Slashdot Mirror
On Keeping Geeks in a Metropolitan Area
apocalypse_now asks: "I live in Pittsburgh, and the city is trying its damnest to attract young people, especially those involved in high-tech -- much like every other city in the country. My question is, how can they do this effectively? I know that they are trying, but they just don't seem to understand the concept of attracting geeks. What would an optimal geek city be?" Interesting thought. What keeps you folks where you are at the moment (especially you Pittsburgh readers)?"
(More)
apocalypse_now continues:
"...Just so you know, I don't work for the city -- I am a resident geek at a local university.
Pittsburgh has large research institutions in various high-tech fields -- robotics, computer engineering, bioengineering, and so on. CMU and UPMC are two of the largest and most well-known research institutions in the country. There are jobs. And yet, Pittsburgh loses people every year. Almost all graduates leave the city and region. So what can the city do to make geeks feel at home -- to make them feel that they are not only needed, but truly wanted? And would this even be enough to get people to move somewhere?"
I think that cheap high bandwidth internet access would be a major plus since most people want connectivity and usually go where it is the best.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
You need a Fry's (if you've been to Silicon Valley and seen one you know what I mean. If you haven't, then you have no conception.)
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
I like the kickass clubs, beach, pier, social scene and the relatively easy commute to London 60 miles north.
stty erase ^H
I think it is obvious that geeks want high bandwidth, like cable modems and DSL. That is one of the most important things to me, anyway.
Research jobs are a good start, but they aren't enough to keep a large population of geeks happy. The real success to geek freedom are software companies, doing active development, and lots of them. Branches which do marketing or sales only aren't of any help, besides recruiting young geeks to wherever the real work is done. And you need more than one or two major companies in the area to give geeks the freedom of choice, and make them feel they can walk away from their current job and get rehired without having to move halfway across the country. One thing I have noticed is that the east coast is short of non-consulting programming jobs - and some of us don't want to be flying around the country four days out of five on 60 hour a week jobs (cough, no company names here!). That's why Silicon Valley and Redmond have taken off - you need two or three major companies and a whole slew of new startups to make a geek truely happy - the critical mass of availible work. Just my $.02
Tepp
A person will stay in an area if he is happy there. Period.
Happiness is brought about in various ways, to various people.
For example, I just graduated from school in May. Now, I'm getting paid a lot to do a job that I find quite easy. I live in a good neighborhood, where it's relatively quiet. After 5 years of living in a fraternity house, I figure I could really enjoy a couple of years of peace and quiet. I'm pretty happy with it. There's some minor things to bar my happiness, such as all this damn debt I've accumlated over 5 years of school, but still, life is good.
However, that's me. Other people graduating look for other things, and what they look for is as varied as the people themselves. There is no one true "geek" profile to go by.
---
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Well, this is what I would want:
High Bandwidth, definitely
Clean, safe environment
Reasonable living costs
Reasonable living space
Culture - Theaters, cinemas, galleries, museums
IMHO, as per
J:)
Oh well, no point in steering now.
more topless bars and strip clubs!!!!!!
My thoughts:
Corporate culture in a city is important. California is more enjoyable than Boston(where I'm at now) because it is more relaxed / less suit-and-tie.
Rent!!! I was working in Phoenix for a while, and it was spectacular. $750 / month for a split-level second floor 2 bedroom apartment in a really nice complex. Compare that to sillycon valley or Boston or DC metro.
Entertainment and all of the other nice things help, but if I could find somewhere that had a good cost of living / corporate culture combination, I would be much more likely to stick around.
good. fast. cheap. (pick any two, you can't have all three)
Usually these places are just crappy wintel and software outlets but I may be a little uninformed (I had a rather unpleaseant experience trying to get an hp48g serial link cable for the calculator)
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
If the city pays for a MAN and extends fiber to the house at a low cost, it would be a great first step. I hear Abingdon VA is doing that very thing right now, the only problem is that it's a small town in the middle of nowhere.
There is no IGC. All the Geek Cities in the US attract people for different reasons.
Boston: Intellectual climate. Where else can you
attend a Rivest or Chomsky lecture on your lunch hour? Great public transportation.
SV: Weather, vast ocean of different jobs, vast ocean period. When you are in the SV you are two
hours tops away from any type of terrain/activity.
Intellectual climate: Stanford, Berkeley.
San Diego: Weather.
NYC: It _is_ the center of the world.
Atlanta: CNN, lots of telecom.
It requires a seed group of people to create a place of interest. What seeds were planted in Pittsburgh?
Never send anything unencrypted that you don't want to have appear in court.
...to use those closing tags, kids!
Well, geek stores are a must. Electronics places,
software shops, etc..
But the ambiance of the city is a tough one to change, and a tough one to get right. Seattle and the Bay area work because they're about the right combination of post-60s hippy-ism (?!), techno-geekery, and left-wing sentiment.
Of course, feeling important is a big draw for any and everyone, which means that a thriving geek community is the best way to bring in more geeks.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Well, besides cheap high bandwidth access, which is becoming ubiquitous everywhere except Kansas, who needs a city? I'm happily living out my geekdom in a smallish college town, and I love it. As for attracting geeks? I think having jobs helps.24 hour supermarkets help. Good music, and a fun atmosphere helps.
For my money, New York City is a great place for geeks.
- DSL and Cable Modem access is widespread
- Food, Laundry, DVD home delivery 24/7
- restaurants/clubs/etc/etc/etc/etc...
Only problem is, most of the jobs here are in the financial sector (ugh) or Silicon Alley, which values 'creative' types over technical wizards, but that may change as the technical job market expands.
I'm currently an undergraduate CS major at CMU, and the only thing that's keeping me in Pittsburgh is the diploma I'll receive at the end of the rainbow.
Allegheny county is the has the second highest average age (to Dade County, Florida) last I heard. Add to the fact that Pittsburgh still hasn't fully recuperated from the loss of the Steel industry, and you have a dying city. Pittsburgh has around 300,000 people, nowhere near its high of 700,000 in the 1970s.
Pittsburgh doesn't seem oriented towards young people. Most students at CMU strongly dislike the city (I don't know how it is at UPitt), citing that the town is boring, and there is nothing to do.
As far as jobs, there are many better and higher paying opportunities available on either coast, which are also located in Hipper cities like San Francisco or Boston.
I'm not sure that there is a surefire fix for Pittsburgh's blues. My suggestion: they need to try their damndest to keep the young people from moving away. I understand that there are some programs aiming for this, but I really don't know much about it.
In my senior year at Pitt I interviewed with someone from UPMC. It was for a y2k COBOL/DB conversion project. But at that time (early 1997) that was what mostly everyone was looking for.
COBOL programming did not interest me at all. Now that I am 80% done with my masters I *might* consider looking into oppurtunites in Pittsburgh. But this time, I have a little more experience on my side.
-d9
Pittsburgh doesn't have a very large tech community. It also has a very limited night life. It is far from any beaches, the skiing is mediocre, and it rains so much there! There are a fair amount of attractive women there, but that is true of anywhere except Cleveland. (I am from D.C. BTW).
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Most American cities are rat holes, and you couldn't pay me enough to live there.
It took me 7 years, but I finally got free of Nashville, TN. I now live out in the country about an hour away from the city.
I much prefer the low cost of living, no traffic, and friendlier (and fewer neighbours). The place where I live would easily have cost close to a half million in Nashville because of the land.
There are some downsides: ISDN is my fastest connection option right now, and there aren't any decent theaters. So, entertainment has to be a bit more planned and less spontaneous since it involves at least a half hour drive.
Now, if there were a city that wasn't polluted as all get out, and that had decent public transportation (Chicago is the best example that I have personal experience with), that might change my mind.
Check out Linux University
1. Good Net access.
:)
2. Good cinemas.
3. Good university.
(Well, the third one isn't really necessary...
-jfedor
It's simple - just invent a machine that will change the crappy weather in Pittsburg. Maybe then you'll get some young people to move there.
Bandwidth (cheap), sexy babes (single), home delivered junk food, and of course lots of parking space !
I'll happily reside anywhere the courts have ruled ITAR's crypto regs unconstitutional, so I can actually work on crypto code and share it with the rest of the world.
Oh, I suppose I'll need a good job too :-)
Unlimited boardband access, allow us to run servers on our machine and dont send out annoying message to ask you to shut them down. Provide full feature web hosting services. Tax break for high tech job. More ...
From personal experience in the Pittsburgh/suburbs area, they have a very bad signage problem on all the roads. Signs are hard to see, placed unpredictably, and small. What's worse, out in the suburbs, everyone has their own Main St. and Elm St. and Oak St. and Philadelphia Ave (which you must remember is sometimes abbreviated to something like Phil-a or something you might not realize). And none of the little townships or *burgs want to give that up. Ambulances have gotten lost.
My first recommendation is to dump green street signs. They really don't stand out. In the Washington D.C. area, almost everyone standardizes on light text on a bright deep blue background, or a dark text on light background-- with letters about 5-6 inches tall.
Geeks might not also like to move to a state that signed an exclusive contract to run all services with Windows NT. Maybe they should reconsider that. :)
The geography in the area though is pretty wild. Very hilly, all sorts of stuff to look at. Lots of creeks and things. Everyone is very friendly. Perhaps its just a long-standing stigma with the place called Pittsburgh?
_______
computers://use.urls. People use Networds.
In that I am happy here, its not just things like bandwidth, but also things like there is a nice diversity of culture and art and things and a lot of good jobs. But you know it really depends on what you want out of life besides just your job. If you want to work 75 hr a week it doesn't really matter where you live. If you want to get involved in Stuff figure out where the stuff you want to be involved with is, go there.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
Besides the obvious (cheap high bandwidth and such) I want a city with a progressive cultural climate. In other words, the place has to have an eclectic mix of people and places, culture, lacceptance gays and lesbians, a good music scene, as well as an active techical culture (user groups, computer magazines, shows, etc)
Coming from Oklahoma City I think I live in a very ungeeky city. I belive that geeks have many interests outside of computers. Sure every city knows it needs high speed internet access, but it also needs culture. My friends and I crave different expirences including music, food, and activities. A city must be VERY well rounded to attract geeks in the coming years.
Geeks only need two things to be attracted in large numbers. High speed internet access is a must and better yet only allow Linux to be run in the city, I would move in a minute.
When I left in 1998, Pittsburgh didn't have much to offer in the technical field besides being involved with UPMC...with CMU there, one would believe that it would be healthy area for startups...I guess not. While I was there, the major was more concerned about sports (Penguins and Steelers stadium deals) than anything else.
The only thing that's technically cool about Pittsburgh are the Honda Civic (???) with the LYCOS paint scheme.
-- ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space!
I just moved from Miami to Pittsburgh. I was hired at a local bank here. When I was initially moving here, alot of the recruiters I talked to, flat out would say things like "Well, you can not make that kind of money in Pittsburgh ($70K-$90K), because companies simply wont pay it". I got lucky I guess, I finally found a couple of companies that were willing to pay that kind of money.
