apparently art and culture are controlled by entrenched locals who drive off new people. Olympia seems to be the new place to go.

  14. China and India? by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    China is loaded with cheap and not that safe work places where people make like $0.50-$1.25 USD per hour
    India in some ways others mills of cheap workers chained to there usa jobs.

  15. Are you kidding? by s.petry · · Score: 1

    As you should have noticed by the thread, techies are not adept at sarcasm.

    --

    -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

  16. how about just about any Midwestern city? by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Oh ... by "tech workers" you meant "people who work for big name tech companies".

  17. Pittsburgh, that high tech mecca? by YesIAmAScript · · Score: 2

    If you're going to list Pittsburgh as a city for tech workers, you might as well list Detroit too. And it's very cheap.

    And yes, Quicken Loans has quite a few tech workers there.

    --
    http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
  18. percentages vs absolute by slew · · Score: 1

    Who gives a shit what percentage of your income you spend in a rental? More important is how much absolute money you have left after paying for housing (e.g, the amount you spend on food, entertainment, retirement savings, etc). Seems to me that optimizing for housing percentage of salary is totally bogus.

    However, more important is quality of life and the metropolitan area you live in is generally less important than exactly where you live in that city and what you like to do with your spare time. For example, if you like the sun, Seattle sunshine is a bit scarce (for my taste anyhow). On the other hand, if you want to live in your parent's basement you probably can't do that in Cali as most houses don't have basements and affordable houses tend to be on the small size (not to mention the difficutlies if your parent's don't actually live there). If you like fishing and barbecue, don't go to Austin (but there are plenty of places near enough to Austin to commute for that, although the traffic is getting a bit prohibitive for that). Don't know much about Pittsburgh (only visited twice). Seems like it might be nice, except in the winter (when my father-in-law got snowed in for a couple days).

  19. People don't have a clear understanding. by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 1

    guess that a lot of people don't understand all the details.

    Getting a job at Microsoft or Amazon is considered, by some people, as good support for getting future jobs.

    Suppose you have lived for years in Seattle. Your friends are there. You have spent years learning to make yourself comfortable there. You wouldn't want to move. And, if you decide to move, to where?

    There are people who make huge amounts of money who are willing to accept that there are some surroundings that are miserable.

    Mostly, however, I think I don't fully understand the sociology of Seattle.

  20. Also Wrong about Seattle by n329619 · · Score: 1

    The article is also wrong about Seattle. It's freezing over there and really cold. You wouldn't like the weather. Unlike the bay area, the squirrels wouldn't even come out to bite your nuts. Not to mention the heating bills, they are very expensive compare to the bay area. The housing in Seattle is so expensive that you'll feel empty from all those mountains in the background.

    No, you don't want to move to Seattle. And don't google about it either.

  21. Seattle? by p51d007 · · Score: 1

    When? 10-20 years ago maybe. Have relatives that live in Kirkland (near Redmond) They say it's NUTS to live IN Seattle.

  22. How do they factor in state lines? by PPalmgren · · Score: 1

    I live in Charlotte, and a large chunk of people live in South Carolina (Fort Mill, Rock Hill, etc) and drive to Charlotte to work. Do these get factored in to the "market" or is it specifically focused on the Mecklenburg county metropolitan area?

    The SC locations would certainly depress the average cost of living if they're factored in. You can get a lot of house for very little money, ~$100/sqft for average acommodations and $150-200 for luxury accomodation. However, there's definitely appears to be a housing bubble starting in Charlotte. Too high a percentage of luxury apartments when compared to other cities, and housing in certain areas is so competitive that the average days on market in my zip code is less than a week, and often houses sell in less than a day with a pre-emptive open-house starting a bidding war. Some of my coworkers took 6-8 months to find a house where they wanted it for school reasons.

    Personally, I own a condo in a booming area but will probably move to a house in SC in the near future, within driving distance to Charlotte. HB2 has done quite a bit of damage to commerce in NC, no matter how loud the idiots in Raleigh want to scream that it hasn't. The guys in Asheville have been hit the worst but I see it here as well.

    1. Re:How do they factor in state lines? by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      HB2 has done quite a bit of damage to commerce in NC, no matter how loud the idiots in Raleigh want to scream that it hasn't. The guys in Asheville have been hit the worst but I see it here as well.

      So anyhow, have the good people of North Carolina hired their peen and vagygy inspectors yet?

      All of their moral idiocy aside, the rank stupidity of people who think such a thing is enforceable tells the rest of the world that it will be really hard to find anyone competent, or that they're spending all their time thinking about peens and vagygy's, and conflating places to take a dump with sex. Damn - they're dumb perverts.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  23. Optimally by kilodelta · · Score: 2

    I work in Boston, live in Providence. Best of both worlds - salaries higher, costs lower in home city.

  24. Um. No. by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 1

    No, Seattle is not one of the most affordable cities for tech workers.