Now..I've been here in Pittsburgh, in ShadySide for about 3-4 months. I have ADSL (which I'm going to cut soon..I'm never home) for an OK price. Also, OmniSky offers a flat rate CDPD modem service in the Pittsburgh area. The major problem I see with Pittsburgh is the freakin weather and that most companies are large hoity toity firms (Yes...I work for one), and not exciting startups. Coming from Miami, this is a huge shock to me (the weather part).
The other thing I've noticed at least where I work...pretty much everyone is white. Not much diversity in the corporate workplace.
Alot of CMU graduate students I talked to, will be leaving Pittsburgh right after they are done with their Masters degrees simply because they can get better money elsewhere.
OH! And before I forget....the damn apartments here are nasty! They are danky and OLD...everything is so damn old and falling apart.
But..I'll stay in Pittsburgh another 1.5-2.5 years..and then hopefully move back to Miami (where the tech industry REALLY sucks..but the weather is great).
Rad clubs, open minds, thriving subcultures of all types, lots of Fry's, museums & restaurants up the yingyang, lots of concerts...
Wait, what am I doing..stay away!
Gigabit Ethernet. Wire the city, make sure it's well supported.. :)
A computer without Microsoft is like ice cream without ketchup.
My city is pretty good geek city of 250,000 people. Lots of electronics stores,software,high speed internet access(which i can't get yet), and a few computer componies, like Lexmark, Databeam, and once IBM.
I'd move there in a heartbeat.
I _STAYED_ away this long for much different reasons. I will thus attempt to define one view of the Lifestyle of the Geek.
Geeks like living in places where they can be both plugged-in, close to the heart of it all, and yet hide away from society for hours/days/months without being harassed every 5 minutes. After reaching a certain "success point," many geeks move to the suburbs where there's readily available cheap eats, less expensive DSL service, movie theaters, drive-through beer joints, and a better chance of picking up cute girls/guys.
Pittsburgh's (and many other city's) suburbs are still, and for a likely long time will be, run by old Steel-era codgers who think that computers are for playing Pong, and word processors are cheap knockoffs of an Underwood manual typewriter. Unions control the city/local governments (ever been to Clairton?), taxes are far too high (Allegheny County's RAD tax), there is practically NO nightlife in ANY of the south hills suburbs, and Bell Atlantic has such a stranglehold on the market that it takes over 2 months just to get T1's installed.
Geeks like controlling at least a portion of their own destiny. In Pittsburgh, more so than many other places I've been, it is difficult bordering on impossible to get any sort of representation or advance any cause that isn't popular with big labor or the old folks.
We geeks need a city built from scratch with geeks in government, geeks in utilities, and geeks in Public Planning. Since we might as well try to move to the Land of Oz, or some other pipe dream, I think we'll just have to wait...
My $.02
Notice: Your mouse has been moved. Windows will now restart so this change can take effect.
broadband
uninterrupted view of all sky sections for satellite uplink
Corrinne Yu
3D Game Engine Programmer
I don't know how to attract more geeks. You can't change the weather, but you probably could change Pittsburgh's image. Look at Austin. I know people moving there in droves, and it's a pretty nasty place to live. Give it a hich tech image, and people will live there.
Everytime I've gone looking for a Fry's site, I find 10 put up by angry customers..but we keep coming...because it's geek heaven.
Like I told my friend, comparing Fry's to BestBuy is like comparing Costco/PriceClub to CircleK.
There really is no such thing as a perfect Geek city. I live in a small to medium sized town and I love it. I would hate to live in a big city. I cringe to even think about commuting to one. Sometimes a person just needs a little bit of quiet time after a long day at the office and a large city just doesn't offer that the way smaller towns do.
-----
1. Bandwidth - Can I get DSL there? and How much?
2. What Computer Stores are close? I don't want to Drive hours to buy a new mouse. (or worse yet, buy from egghead.com)
3. Chicks!
4. Bars.
5. What kind of User groups are in the community.
6. How close does a Linux World Convention come to my home.
7. Quality Strip Clubs.
8. Quality HeadShops.
9. Can I get the Sci-Fi Channel?
10. Good Cell/PCS network.
-Praxxis
No, there's nothing quite like a Fry's. Combine a large BestBuy, with a large MicroCenter (far more clueful 'puter superstore than CompUSA: I say Linux Distros on sale there 5 years ago. . .), throw in a decent-sized Blockbuster Video, and the parts department of an old-time Radio Shack or Lafayette Radio and you **might** get one Fry's Electronics. ANYTHING electronic, you can generally get at a Frys. . .it's one of the few thinngs that I'm envious of the West Coast for....
I grew up in the middle of nowhere (my friends here call it the "rural ghetto"), hundreds and hundreds of miles from anything resembling a "metropolitain area". And although most people think I'm crazy, I actually really loved living out there. No traffic, no people to bother you, it's safe, and if I want to go down to the lake, I'm the only one on it.
After graduating from college, I had to make a choice. Get a job doing what I wanted, or live in "the sticks" working some crappy job. So I moved to the closest metro area (Minneapolis) and got a kick ass job. Nothing against Mpls, it's a great city, but I must say I sure do miss the quiet comfort of the rural life.
People always ask me if I'll move back to that. And I always tell them "maybe". Mainly because I want to, but there are two things stopping me. One is lack of bandwith, which is minor compared to the other thing, no jobs. There aren't any decent "tech" jobs (especially in web development which is what I do) in a rural area. This is frustrating because I'd rather have my children live and grow up in small town America, but at the same time I'd like to be able to provide what I feel is neccesary for a good life to them, which is what a solid metro tech job supplies.
The only thing I can hope for is that as the country grows more wired, we'll be able to do more and more telecommuting. My current employer already offers this in a limited arangement. I'm hopefull that in 10 years time I can hold a job in a small town but be connected to and work for a larger company in a big city. Or, just start my own business in a small town, since the web knows no difference if your site is in New York or Nowhere USA.
Here's to wishful thinking.
Have a good sized convention center. Without it you cant attract things like the Worldcon or any of the computer expos.
Have good colleges, including science and liberal arts. Geeks need schools, and when we're not learning cryptography we're learning egyptology. Don't skip on the science or the arts.
Realize that having a liberal police department and a liberal political system may become political realities. Geeks tend not to run with the herd. That skate punk the cops are harassing may be a lead analyst for one of your local corps.
Watch your parks and recs. Geeks like skateparks and disc golf courses just as much, if not more, than traditional sports.
Forget the curfews. Make sure there's at least a taco bell open at 3 am. It's better if there's a pizza place that takes internet orders.
Watch your taxes. We make money, serious money, and we hate losing it to the government. We know you want us for our money, so play that game carefully. We're much more likely to consider taxes an investment and want a good return on it than most citizens.
Watch your P.R. We're better connected than you think we are. We know B.S. and have a tendancy to want to find the "truth" out. Normals don't get as nosy as geeks on a rampage.
Most importantly, make sure you really want us. We may be serious income for a city, but we're also a headache. If you want our cash without being willing to seriously cater to us, then forget it. On the other hand, if you really cater to us, we'll hand over our money in the form of taxes without much worry.
No Zen is good zen
The first thing you should be asking yourself is, "Is Pittsberg really a good place to have a computer business culture in the first place?"
In order to encourage a good culture for computer-related businesses, you need to have a lot of bandwidth, clean electricity, very good universities, and a good tax and regulations environment for start-ups. If even one of these is missing, you will have problems. If two of these or more are missing, forget it. I can't emphasise this enough.
Let's use Chicago as an example. Chicago, where I grew up, is trying like hell to support local high tech industry through the idea of a "silicon prairie." It's not working. Ameritech has no unlimited local calling, and the Chicago area has poor DSL and ISDN access. This means that Internet access is very expensive. Commonwealth Edison can't keep the damn lights on in the summer, because their transmission and distribution systems are crud and Edison doesn't seem to realize this. Local regulations require that Ethernet cable be strung through metal conduit, which is very labor intensive (read: expensive) and not neccesary. So, despite having several major universities with very good CS departments (University of Chicago, Northwestern, DePaul, University of Illinois at Chicago, and Loyola University), not one but two nearby national research laboratories, and recently starting up a new communications center in the old Donnelly Directory building, Chicago will probably never become a center of computer business. Chicago has Motorola in the suburbs and that's about as good as it's going to get.
On the other hand, Chicago has very good resources for another industry entirely: biotech.
Biotech requires, first of all, a fertile field for medical research. Chicago has five major research and teaching hospitals (Loyola Medical, University of Chicago, Rush Pres-St. Luke's, Northwestern Memorial and University of Illinois at Chicago) and every day you hear about another medical advancement in the area.
Biotech doesn't require good bandwidth. It does require clean electricity, which means they'll have to set up a special deal with Commonwealth Edison to get power transmission up to spec. There are probably fewer business regulations to affect biotech than there would be to affect a computer business, especially since biotech requires a hell of a lot more starting capital.
The problem is, every time I try to tell someone who might listen that the city should concentrate on Biotech, my words seem to fall on deaf ears. They've got this bandwagon mentality: "We have to get in on this dot-com computer thing, and we have to do it now. This is the future." In the process, they will probably miss another potential future, and the opportunity to become a major world center of a new revolution ten years from now.
Therefore, let me turn your question around. Instead of asking, what can you do to make my city good for geeks; ask, what kind of geeks can we attract to this city? Not all geeks are computer geeks, and your city may have more to offer some other potentially very profitable industry than it has to offer the computer industry. Just my $0.02.
Finding God in a Dog
and lots of em, decriminalized.
Perhaps what is needed is not any one particular geek-attractant, but something that repels those who are hostile to geeks and geek pastimes.
There's a wide variety of things that geeks like and some of them are mutually exclusive. But I suspect very few geeks would enjoy living or working in an environment where a majority (or even a vocal minority) see science and technology as the literal or figurative work of the Devil.
Kansas springs to mind. Whatever its virtues (clean air, low crime, etc.), they fade because of the Kansas school board and its decision regarding the teaching of science.
high-speed net access is a must, of course. That pretty much goes without saying. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that even though most of us here are geeks, that doesn't mean that all we need is a warm dry place with a computer and a big pipe... I do occasionally leave the house. ;) Assuming this is true, the requirements are not that different from your average non-geek person. Everybody wants a safe environment (safe from murder, burglary, etc). Besides that, some people will want some night life, cool places to hang out, etc.
The truth of the matter is that most people will be reasonably happy wherever they are. Barring any major problems, most people just live where they've been living. Case in point? places like minnesota. I could never live there, as I'm from california... i'm too much of a wimp. People who live in minnesota obviously don't have too much of a problem living there.
it works for austin, at least
While most youngerish geeks are single, most really do grow up, get married, and have kids. With kids comes the obvious problem in cities: schools. I don't know to many people who want to send their kids to inner-city schools (at least in the U.S.) Result: People with families flee the cities. Get good public, or at least cheaper and good private schools, and people will stay in cities for the long term.
One of the most important things for me about where I choose to live is that things that AREN'T important should be easy. To me that means: :-( )
- short commute (30 min max, 15 is good)
- 24/7 supermarket close
- cleaners on the way to work
- take-out and delivery of variety of food
- major paper delivery (WSJ in particular)
- serious bandwidth (oops, sorry, 2000 feet too far for DSL
- housekeepers/maid service not exorbitant
- compensation to keep the wolf from the door now and in my old age (where did that hair go?)
Things that ARE important should be there:
- good jobs
- clubs
- stuff to do (museums, parks, etc)
- good air transport
I enjoyed Pittsburgh when I was there on business. It was a little sleepy, but still it has potential. I think it still struggles from the reputation of a steel town gone bust.
-Bill Gates is a communist -- he's just more equal than the rest of us.
I think us geeks are happiest where we can code in peace. For some reason most people seem to think geeks want a busy high-tech city, but I don't think that's what they really want. Companies are attracted to high-tech cities, not necessarily the geeks.
To me the ultimate geek company would own a few large log cabins by a nice lake, with maybe each department in their own cabin. Not too far from home so the spouses won't feel abandoned, or maybe some would even like to live there. Give the cabins high-speed net access a Coke fridge and I...um, they.... would be blissful.
I want out of the city. Badly. I moved from a small city called Prince George half way up British Columbia to Vancouver, and I have found over the last few years the big city has just sucked the creative juices out of me.
Elizabeth.
High speed connection to internet (no faster commute to work that high speed connection to work )
Woods, lots of them...
Lake.
A close Barnes & Noble or Borders.
Ski mountains... (within a couple hour drive)
Norris/Palin 2012
Fact: We deserve leaders who can kick your ass and field dress your carcass.
Alright, I'll stop now before someone blows my house up.
The Triangle (Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, NC)is not at all bad either.
There are plenty of research jobs at the Universities (NC State, UNC-Ch, Duke). Plenty of jobs for software companies that are startups (in Cary mainly), big companies to go work for (IBM, SAS). Redhat out in Durham. Commutes seem painful to me, but they are nothing compared to Boston or Silicon Valley.
High speed internet (mainly ADSL right now) is availible to anyone not living in the boonies. Rent is not too high either, you can get a fairly nice house for under a grand a month.
And the one thing that Pittsburgh will never have, nice weather all the year round!
wake up and find out that you are the eyes of the world.
You just need the following things:
-Inexpensive Highspeed net access
It's gotta be cheap, and its gotta be fast. Also, geeks don't like restrictive services. I want to be able to get a bunch of ip's at low to no extra cost, be able to run a ftp or www server (within reason in regards to traffic) and have static ip's, so I can register a domain. Many areas have net highspeed access, but most dont meet the above criteria. Also, reliability is very important, geeks don't like to be cut off from the net for more then a few miliseconds =]
-Good Food!
Most cities can easily answer to this request. Geeks need lots of piza, subs, burgers etc. If your city has nothing but fine dining, don't expect the geeks to come flooding in (not that all geeks dont enjoy fine dining, but we can't live off it =])
-Good job market
We gotta be able to pay for our junk food and net access, and this requires a job. Geeks typicaly detest manual labour, so don't expect McDonalds to cut it, we gotta be able to pay for our quad oc3's. You will need to have a large amount of software development firms. You really can't go wrong with a lot of them in your city, you create jobs for the programers, as well as network engineers to build and maintain the hardware. It's important to make your city attractive to software companies, through zoning taxes and whatever else a business will look at when considering your city. A good mix in the field is good as well. Some geeks are artists, some are engineers, so make sure you have some game companies, and some database/business software/network software companies so you can meet the needs of varying geeks.
-Affordable living quarters.
Some geeks will be happy with a loft apt in an old factory building, some will want a high end apt or a house. Geeks are frugal, so make sure the rates aren't too obscene.
If your city can manage the things in this list, your well on your way to becomming a geek mecca for the next century.
NightHawk
p.s. if I missed anything important, feel free to add to the list!
Also you have to change the current impression of Pittsburgh from a Steel/Industrial town. Even if it is not doing much of that anymore, that't the impression most people still have when someone says "Pittsburgh".
This is definitely the answer as it makes you feel wanted, ups your salary, and keeps managers properly respectful. To get this, I would
(a) support cheap plentiful bandwidth
(b) kickass high-tech colleges are another great long term effort as students will generally stay if all else is good
(c) offer huge tax breaks to get high tech companies to move in, assurances of protection against any future Internet taxes would be very attractive
(d) make sure your transportation systems kickass as well (both public transportation and roads)
These efforts will be a good start.
And everyone knows that California babes are the best. :P
So import some hot babes to Pittsburgh, and while you're at it, import a nice coastline, and year round sun.
Joseph Elwell.
The fact that the malls and other stores are so far away from these institutions will drive people away. Most students do not have and cannot afford to have cars, which means they must rely on public transportation to go shopping, buy food etc. Even though the public transportation is decent, it still takes about an hour to get to a mall. Having a nearby mall or a shopping area for food and other common "life support" items would be a plus.
Being a geek may mean that we prefer to stay by our computer all day and not worry about other stuff. How can a geek do that if he has to spend half a day just to go somewhere far away buying food? I live off-campus but this also applies to students living on-campus. CMU food is notoriously bad. I still went off-campus to get food when I was living on-campus. The fact that Pittsburgh lack good restaurants is also a minus for this city. Most American restaurants are crap (I can cook better myself), and Chinese and Japanese restaurants are only mediocre. If you've been to Chicago, you'll know there is an abundance of good + cheap restaurants at that city.
The 4 years of experience gives most of the CMU students bad impressions of Pittsburgh, that is why even after they graduate (and become able to afford cars) they would choose to move to a "better" or "cooler" city.
Warm weather, beer, and pussy.
And I guess it doesn't hurt that my wife has an even better job ;)
You need JOBS to attract geek talent. Good, secure, high paying jobs.
Good weather, good pay, low cost of living. And San Diego has two out of three, almost.
:-)
I used to live in San Diego. Which of your three desirables does San Diego lack? I'm just curious.
cpeterso
Lots of Bandwidth!
Wait, I guess that's 3. Oh well. It has to be affordable bandwidth too. And there of course have to be jobs. And for the really rich geeks there have to be rural areas nearby to drive their fast sports cars. And women, we all need women. And last but not least, entertainment (a theater, concerts, conventions, etc.)
What keeps you folks where you are at the moment?
That's an easy one... Inertia!
--
Why can't I moderate something "Wrong" or at least "Grossly Misinformed"?
I have been recently think of moving around somewhere in a 50 mile radius or less or my current job. The things I look for is bandwidth and how cheap.
The first city I can get an ISDN line for roughly $400 a month, and the second city it will cost $100 per month. I have been scoping out apartments, and they are more or less the same in both cities. I am pulling towards the town with the cheap bandwidth, because modems suck, and if you are a geek, you understand WHY they suck so bad compared with ISDN,cable,xDSL or a 62 gigabit/second tube of loving. Oh yea, let me get some of that sweet gigabit loving, I want to tongue it's bits and fondel the output connections, twist the little pointy megabits between my fingers, O yea.
Allot of cheap bandwidth will get the geeks moving into the town. If that doesn't work try massive amounts of strip bars and pizza places. Oh, and make sure you have a Radio Shack, book store (Borders, B&N) and mom& pop computer shop where everyone knows you name, truthly best buy kinda sucks when you need some rare part for a Sun workstation at 2:00 in the morning...
but then again, this is just me
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
Give them money. We do live in a capatalistic system after all. Supposedly.
NYC Rox. I got 2.3Mb SDSL. still no cable modems really tho. only city that time warner serves that doesn't have cable modems. and Bell Atlantic (NYNEX) sucks balls. I've had more days off waiting for them to show up than I can count on two hands.
And good mass transit. best in the country, hands down.
If all you've got are jobs rebooting NT or cranking out VB, RPG or COBOL, forget it. I know that the companies with that kind of work don't want to hear this but geeks don't want those jobs. The people who take them are either tied to the city, have been doing them for years, or got bad grades in CS.
I agree wholeheartedly. I went to take a look at Burlington, VT. It's an amazing city if you've never been there, it's clean, it's got history, it's got an amazing downtown and it's overlooking the lake... It's just beautiful.
The thing is that if you're a tech, you have to work for IBM. There really aren't any other options for techs. Unfortunately, IBM knows this, and they use it to their advantage.
It's somewhat analagous to Eugene OR (OR being often referred to as Vermont on the west coast), where you've got a decent city, a gorgeous area, and just one tech company (Symantec) to deal with.
It's really sad the way all of the companies are going to SilVal. I'd checked SilVal out as well, and I'd rather be dipped in tar and rolled in roofing tacks before I'd live there. The accmulation of wealth and growth of individual companies is seriously destroying the area, while a lot of cities in this country aren't pulling in any big names at all.
If you want to pull in the geeks, you need:
a) fast, cheap high-bandwidth net access
b) tech jobs -- programming, networking, design at several possible companies
c) wages that are enough to keep geeks somewhat confortable in their ->
d) readily available affordable housing -- apartments, condos, whatever.
d)
Well, one thing I am particularly aware of, residing in the city which is either tops or second in terms of traffic, is being able to get to a job. Atlanta is definitely the worst city in the US in terms of urban sprawl, and traffic here becomes more unbearable on a daily basis. Thus, effective rapid transit (we don't have much here) or a reasonable system of roads would be a key factor in where I choose to work. High speed internet access, oft mentioned in others' responses, is all crucial. I am currently forced to choose between 400Kbps DSL, or a cable modem from a provider which never got above 200Kbps. Also, affordable housing is important. However, the one factor that I see as most important is money. Atlanta has lots of IT jobs, but they aren't paying squat. I've seen this situation elsewhere. If a city wants geeks and people like that, they need to be willing to pay them. I carry three industry certifications, a college degree, and five years of IT experience. Theoretically, I should be making a lot more than I am. That's why a city like Atlanta, where the cost of living is outrageous, the traffic makes hell seem pretty tame, and the lack of adequate pay is not going to hold me for much longer. I'm not talking about Silicon Valley, either. That place is just a lot of hype and way too expensive. I wouldn't mind being in a city like Charlotte, NC, or in the Research Triangle Park area. I want 6 figures dammit!
Windows is going the way of phlogiston...
The DC area has a telling divide: most of the left-tending geeks tend to congregate in DC and the Maryland suburbs, while the right-tending and libertarian geeks tend to live in the Virginia suburbs. Mind you, that's a general observation, and NOT a hard-and-fast rule. . .
okay, what you do is really simple setup new buildings with condominiums with parking around the nice suburbs surrounding pittsburgh. you know where there's no crime or traffic. Each building should have broadband internet access and some sort of television entertainment package, whether it be digital cable or dss is meaningless. Make a section near the 'geeky' part of town where stores that specialize in computers get to pay reduced taxes... this will encourage more stores to move near the area. last but not least, dont make the prices for the condominiums outrageously expensive
how about some hot, single, geek women who have absolutely no interest in non-geek guys. that would do the job, but you can't get the government to do that. the next worst thing to socialized education is socialized prostitution.