    Maybe Bellingham or Spokane.

    Next fake claim you'll make is that Vancouver BC is one of the most affordable cities for tech workers - and it's always cost twice as much for housing in Vancouver BC as in Seattle, where apparently I can rent my spare bedroom for $2200 a month.

    I claim Fake News.

    --
    -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
  25. Pittsburgh is losing its identity by Lord+Kano · · Score: 1

    So much is being done to attract people to the region that it is making it unbearable for those of us who have always been here. We're giving up lanes on major city streets to make room for bike lanes that are only usable for 5 months out of the year.

    The city just removed the chairs from Market Square to make more room for the patrons of the upscale restaurants that surround the place.

    The glut of well-to-do out of towners has led to the gentrification of several areas like Homewood, The Hill District and East Liberty which is in turn creating problems out in the suburbs. Basically, people are going in and buying blocks of low value property, renovating them and charging more for rent than the current occupants can afford. Those people move further and further away from the city and when you have an influx of low income people, a small but extremely destructive minority of drug dealers comes with them. We have had numerous heroin busts just a few miles from my house in an area that never saw that kind of activity before.

    When people like me complain about it, we're met with the response that this is how things go in other cities. My reply is that if I wanted to live in those cities, I'd move there. I live in Pittsburgh and I like it.

    LK

    --
    "Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
    1. Re:Pittsburgh is losing its identity by Lord+Kano · · Score: 1

      You don't know anything about the city, and probably weren't born there.

      I was born out of state but I have been here in Pittsburgh since I was an infant, more than 40 years.

      I bike year round in Pittsburgh, with studded tires for use in the winter.

      I'm sure that you and the three other people who will face sub-zero temperatures on their bikes appreciate it but those lanes would be more useful with cars in them.

      The chairs at Market Square were removed due to issues with loitering and drug use

      I believe that those excuses were pretexts.

      How does removing amenities make "more room" anyway?

      By providing more space for outdoor dining areas for the restaurants. When (not if) they expand, that seating will be private property that can be limited to paying customers.

      Gentrification of the Hill District is a strange thing

      It's not just the Hill District. It's Homewood and East Liberty too. 10-15 years ago, it was Lawrenceville. I suspect that the Hazelwood/Glenwood area will be next.

      The drug problems are real, but they were real in the 1980's too, it's just white people didn't notice except when they saw them on Hill Street Blues.

      Nice try but it's not going to work here. I'm not white. I lived in the Duquesne projects back in the 1970s. I was harassed by cops during the drug wars in the 1990s. There is a black middle class in the region and most of us moved to the suburbs to escape the problems of the city. Now the city is sending those problems our way.

      LK

      --
      "Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
    2. Re:Pittsburgh is losing its identity by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      So much is being done to attract people to the region that it is making it unbearable for those of us who have always been here.

      That's called survival for the city. Its also the normal reaction that many people have as they age. I have a childhood memory of going to Forbes Field with my father and uncle to watch the Pirates play. Some time in the 1960's Must have been the last year before it was torn down. I remember the burgh was about as grim a place as I could imagine. Shuttered steel mills. Dreary run down houses, and there was that big black skyscraper that looked like something that the devil would live in (Cathedral of Learning) Black from the soot. It's returned to the original color now. Fortunately, that Pittsburgh is long gone.

      My reply is that if I wanted to live in those cities, I'd move there. I live in Pittsburgh and I like it

      And you ought to, because it's a darn nice place. It can't stay frozen in time. In Pittsburgh they reinvented themselves - otherwise it would have become a Pennsylvania version of Detroit.

      GO Pens.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    3. Re:Pittsburgh is losing its identity by Lord+Kano · · Score: 1

      I get it. That's a part of why I typically try to negotiate non-standard start times when I take a position. Starting work at 09:30 makes for a much more relaxed commute both to and from work.

      If/When telecommuting become the norm, most of my problems will be behind me because I'll be able to live and work far enough outside of the city that none of their decisions will have any impact upon me.

      LK

      --
      "Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
  26. Shameless Plugs by ElizabethGreene · · Score: 1

    I've worked in Austin, and the traffic wasn't terrible for me. Waze made a huge difference. YMMV.
    IMHO, it's worth living in this city solely for the ATX hackerspace and the fantastically well equipped TechShop.

    I live in Nashville and I love it here. IT is in strong demand and the cost of living is low. No state income tax on wages is fantastic. I wish our airport was still a hub though. Always having to make connections sucks.

  27. I would if I could by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    I made a mess of my life and don't have a college degree. OTOH if I'd graduated college I probably wouldn't have noticed how bad things are in America. I'd be making enough money I could have weathered the storms that hit me. OTOH again if I was the sort of person that coulda got through a college degree I probably wouldn't have had those storms (which were mostly caused by bad decisions made by family members I couldn't see myself abandoning. Shit happens).

    That's the trouble with there being no safety net...

    --
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