Work with industry to ensure that there will be attractive high-paying technology jobs.
Ensure that access to high speed digital networks is inexpensive.
Provide safe, inexpensive mass transit services.
Work to ensure that there is affordable housing available.
Those are the basics. Aside from that there should be affordable forms of entertainment located close to housing/industry, or there should be transportation available.
The ways to do this would be to form trade organizations that regularly meet with city leadership. Subsidize the installation of high-speed digital networks (ATM would be good) for the city, and ensure that the telephone regulations keep the subscription rates down. Give me buses, give me trains, I don't care what you give me so long as I'm not stuck in my car for the hour long commute.
Out here in Utah there is a trade organization that is very active in lobbying to get what they want/need. USWest (our local phone company) is still pretty heavily regulated which has allowed some competition in, bringing down the prices and allowing us more affordable services. There's a park and ride a few blocks away from me, so I can take the express bus into Salt Lake instead of having to drive the hour-long commute each day.
Boy Plankton
I live in Seattle. The city of Seattle rocks. It's clean, cozy, hip, close to nature, and is full of young people. The downtown is being revitalized and a huge Internet boom is erupting here. However, Seattle weather sucks!!! It rains every goddamn day! My Seattle native friend forgot that the sky is not naturally grey (it is supposed to be blue).
I moved here from San Diego and I can't wait to move back to California. I can't stand 10 months of winter and 2 months of "summer". sigh.. If only Seattle was located in a nicer climate. The rain does have one advantage: lush, green plants and trees everywhere!
cpeterso
I am now in Minneapolis and the reasons I like it here are climate (hey, I'm from Wisconsin - I like winter :), easy commuting, low cost of living, availability of lots of theater that I can get involved in, and the room full of Crays in the basement :)
Go Badgers! -- #include "std/disclaimer.h"
I too live in Pittsburgh, and work in Pittsburgh. I agree with that the city is boring from the 18-25 year old perspective, but that isn't enough to justify declaring it on its death bed.
:)
Pittsburgh is cleaner than a lot of city's, safer (if you know it), and has a lot of less exciting if still interesting attactions (like its museums, symphonies, etc.)
There are initiatives to try and bring more geek oriented work to the area.
Oh, and perhaps the population of the city has gone down since the 70's, but the surrounding areas have grown considerably. Cranberry Twp. to the north of the city was declared the fastest growing area in the country not too long ago (Fore Systems has their world HQ there).
So don't count out the burgh just yet, its still has some life, and I think when they figure out how to keep the CMU grads like you from leaving, this town will become another technology hub.
Of course they have to figure out how to keep you here, and judging by your comments, I guess there is some work to do yet.
Then again, those who got in on the ground floor in the Valley probably saw a diamond in the rough, and I wonder how many Berkeley students left for greener pastures in those really early days?
Just my two cents
We are agents of the free
I'll be thinking of you, though, tonight when I'm out clubbing with the cuties. Heck, some of them are even straight!
- Affordable housing - either affordable rent or non-sky-high prices on homes & land. Nasty property taxes don't help either.
- Effective and inexpensive public transportation - Use buses, a lightrail, monorail, or a subway, but dammit just do something. Parking is a nightmare in most big cities, and if it were easier and not bank-breaking to get to/from work on a bus or train, then great!
- Broadband - DSL, cable, cheap ISDN, satellite, whatever. Make sure geeks can keep away from 56k if they want to.
- Good places to shop - Not too tough in a big city with good public transportation.
- Decent entertainment - Again, easy with good public transit, but make sure there's movie theatres, clubs, video stores, etc. around.
I know it seems like I'm just pushing public transit, but, heh, well maybe I am. I can tell you it's *SO* much easier to park in a big lot a few miles away from work and ride a bus into downtown DenverRead my stuff.
in no particular order, the following are important:
- high-speed network, blah, blah, blah
- availability of cheap Asian food
- availability of reasonably good sushi
- availability of cute nerds of an appropriate gender
- good music stores
- good clubs and bars
most of these are guaranteed if you've got a geek school nearby. i live in Boston, and i like it here.Cretin - a powerful and flexible CD reencoder
The city of Pittsburgh should set an example for all businesses in the city by converting the entire city office structure and management to Linux. That means Linux on every desktop and server owned or contracted by the city. Then encourage smaller businesses to use it, too.
That and all the other mentioned perks like competitive DSL everywhere (build more CO's if the distance is a problem), cable modems, unlimited local dialing, 24 hour bus service, nice apartments and condos downtown, with low prices, and something to replace the lack of a beach (Erie doesn't cut it).
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
But, first and foremost, you NEED public transport. Cars are OK for a holiday, or a fishing trip, but there NEEDS to be a cheap, efficient, and (above all) FAST method of getting to and from work. A traffic jam is what you should be putting on bread to make a traffic sandwich, not something you fume in whilst your radiator explodes and your engine runs off into the sunset with the next car's fan belt.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I mean, duh -- there are tons of people here who you can talk shop with, consult for, hire, and learn from.
Saying this is an invitation to get slapped by Montrealers or Vancouverites, but really, it's not disputable. All of the banks are headquartered here. Almost every Canadian software company has a large campus, and foreign software companies also keep offices in town.
The next best thing to vacation-time spent trekking around the world is having the cuisine of the world delivered to you, and not just quotidian pan-Asian food, but African, Salvadoran, Sri Lankhan, Carribean, Polish, Hungarian, etc etc etc. Multicultural cities have a hybrid vigour, an energy that mirrors the Internet. When you live near an all-night kung-fu movie house adjascent to a Hindu shrine up the street from an Eritrean after-hours club, the Internet's globe-shrinking effects are easier to understand.
Admittedly, it's not the cleanest lake, but it's big, and it's got beaches.
We freeze all winter and stew in our juices come summer; come spring everyone rushes outdoors and spends as much time drinking on patios as they can; fall is a miracle of colours.
Basically, no one has guns. I didn't even see a real gun until I was 23, except for service weapons on cops. I've never seen a handgun in Canada that wasn't strapped to a uniformed cop.
The downtown core in Toronto is big, healthy and fun. You can walk, you can cycle, you can take cheap and efficient subways or streetcars. The suburbs suck, but don't they always?
Lots of services aren't available to Canadians (like HandsSpring Visors). But Toronto is 1.5h from Niagara Falls, NY, and it's easy to get a PO box there to have your nerd toys shipped to.
From film festivals to big touring concerts to museum displays, Toronto is the one guaranteed Canadian stop on any cultural event of import.
What's there to say? You can walk out of one job and into another, and not worry that you're going to be bankrupted by an auto accident on the way. For all that, I may be moving to SV in the next year. My company is getting some venture cap there, and we may have to relocate the head office.
I'm gonna miss my awesome apartment.
I feel that if a city want's to attract geeks
they need to have a good Internet connection.
I live in Sandy, Ut. (Salt Lake County) and we can't even get DSL.
So we are stuck on dialup (unless you want to fork out the cash for a T1 too your house).
If the city has a good Net connection, and high paying tech jobs the geeks will come.
My parents keep me where I am... go figure. Maybe that's why most geeks are stuck where they are...
What?
As for jobs though, no Pittsburgh companies tried to recruit me after college. I went to college in NY and its not like PA is that far away. All my High School friends who are now looking for geek jobs in Pittsburgh are having a tough time. I believe I am making easily double the salary I could in Pittsburgh. Even a much better standard of living doesn't make up for that.
1. cute geek guys or girls.
2. bandwidth.
3. 24 hour everything (restaurants, markets, clubs, etc). (something for their non-geek other half's)
4. ability to have quiet time.
5. money.
6. challenges.
She became a geek by absorption, one day she woke up with a bad taste in her mouth.. and knew how Linux worked
One of the great geek attractions here in Dallas is the "First Saturday" outdoor computer/electronics flea market. It opens at midnight and continues to noon on the first Saturday of each month. Nothing quite like shopping for computer bargains in downtown Dallas at 3:00AM. Lots of geeks running loose in the streets.
---
Peace,
vilvoy
An optimal geek city or neighborhood would be several apartments each with high speed access within walking distance or short commute of restaurants, shopping centers, and recreation. Deals could be made with real estate people to cater exclusively to gearheads so a techie might find herself surrounded by like-minded people in an apartment complex. So, each person could have their own apartment and work from home or be a community service provider for any surrounding apartments that aren't technically well off to make some cash on the side. Just as long as there's plenty of gadgets to fiddle with.
--fr0ntman
- Highspeed connections
- Good beer
- Good electronics stores, specially the ones that sell parts at OEM price
- Good beer
- Stores that sell sandals even in winter
- Good beer
- People who don't stare at you for wearing shorts, socks and sandals in freezing temperature
- Good beer
- Good beer
- Lots of 24-hr cafes lest one needs to dine at 2 am in the morning
BTW, did I mention good beer ?I live in the Twin Cities, and really love it here. A few weeks ago, a friend and i were discussing how we try to get our friends to move here, and compete with other friends in hipper places like Seattle and Chicago. The problem, she said, is that Mpls/St Paul isn't a great *tourist* town. It doesn't have the tourist attractions of Chicago or Seattle or San Fransisco, so it doesn't show off quite as well at first blush.
:}
But there are other things to consider... relatively low housing costs, less "churn" at jobs, nicer people, and an overall more relaxed atmosphere. As a parent, i find this a very nice place to raise my children. Good schools, lovely scenery, i can afford a decent house, etc. But the area is urban enough that all the big-city amenities are here. Anything that the Twin Cities doesn't have is probably exclusive to a single city elsewhere. And we have our own exclusive bits, too... for example, i work four blocks from the nation's only Kurdish resturant, and two blocks from the diner featured on the cover of Tom Waits' "Nighthawks at the Diner". And we have the nation's most, um, interesting governor.
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120
chars is barely sufficient
Hand me that airplane glue and I'll tell you another story.
I am a geek in Chicago and I guess I stay because of DSL- Telocity in fact. That and my proximity to a central office makes the net worth it for another year or so before everything is gridlocked by Nike and Ricky Martin fans.
Then its onto a private network- hopefully I can afford that by then.
But the loop sucks for getting equipment in an emergency- you basically have to order everything. Bestbuy and compusa don't count because they don't have shit for adapters or cables or network equip in general. Don't even bring up the shack...
Chicago also has a company that does computer recycling. Oxford metals(Mike Rushnikoff). As long as you can move it, they take it- so when you need to offload all the as400 and ibm trash to recover real estate- they take it all(take the tags off and write down). I am thinking of visiting them for beowolf material...
I wish I knew more folks like myself- I wrote the LUG here recently and noone replied.
Other than decent net access, Chicago has everything else a modern city can offer and then some. A beach, lots of parks, an efficient mass transit system, lots of beer, and lots of IT jobs especially if you lean toward finance...
A great place to work.
Austin is a great place to live.
Good weather. An abundance of nearby lakes and empty stretches of hill country - for those who share my desolation aesthetic - (in one of which I'll be spending Y2K, with 20 bottles of champange and hydroelectric power from dams built in the 30s. Oh, and an MCSE, it'll be fun to watch him as things unfold.)
Lot's o' bandwidth. Cable and DSL. For US$27.50 a month each, my roommate and I Cable IP access with average downloads in the neighborhood of 150-170 K/sec. Not too shabby.
Lots of cool bars, excellent selection of wine and liquor in the stores, Central Market for every good foodstuff under the sun.
Insane amounts of startups and web companies. And if things go south, there's always Dell, who'll hire a geek in a heartbeat to jock the phones. Not the best work, but it'll pay the bills until another venture comes along. And if Dell's not your style, there's Apple, which does most of it's North American support in Austin.
The price of living is abyssmal, but that's supply and demand. If you need cheap rent, there's always San Marcos, 30 minutes south on I-35. They're starting to get DSL, and rent is stupidly cheap. 2 bedroom houses for $300/month are common.
This town rocks. We who live here gripe about it a lot, but very few of us move.
Don Negro
Don Negro
Perl 6 will give you the big knob. -- Larry Wall
These are both illegal in California, so I'm still here. Plus I like my cable modem, DSL line, the beaches, Skiing, and Yosemite.
Gun laws do suck here though, and getting worse - pretty soon it'll be illegal to defend yourself with anything other than a muzzleloader equipped with retinal scan, police remote disable receiver, GPS transponder, and a row of "are you sure" buttons. I may have to reconsider.
I was a CMU undergrad as of 2 years ago (heyo to all you lounge rats!), and what kept me from sticking around was only one thing: JOBS. Pittsburgh rocks in a lot of ways; the rent is 1/3 or less what it is in SV (usually significantly less, actually), the places are neat, they have decent cultural stuff, and a number of universities to prey on for people to talk to. But the CS jobs _suck_! You can work for Fore Systems in networking, which is so-so. You can work for CMU, which is great but pays nothing. You can work for shitty tiny businesses doing M$ stuff, just like everywhere in the US. But the jobs just aren't there. If I could have gotten a decent programming job, I'd still be in Pittsburgh.
Lego subsidies.
I live in a place where the larger ISPs are still stuck in 1992. I.e. $2.00 per hour for asic 56K Internet access. Just last week someone mentioned cable modems and I perked up until the prices hit me. $1,600 per month at 256Kbps. So I am packing my bundle and moving to greener pastures. Geaks don't care about climate ( It was 80 degrees last night ). We want fast and comfortable net access and the kind of Government who will do whatever it takes to get that ( breaking up monopolies is a start ). PS : Dose anyone want a 6 year Windows / Hardware veteran with 4 years of Networking and Linux experience in Pittsburgh ?
Three steps to economic prosperity during the internet goldrush!
1) Big breaks for little companies.
This is -why- the geeks should stay: WORK! Interesting jobs and a coprorate community friendly to the geek and the modern knowledge worker. Pittsburgh needs to attract start-ups, and convince graduating college students and VCs that Pittsburgh is a great place to launch a new high-tech buisiness. To this end, Pennsylvania should offer big tax breaks on start-up firms and small businesses (read: consultants). Pittsburgh should also look into investing tax money into it's own non-profit Venture Capital firm, or offer money as an "angel" to hot VCs on the condition that the businesses funded be headquartered in Pittsburgh. Make the money-makers want to stay, and the geeks will follow.
2) Geeks are artists: feed the soul, the body will stay. Geeks are creative people with active interests in many, many, many things. Take a look at what Providence, RI is doing to support the arts: Poetry slams, civic funding for galleries and shows, etc, etc. It's attracting artists from places like Boston and New York. It's also attracting high-tech firms from places like Boston and New York. Co-incidence? Not.
Geeks love oddball movies and performance poetry and going to museums and joining writing circles and helping to set up art "installations". Geeks love dressing up to got to SCA events and playing at jazz festivals. Support a liberal and permissive arts and entertainment scene, and the Geeks will come in droves.
3) Fat pipes can't hurt. Offer wireless internet connections at T1 speeds connected as a public utility, and you will be -shocked- at the number of small internet start-ups that will blossom...
Not so easy, yet essential:
4) Elect a liberal government.
Boston and San Francisco, the high-tech capitals of the world, are liberal and permissive. So is Austin, Tampa, Miami, LA, Seattle, Minneanapolis, DC, Atlanta and any other high-tech capital worth a damn. Right-wing culture and geeks don't get along very well. You may not agree with the left-wingers about everything, but the liberals usually want to make damn sure the -right- to disagree with them isn't compromised. Besides, it's more fun to campaign for conservative causes as a minority political faction.
In short, cater to a Geek's career, creativity, and gadget-lust, and you will have a high-tech haven the envy of Tampa or Austin. (But don't get your hopes up about being the next Boston or SanFran)
SoupIsGood Food
Once again it all depends. Northern CA geeks are completely different from So. CA geeks. We don't get along...The main issue is there ARE different types of geeks, some want woods.. others want a decent night life.
*sigh*
can't we all jus' get along
She became a geek by absorption, one day she woke up with a bad taste in her mouth.. and knew how Linux worked
I liked Pittsburgh when we lived there in the early 90s. Now we live in Chicago again, in the Rogers Park neighborhood. Our daughter goes to a public school, a very good one -- it's a gifted program and quite competitive. You have to make an effort to get a child into this sort of program, but the city doesn't want to drive the parents of gifted children out of the system, because test scores bring money now. We don't have a car (what a relief!) and I haven't been more than 25 miles from our apartment in 3 or 4 years (What a relief!). You can't beat a city for cheap living, because you don't have to go anywhere when you're already there. You can keep California. sr
Grocery stores
Drug stores
"Super Stores" -- Wal-Mart, K-Mart, et. al.
Sam's Club(??)
When you think about it, there are very few places to buy feminine hygiene products. Should we form a petition to have Fry's stock feminine hygiene products?
I've been in Pittsburgh since 92 (BS, MS from CMU, now working on PhD there), and the city has its good points - it's clean, safe, and the real estate is dirt cheap. Pittsburgh is one of the few places where you don't have to live like a pauper on a grad student stipend. And the cool tech jobs are there. However, I think lots of young people leave for very good reasons - not much nightlife to speak of, a fairly reactionary social conscience, the roads suck, the drivers suck even worse, and trying to get high-bandwidth lines in the city is an expensive proposition. Further, many young non-geeks leave town after getting their business degrees, leaving only a bunch of aging former steel workers and the remaining geeks to hang out with. And don't get me started on the accent, the 80s hair, and the general fatness and unattractiveness of the local population.
Add the depressingly long winter and you've got a hard time keeping your young, talented geeks.
I don't know if I qualify for "Geek" or intellegent, but heres why I like Houston:
1) Housing. For $750/mo (or less, even!) I can get an apartment with carpeting, washer, dryer, garbage disposal, dishwasher, and full size bedroom and bathroom in their own separate rooms (i.e. non-studio). Some places you can get a 2 bed at this cost with these amenities. In chicago I would be lucky to find any apartment at that price, much less NY, etc.
2) Tech. Houston is a "new city". It doesn't have the old buildings and with that the old coaxial lines and copper phone lines. It has fiber all over and everything is less than 20 years old, so new techs come here pretty quick.
3) Size. Houston is the #1 industrial center in the world. If I lose my job there is good chance I will find another here.
4) Society. Everyone likes 'big' things, drives 75-80mph and is usually nice to you. Also, the city is very spread out. It is not inconceivable (sp?) to have a house with a garage, front yard, and back yard and live mile from downtown.
5) Intellegence. There are several Universities around that research and specialize in a wide variety of topics. Houston has a higher chance for an intellegent conversation than many other places I have been.
There is much that would make it better IMHO (mountains to go skiing, cleaner air, actual seasons other than summer, a big, CLEAN body of water nearby, etc.) but it's pretty good as is.
- Sig
To attract the tech minded youth, the first thing a city needs is good infrastructure. This includes such amenities as xDSL/digital cable throughout the city, good phone lines, inexpensive power/phone service, and a large number of 24 hour cheap (as in waffle house/dennys) restaurants. To attract the big businesses would require lower taxes for tech based businesses, low land tax throughout (for the supporting businesses) and a good mix of really low income housing along side high income housing. As soon as I hear of a city such as this, I'm packing my bags and leaving dallas.
=======
There was never a genius without a tincture of madness.
Not too bad for geeks. Mediaone is officially fully 2way thru the whole city, Bellsouth has upgraded about 75% for dsl, and a slew of isp's (including the one i work for) are offering sweet deals on dsl service (got some mail the other day for 47 bucks a month adsl... 1.5 down 256 up...). We got all night supermarkets (down here us rednecks is a'callin'em grocery stores), 24 hour food places (denny's, steak'n'shake, etc), a new big theater every year (currently 4 big ones, like 30 smaller ones) and tons of 'geekwork'. Sure, I still need to create the ultimate geek stop (i was thinking a lug/coffee/juice/internet club w/ independent performers.. but none of that circus crap...). Of course, then again, for some reason most people around here think jax. just plain sux.
my
-=chiphead
This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
The number one reason any city keeps a certain population is desirable employment. People will forgive any number of shortcomings in a city if the job that they want is located there.
Case in point: Dallas, TX. Dallas is by far one of the most boring, vanilla major metropolises in the country - compared to other population centers like San Fran, Miami, or Chicago, Dallas pretty much sucks it up in "things to keep you interested" categories like culture and nightlife. When the West End and Deep Ellum are the high points of living, you know you'll have to work to keep yourself amused there.
Unlike those other cities mentioned, however, Dallas is one of the major focal points of high-tech industry. So what can your city do to emulate Dallas?
For starters, they need to offer some irresistable deals to the high-tech industry. Zoning deals, tax breaks, hell, subsidize their internet access! The primary reasons companies choose locations are desirable labor pool and money (which covers the costs inherent to their choice). Obviously, any major population center is bound to have a desirable labor pool, so competing cities have to kiss up where it counts: the corporate wallets.
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
In Ashland, OR you can get a fiber connection to your doorstep. it's between 1 and 3 megs or so. Not bad for only $20 or so. :)
Someone mentioned college towns...they are nice...a lot of amenities of large cities without all the smog and crime.
FWIW, I live in Lawrence, KS, a prototypical college burg.
Good: Fast cable modems, good beer, lots of music, coffeehouses, 4 bookstores in one block, safe, tolerant, relatively cheap, a variety of weather, great downtown, 5 minute commute, the University.
Bad: Other than a few established companies, the tech culture could be better, it's in Kansas, winters suck, it's in Kansas, no DSL yet, did I mention it's in Kansas?
First off, it helps a lot if there's cheap roomy housing. Not houses, per se, but converted warehouses. Somewhere where I can dump 20 - 30 machines without too much trouble.
Secondly, I like form and function to go hand in hand, so I like to shop at IKEA. So, any place that has an IKEA nearby is good with me.
Third, a good walking culture is nice. I don't like to drive everywhere, especially after writing copious quantities of code. Coffee houses are great, as are bagel shops.
Fourth, I need a good-paying job. This equipment ain't cheap, and I sure as heck don't wish to spend more than 75% of my salary on it. So, I need to be able to make money doing it.
Last, but not least, good Internet access is essential. If I can get a T-1 for a reasonable amount, I'm thrilled. DSL is nice too.
So, if you want to keep people like me around, build big warehouses and turn them into wired flats above coffeehouses where I can work from home for a company that will pay for my hardware and Swedish furniture fetishes.
-----
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. - G.B. Shaw
I think that the #1 taht would attract me would be geek apartments. Some of you know whwat I am trying to say, others have no clue. But here is the basic concept. You get a bunch of geeks toghether, get an apartment complex. Wire that thing up with a fast ethernet, or better. Get yourself an "community" internet connection. An OC-3 or somthing along thoes lines. Have a few nice computers hosting Quake servers, etc. I envision it as a bunch of geeks leaving their doors unlocked and you just walk from appartment to appartment, moving the LAN party as you go. Their would have to be plenty of pizza, and a nice jacuzzi to relax in every once in a while. I also think it would be nice to have a soccer field right smack dab in the center of the entire complex, but then that is me, I am one of thoes non-stero typical geeks. In fact, if you didn't know me I would probably look more like a jock. So I think it would be nice to have the "typical" types of things also, weight room.. That sort of thing.
:P
Anyone know of a place like this? I have herd of a few places before, but none of them in climates I would enjoy that much (the Hotter the better). I currently live in Las Vegas. If somone wants to get somthing like this started in LV drop me a line. We could have some fun
"I couldn't give him (Bill Gates) advice in business and he couldn't give me advice in technology." Linus Torvalds
Plus lots of good, cheap Thai food.
So they can have cheap room service and not have to leave their computers. They don't care what's outside, unless they have to go there ;-)
hmmm...
...
I am originally from Pittsburgh... graduated from HS in 1993. I went to school in Massachusetts at WPI (CMU was a
little too close to home). I worked in Pittsburgh for the first two summers during college in local software
companies. I now work and live near Boston. Here are a few positive and negative things about Pittsburgh:
Negatives:
* small high tech industry. At least in the software industry (the only industry I am proficient to write about)
Pittsburgh does not have many places to work. The companies that do exist usually are very specialized or cater to
the older industrial Pittsburgh roots.
* lack of core educational institutions. CMU should be to Pittsburgh what MIT is to Cambridge and Stanford is to
Silicon Valley. However, most of the students from CMU don't seem to stay in Pittsburgh but instead seem to go
other high tech hubs. The companies that have come out of CMU and have stayed in Pittsburgh have been of
questionable success (FORE for example). Lycos, CMU's most recent successful spin-off, moved out of the City to
Waltham MA.
* lack of venture capital. The Pittsburgh banks have historically been very stingy about giving out VC money. This
may be changing.
* weather. If you don't like overcast weather, don't move to Pittsburgh or Seattle or Vancouver or
* blue color climate: lets face it, you are not going to meet as many highly educated people in Pittsburgh as you
are in Boston or the bay area. However, Pittsburghers are usually not as snobby or stuck up.
Positives:
* Real Estate. A lot cheaper than Boston or the Bay Area
* Culture. Pittsburgh has the same amount of cultural activities (or more) than Boston IMO. Pittsburgh has a great
symphony, a great opera and ballet, a new public theatre building, is in the process of building new stadiums for
the Pirates and Steelers, and a bunch of great clubs in the strip. the Carnegie museum complex kicks the pants off
the MFA.
* Traffic. I used to think traffic was bad on the Parkway but after driving Route 128 Pittsburgh looks pretty
good.
* Quality of life. I have this sneaking suspicion that the quality of life in Pittsburgh is higher than Boston. If
I were looking to start a family I might seriously think about moving back to Pittsburgh.
Fry's? Give me a break. Fry's is good if you want to browse product without being pestered by a salesrep...ever. It's also good for opening up packages and looking inside, since no one pays attention to any customers.
I would never, ever buy a piece of hardware at Fry's.
The thing about this place is that there's nothing sexy in terms of CS here. Its all just boring work, and everyone I know dreams of moving to SIlicon Valley to do "interesting" things. Its all databases and old COBOL here, and web pages to support the multitude of special-interest groups. Yet, IMHO, the same thing happens to everyone; they leave DC with dreams intact, and come back here about 3-5 years later, and refuse to talk about it, as they plod back to work at BigGovCo, working on the acre of Oracle boxen in the back room. "Yeah, I lived out in Silicon Valley" is all you ever get out of them.
This place isn't so bad. We never are never hurting for work, there's enough variety to keep it at least tolerable (though rarely is it truly interesting), broadband is pretty common (but sometimes not in obvious places like Reston, yuppie central). There's enough cultural diversity to let just about anyone not feel "alone". You're about equidistant from mountains or beach, cost of living is heinous but far from oppressive (you can go a month or so without working, if you've got some money in the bank, and I don't mean Large Money). All in all, I ditched my Silicon Valley Wet Dream and decided to punt; my GF is here, so I am staying, anyway...
ZOMG I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ON MACINTOSH VERSUS WINDOWS, VI VERSUS EMACS, AND HOW YOU'RE NOT A DORK
".... the city is trying to attract young ... geeks."
What the ^#(^@&$(^?@ do people have against us computer-using, Internet-loving, caffeine-driven OLDER geeks????
The east coast does have some areas with concentrations of High Tech/Software companies. The Boston Corridor I here is booming. And closer to (my) home, the Research Triangle in North Carolina is home to hundreds of Computer & Telco firms (ever here of RED HAT?). Around here, we have a shortage of Geeks of whatever age.
Mike Eckardt meckardt@spam.yahoo.com
When you're considering where to live, don't forget to think about the possibility of a terrorist nuke. That's why downtown DC and NYC are right out for me.
yeah, food access is important. much like bandwidth, i prefer it delivered to my abode. so 24hr delivery availability is much appreciated. how many late nights have you noticed that you haven't eaten anything and...shit! it's 3am.
I have had my high tech business in the Vermont Ave area of Los Angeles for the last 3 years, primarily because it's a convenient neighbourhood when it comes to late night hacking - there are plenty of restaurants open very late, including a couple of 24 hour places, and plenty of interesting places to eat along the Hollywood Blvd (east end) area. An endless supply and variety of Thai food, small Mexican eateries, swish and luxurious restaurants, and cheap eats abound in this area.
So I'd say that it's all about convenience.
Generation Geek likes to be able to have everything within walking distance - food, laundry, entertainment, etc.
There are 2 very cool movie theatres within walking distance of my office here, the subway (as pitiful as the LA subway system is, it is often useful for quick jaunts downtown for access to Little Tokyo and China Town) is accessible and easy to get to, and there are a number of video arcades within walking distance as well for those late-night decompression sessions.
There are plenty of 'expendable income' supporting stores along the Vermont corridor, including a very good record store (Vinyl Fetish), a tattoo parlour, an *excellent* hair salon (Purple Circle, specializing in dreads and dyes), and tons of cool clothing shops. Not to mention Wacko, just down the street, for all that a Geek would ever need for his or her desktop entertainment needs.
Until recently, the only thing missing in my area was a good quality coffee shop - but this has since been resolved, much to my (and my Geek friends) delight, with the new "Psychobabble" coffeeshop just up Vermont - again, within walking distance.
In addition to all of this, a big part of the Geek scene that's evolving here on Vermont is the community aspect.
I've been working hard at getting similarly minded geeks moved into the small and quaint office complex that I occupy, and so far its been quite successful - I'm already very happy to have similarly minded Geek neighbours. Right next door I have a friend who owns an electronic music studio, which is nice for me because I write music software for a living, and just down the hall is another friend who is a computer consultant with similar interests (Linux, music, etc), as well as a DJ for a lot of local clubs - so there's a veritable community feel going in this complex right now.
These are all things that make up the high tech startup experience, and while the Vermont corridor may not exactly be a "Sillicon [V]Alley", its certainly got all the makings for a viable Geek ecosystem...
FWIW, if anyone in the Los Angeles area is looking for a cool place to set up shop, I'd be more than happy to give you a guided tour around this neighbourhood and show you why it's a great place for a small high tech startup!
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
I for example live in Hilversum, the Netherlands. It is one of the most wired cities over here, only Amsterdam is higher on the list. It is home to almost all nationwide television networks and because of that also a lot of creative and technical services companies.
I moved here a few years back because I had a job as internet developer with one of the public broadcasting networks. I decided to stay here and start my own company a while after that because of the infrastructure; public transportation is OK, although driving through it can be a nightmare :)
Telecommunications: almost the entire city has internet access via cable, while business can grow as needed; there is a CityRing (city-wide 100Mbps network) and international connectivity isn't bad either. MCI Worldcom has its headquarters here, and the nation's main backbone runs right through the city.
Add good shopping facilities, movie theatres and a bookstore (two actually) with all the tech literature you will ever need. You can be in the heart of Amsterdam or on the national airport within half an hour by train (the train terminal is underneath the main airport buildings). Or jump on your bike and be in open country within 15 minutes. There are almost no buildings higher than 6 stories, which gives the city a very friendly atmosphere.
Not a bad city to live :) Now if they would only finish restructuring the streets and not make everything one way...
Cya,
bBob
--
*sig*
/me wonders if a drive-through beer joint is really a good idea.
--
Fuck the system? Nah, you might catch something.
This has been a very relevant topic for me. I grew up in (pardon the redundancy) rural West Virginia. I would love nothing better than have a log cabin in the forest with a nice T3 jacked into my home server. It's peaceful there; and it's where I first fell in love with programming. The nice thing about being a programmer is that I can do my job virtually anywhere- and I have. My company had me on four continents last year! Unfortunately, none of those places were home. Why? The key ingredients to keeping the bright, young minds at home are: Job and Education opportunities, Suitable mate-finding/family-rearing potential, Reasonable expectation for financial success in the local economy, pleasing entertainment opportunities (subjective), and most importantly- acceptance from the community. I've watched as my home town (Huntington) dwindled from a 1960's census population of 80,000 down to less than 25,000. It's a beautiful place to put in a Geekdom. Give it fifteen years, and you can buy the whole thing as a ghosttown for cheap.
-Ouija- poke 53280,11:poke 53281,12
While we're at it, we need to vacate Chicago too, as it is also way too cold. There are too many other areas in the country that are more conducive to human life. Just pack up all of the nice museums, restaurants, etc and ship them to Florida or South Carolina.
...that's the only thing that's gonna keep geeks in Pittsburgh...
There are only just a few things you need to attract geeks: #1 Cheap high bandwidth internet access #2 Cute girls/guys to look at #3 Other geeks to hang out with And there you have it. Nothing more, nothing less.
Having bailed out of pittsburgh after living there
for 25 of my 26 years I know a bit or two about
the whole tri-state area.
Pittsburgh's problems are:
1.) the weather just plain sucks. Try parking
1/2 mile from the office and then having to walk through snow and slush ten inches deep.
2.) The universities, while world class, do little
in the way of public relations. Town and gown are
two vastly different worlds.
3.) Pittsburgh virtually shuts down at 5:00 PM
on friday. 24 hour anything is unheard of.
4.) The taxes are insanely high. There is a
2.8% flat state income tax. A 7% sales tax
in allegheny county. My hometown had a 1.45%
local income tax. Property taxes are among the
highest in the country.
5.) old people control everything. Someone else
mentioned that allegheny county is #2 in old
people as a percentage of population. Not only
does this make meeting people bad, it also infuses
old people with political power. Between the
old people and the luddite unions it's hopeless.
6.) This is not an entrepreneurial place. Business
is big here. Alcoa, us steel, mellon bank, etc.
are all 100000 years old and hold court here. There are a few post-cmu startups floating
around now (transarc, FORE) but they are rare.
7.) It's just a blue-collar kind of town. This
place is full of pittsburghers! They worked in
the mills! They went on strike! They hate the
boss! They love the union shop steward! They
drink IC light or rolling rock at the bar and
then go to the steelers game on sunday. this is
pittsburgh society.
anyhow, for what it's worth I moved to Las Vegas.
It's not a perfect geek city (not enough of us
here) but it's got some pluses
- It's warm. 65 degrees on christmas day
- It's 24x7. Wanna go eat at 5am? no problem.
- The women are everywhere. It's vegas fer
chrissakes. the truly desperate can pay legally.
- It's about the lowest tax state ever. No city
state income taxes. minimum other stuff. Gotta
love gambling
- bars open 24x7! no weird pittsburgh alcohol laws!
I could go on and on and on but I won't.
bottom line:
birds of a feather flock together. Geeks leave
pittsburgh because all their geek friends left.
They left because it's old, cold, corrupt, bankrupt, boring, and stagnant.
--chuck
The reason I moved to Denver was the money. The second reason is Dave and Busters :)
I live near NY, in order for me to work in a city thay big I would need a 40% salary increase (that's just to keep the same amount of money in the back at the end of each month). Now the cool thing about being a geek is that many geek jobs really don't require that you're near your work. I telecomputed for the last 2 years, it was nice but I'm going to cut back on it. I miss the day to day conversations with fellow geeks.
If you're really looking to atract geeks to a place try addressing the following:
1) Cost of living vs salary, a geek's primary concern isn't money but a geek has to have toys.
2) Good transportation system (this area's about to go 100% grid lock in the next decade). Things need to be close enough to get to but not in my backyard (NIMBY).
3) Other geeks must be near by. I hate trying to talk to non geeks about my ideas. They have no idea what I'm talking about. Luckily for me, my boss is going to move me to a research center close to home (YES!).
4) Other places of interest within traveling distance (that's why I love this area NY, Phili, Boston, DC, A train's ride away).
5) Bandwidth, I love my cable modem.
6) Geek toy stores would be nice, but I find the online prices (after I do a good search) to be much too good.
7) Lots of ethnic foods, I don't know why but geeks love lots of different types of food. This area has lots of them, thank God!
8) 7x24, geeks keep a varied time table. I wouldn't be able to handle the dry counties of NC for long. They seem to roll up their sidewalks at 5 PM.
There are probably other things as this is just one geeks ideas and probably doesn't reflect even a small portion of the other geeks needs.
Neil Cherry - Linux Smart Homes For Dummies
Hey, when i hear tech jobs... relaxed atmosphere, good food, great beer (shiner bock), spread out location, light traffic (better than most) i always think of austin....
That I haven't seen more responses about women!
I'm not kidding. ABC World News with Peter Jennings had a news segment about two weeks ago about Silicon Valley. The two largest problems with the area are: too many men/not enough women, and that those who work there demand too much money.
One BIG plus (and I mean BIG) is to have companies in the area that belong to the "Fortune's top 100 companies to work for." We have Great Plains Software, and they do a wonderful job at both attracting other businesses to our area, and in being a leader in showing other businesses how to increase productivity. If Pittsburgh has a business like this, flaunt it. Use it to show others that Pittsburgh has just as good a business community as other major cities.
Anyway, back to women. The biggest clincher (this is a better attraction than money) is being able to start a family. Just read posts around Slashdot...geeks want families. Show Pittsburgh as a good "family community." I don't know who good/bad your crime rate or pollution is, but try and show Pittsburgh as a relaxful place (stress the city parks) where one can kick back and enjoy a good afternoon in the sun.
Another good thing to emphasize is job security. Everyone (not just geeks) wants to know that they will be able to stick with the company rather than have to bounce around from company to company, having to learn different systems in the meantime. If you emphasize the high-tech companies Pittsburgh has as strong, growing companies with potential, you'll have people who want to work for them!
Hmmm.... I'd have to say geeky girls keep geeky guys in this city (and visa versa).
I grew up in Pittsburgh, and thought I'd never find a city I liked better. Pittsburgh has a lot to offer, in terms of culture and food and what have you. But it's still a very blue collar kind of town, IMO (don't take that the wrong way; my dad and mom are still blue collar types), and it's not growing, it's shrinking. And you can tell - it just "feels" weird to go there now.
;)) whereas Columbus just feels nice. Does this make any sense?
I moved to Columbus this summer and I LOVE it here. It's similar to Pittsburgh in what it offers, but the atmosphere feels younger, more alive, we're in growth mode kind of thing. Transportation is five hundred billion times easier, even with my 12 mile commute.
I'm not sure how to describe what it is I like better, other than that it's just the overall "feel" of the town. Pittsburgh feels depressing to me now (I know - I was just there last weekend
But the Twin Cities is already experiencing what the poster says is happening in Pittsburgh. The departure of newer companies like Allaire and Cray, and the substantial withdrawal of old companies like Unisys, Control Data, IBM, and Honeywell, all speak to the fact that the Twin Cities is disappearing as a center of computer innovation. In addition, there are simply not enough startups to keep up with the pace of change.
I blame it all on one fact: there is only one place to get an advanced engineering degree in the whole region: the University of Minnesota, and it has hardly shined in that area lately.
What the Twin Cities needs to keep and create geeks like us is a good, private, focused engineering school!
Particularly disappointing is the fact that the fastest-growing college in the area (St. Thomas) has decided that we need another law school, when we already have 3 of national prominence! Yuk!
"You can't get something for nothing." - my grandfather, on the stock market and Reaganomics.
Enough money to be comfy and save/invest :)
+ Close to the mountains
+ Close to the ocean
+ Cool mix of people
+ Plenty of trees
+ Low crime
+ Gorgeous weather 10 months of the year
+ Easy access to lots of bookstores/used CD shops
+ Coffee
= Raleigh, NC!
It's an awesome place to live and work. To hell with Pittsbrugh, it's too damned cold and everyone's all pissy. Raleigh's cheap to live in, I make good money, and there's lots of cool stuff to do.
i browse at -1 because they're funnier than you are.
I'm not sure about anyone else, but the main thing that keeps me where I live is the cost of living there. I've lived in a lot of places across the US over the years...From Iowa, to Chicago, Milwaukee, New Orleans, Nashville, Boston....and it always boils down to the same thing for me.
Sure, Boston is a neat city, but with the salary, living in Nashville, it goes 8x as far. I want to be able to afford my "toys" and pay my bills, and not worry about rents that are $2k a month for a decent place in a nice neighborhood.
(For what it's worth, I adored Boston. But in the end, paying almost 2 grand a month for a house was simply painful. Every time I wrote a check I was cringing inside and thinking about the fact it would be cheaper to just buy. Now I live in Nashville, work across the net, make the same salary, and have so much more money to afford the things in life that keep me happy.)
Perhaps I got spoiled by Iowa and the fact that I was renting a 3 bedroom farmhouse for $250 a month. But when I look at the price of living in a city, no matter what my salary is, paying over a certain amount to live somewhere is just not worth it to me. I can find the same opportunities anywhere...I used to joke that I picked the new city I was going to move to by throwing a dart at a map, and that I could have a job in 3 days of moving there. It wasn't really that much of a joke.
So for a town to keep me, it's got to be reasonably affordable. Because if it's not, there is one somewhere and I can have the same sort of job there, just as easily. It's as simple as that.
Where? Simple. Wyoming. Cheap land, lots of room to grow and build so no $1300/month for a studo rents. Not confined by bays, islands, or bridges so no 2 hour commutes just to go 10 miles. No worries about forest fires, earthquakes, or hurricanes. A chance to build it right.
We seem to attract our share of geeks without the benefit of great universities, high speed connections, or great weather. It really isn't about those things. What Portland does have is a great high paced yet relaxed attitude about it. People feel safe, challenged and welcome. A city planner can't just sit down and toss out a couple of policy ideas and expect everything to change. A cities identity runs deeper than cheap marketing ploys. When I think of Pittsburg immediatly think of dirty steel mills, and no matter what kind of cheap gimmicks you use that image won't change.
There are some things cities need to NOT do in order to attract people like me. Dallas does a lot of good things and a lot of bad things. Among the things I have a problem with:
A city that were to go through their ENTIRE laws/ordinances/regulations and clean up stupid stuff that only favors people that want to control other people's lives, so that freedom truly prevails, then
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Those are some great points, I hadn't thought about the city regulations. What do you think about the new Divine Inventures start-up incubator that's planned for Goose Island? Do you think that this will help attract more investors? I heard of another incubator in Evanston but I think it's mostly bio-tech.
Other reasons why Chicago might not become the next SV: It's cold (but NYC might not be any better...) The cost of living is high. I heard it's hard to get venture capital here. The corporate climate is very conservative about technology (esp. the financial companies in the Loop). So you have to pay your dues with boring mainframe or Microsoft-centric jobs.
The culture and the nightlife are pretty diverse though. Don't forget the art schools like the School of the Art Institute. We have lots of creative and technical college grads, where do they go?
Actually I do find it suprising that there is not as many high-tech startups in that area. There isn't much the city can do to convince young geeks from leaving. But here's my short list of what you need to try and keep high tech geeks in the area...
1) Investors: You need people with money who are willing to risk a bit of it on Pittsburgh. Silicon Valley works because it's got a rep and the money flows rather freely around here. Seattle's got the rep because M$ has the money. You need rich folks in Pittsburgh who are willing to play VC/angels to someone who has a few "cool ideas." Right now, the rich are playing the stock market to further line their pockets. Convince them to invest in a couple of startups. Between the research places and graduates, you should be able to mine a few good products out.
2) Atmosphere: For the most part, people can be very lazy. Inertia is a great non-motivator. I've never visited the area around CMU or even Pittsburgh itself, but you need to develop a place where people feel bad about leaving. You can't control the weather, but you can conrol the crime, street conditions, schools, traffic, hosuing, and other infrastructure. Improve and invest in a more "pleasant" atmosphere.
3) High-paying jobs for the area: One thing about the Valley, New York, and now Seattle is that it's very expensive to live in the area. For what most people pay for rent, you can be paying off the mortgage on a mansion elsewhere. Emphasize the "more bang for your buck" lifestyle. You might not be making $100K, but you can afford to buy as opposed to rent.
4) Promote small geek business: Got geeks? Show them off. Promote successful, innovative businesses in the area. Show you're bleeding edge tech. Be geeky, be proud. People will stick around if you promise they'll have a shot at the Next Big Thing.
5) Infrastructure: DSL, cable modems. Cheap and available. 'nuff said.
6) West Coast style: This one is harder to do because it's attitude rather than anything in particular. Employers need to have a less heavyhanded approach towards employees. Fewer constraints towards their time, promoting innovation/free thinking, progressive attitudes. Geeks and nerds hate working The Man and they don't like Him telling them what to do in their offtime.
7) Social interaction: Culture. Sure you got football, hockey, and baseball (barely...), but what else? I'm not talking ballet and museums necessarily, but you need to form an, please forgive the term, "intelligensia" society. Doesn't mean just cafes, bookstores, juice bars, and nightclubs. But it couldn't hurt.
8) Live for the future: In all the high tech hotspots, people are convinced the best is still to come and they are going to be creating it. Pittburgh was a steel town. You can remember that, but don't destroy your future living that over and over again.
Just a few ideas.
-S. Louie
"I may be Love's bitch, but at least I'm man enough to admit it."
As a long time Austin resident, I beg you, go back to California or wherever you came from. All the things that made Austin a perfect geek city (stuff to do inside (culture) and outside (nature)) is being overrun by the mass influx of young professionals and the trappings of money turning this city into a sprawl like Houston and the rest of the US (Dellionaires go away). I know it's too late, the secret's out. Everything cool about the city is dying (RIP Desert Books, the Drag and the "alternative" live music scene). The truly sad thing is the more cities I see, the more I realize every "alternative" city (SF, Seattle, Boston) is being taken over by mass culture and everything that made it good is being drowned in a sea of homogeneity. I for one believe there is no such thing as a "perfect" geek city, you just go where the things are that make you happy (friends, family, bandwidth, etc.).
Forgive my ranting,
F.O.Dobbs
ps- Yes Austin is still probably the best city south of San Francisco (bandwidth, jobs, weather, culture, etc.).
I am a native Pittsburger, have been all of my life.
In previous discussions, some very interesting points have been made about the nature of geeks. Questions about political party affiliation, religious orientation, food, window manager used, etc have shown that ideas of geekdom are broad and varied.
Personally, I'd rather eat glass than live in the suburbs. For me, I like to feel that there is a lot of activity going on, even if I'm not involved. The city provides this atmosphere.
The original author is correct in saying that Pittsburgh has become a hotbed of research. However, not all geeks are interested in REAL academic-quality research. Most of the ones I have met indicated that they would rather work in a fast-paced startup company or a well established institution famous for their products. Pittsburgh severely lacks both of these categories of jobs.
As far as bandwidth goes, I have DSL in the city, and I have friends that have it in the Pittsburgh suburbs (some of them had access to it before I did!). Cable access is on its way as well.
I love Utah. It's got everything a outdoorsy geek could need:
great tech jobs
lots of bandwidth
good local schools
beautiful mountains
great skiing/snowboarding
friendly, "home town" feeling
high quality, affordable housing
very young population
Well - I live in Denmark, just outside Copenhagen.
I'd look to the following if I considered moving:
Fast, clean, 24hour/day public transport.
Clubs, bars, cinemas.
Fast, cheap Internet (DSL), though that isn't much of an issue right now since I work at a large ISP.
Cheap rent, possibly in a green area just outside
the city.
But then again......isn't this what we're all looking for?
-- Andreas
it's really not about to happen. i've lived in the 'burgh all my life. i'm currently a student at one of the local colleges, and i have to say, my options are really limited in this city.
:)
places like this are just not made for the technical types. Allegheny county (which contains the entire city) has the highest percentage of senior citizens of any county in the USA. and just like someone posted earlier, everyone around here sees computers as fancy typewriters. the cost of living space is really expensive, and the places in the city are all old and run down.
around this city, there are lots of young techie geeks who go to CMU and Pitt, then end up elsewhere. a geek really needs a city that's starving for them. my girlfriend lives in Springfield, MO, which is famous for really crappy education. just visiting there for two weeks, i was already offered a programming job with a company who was willing to pay for college almost in full.
IMO, a geek like me needs this kind of city:
1. one that doesn't produce geeks, and therefore needs us to move in
2. one where living is dirt cheap, and the pay is high
3. one with high speed net access
4. low crime rates
5. and very importantly, there MUST be life after midnight
(the gearhead side of me also likes open highways and no state auto inspection
personally, my little visit to missouri was like dreamland. quite a break from pittsburgh.
-This message posted by TODAY's build of Mozilla
it's hard to define a geek, so i'll just give my reasons for moving from SV to PIT.
being a physicist who programs leading-edge simulations, i don't have a lot of options if i want to stay in physics- national labs, process tools (applied materials, lam, etc.), GE, IBM, Lucent, etc. i started at LLNL and refused to make better bombs, so i left.
SV was great, since there's enough companies that will pay top $ for research projects. having options, i think, is what a geek wants. SV gives that.
why PIT then? well, Seagate started a corporate research center here. the way they pitched it to me was 'the new Bell labs'. how can a geek turn that down? an opportunity to get into the ground floor of, hopefully, a dynamic lab with wide ranging problems. nirvana for this geek.
is PIT perfect? far from it. DSL line was a hassle to get- phone company (N. Pitt) is a joke. there's a few startup companies here, but nothing compared to SV. CMU and UofP are good universities (CMU is excellent in magnetics), but SV has Berkeley and Standford. houses are cheap, but compared to SV, just about any place is cheap. not exactly a hot bed of radical thought, then again working at berkeley, that wasn't very radical anymore, either. less traffic, more family friendly, better secondary schools, less crowded are all good things of PIT. steel-mill attitudes, large under educated population, slow pace and high property taxes would be downsides.
so what makes a ideal geek city? who cares. ideal job and alternative options are what i look for and got. isn't that what geeks want?
just wish it would warm up...
If you build it, geeks will come.
a) fast, cheap high-bandwidth net access
b) tech jobs -- programming, networking, design at several possible companies
c) wages that are enough to keep geeks somewhat confortable in their ->
d) readily available affordable housing -- apartments, condos, whatever.
If you're looking to move, then checkout Northern Virginia, outside the DC beltway. NoVa scores high on all of these, as long as you don't mind getting a car and spending a lot of time in it. There's practically no unemployment; there are plenty of companies hiring all the time. MCI/Worldcom and AOL have their headquarters here; MAE East is here too.
Admittedly, the cost of living here is fairly expensive, but it's nothing like Silicon Valley...
We call it art because we have names for the things we understand.
I am the proverbial night owl..NY is my home...at 4 AM, you could go downstairs to get pizza and WAIT on line! There are other geeks like you doing the same thing..getting Jolt and Pizza at 4 AM..life is grand!
If you're not a Liberal in your 20's, then you have no heart.If you're still a Liberal in your 30's you have no brain.
I'll be able to work for the hottest company on the hottest projects, without ever having to leave my house. I'll be able to live where my paycheck can buy me what I want. By the way, I am already working in an unglamourous secondary market for less than I could be making in Silicon Valley or Boston or RTP. But the job is fun and I like my coworkers. I have a big house on a large lot in the suburbs, good schools for my kids, and a commute that doubles to 20 minutes in bad weather with construction. My favorite restaurant is at the opposite corner of the city and it takes me half an hour to get take out from them. Why would I move?
One way to encourage geeks to move to a city would be for a city to declare itself a geek sanctuary. It could do this by passing laws that favor geeks. Such as:
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Well this is a question I have been asking for a long time now. The big things are cheap electricity, cheap/fast net access, plenty of geeky things to do, etc. Here in atlanta we have everything but cheap/fast net access. Only small portions of the city can get DSL and it is not cheap. Forget about ISDN (BellSouth charges way too much including make people to pay for chanel hours). The part of city I live in, I am too far away for DSL/ISDN and dedicated circuits (even 56k) are way too expensive. Personally if BellSouth could fix the net connection costs problem Atlanta would shoot right through the roof as geek central. We have many Univeristies/Colleges, plenty of culture, plenty of geeky things to do, and a lot more. I do not see BellSouth dropping its prices of network connections.
That's my 2 cents worth,
Scott
Scott
C{E,F,O,T}O
sboss dot net
email: scott@sboss.net
Scott
janitor
sdn website family
email: scott at sboss dot net
gotta represent my highschool, allderdice
...
ok done
How about Vancouver or Amsterdam?
Your Working Boy,
I was born and lived in WI until I went to college. During that entire period, "Radio Shack" was considered high tech. I went to Mpls for college and loved it. Now I'm in Milwaukee, WI because this is my first computer related job, and it required that I move here. Stay out of WI if you can, you will be under-paid and under-appreciated. I would go back to Mpls in a heartbeat.
_______
I just wish I could c:\format Internet
those beaches are subzero! Or maybe Southampton?
I would like a city with 1) a good night life 2) 5 or 6 companies 3) affordable housing 4) nice wages and I guess bandwith would be nice.
don't know why but you have to admit 'I live in pittsburgh' isn't cool.. fix that.. Make it cool.
Excellent points about multiple high tech companies and freedom of choice. I'd love
to see a list of areas that qualify.
Silicon Valley
Redmond (?)
RTP, NC
Boston Corridor
??
??
LazyBoy -- who dreams of leaving NJ
If Chaos Theory has taught us anything, it's that we must kill all the butterflies.
There is no ideal Geek city on the earth at this time.
However, if a Matrix (or something like it were to be created) where data is fed to peoples brains, an ideal Geek city could be created, Geeks could interact with other Geeks inside the city, they would all have different views of it however.
Also - the internet, in many ways is an ideal geek city (or community) depending on your view.
Is it progress if a cannibal uses a fork?
I was wondering when someone was going to mention Austin. I'm currently here in town from Las Vegas for the holidays with my girlfriend on a two part mission...meet her family, and to check out what the town has to offer if I move here.
_ _____________
I am definately moving to Austin. The only things I think I will miss from Vegas are the ability to buy anything at any time of the night and the lack of Cedar trees. Aside from that, the people out here are amazing, you can actually walk from one place to another(in Las Vegas you have to drive everywhere,) the climate is nice, and green plants and trees are a welcome sight(albiet seen through puffy eyes.. allergies are something I'll have to get used to...)
I figure it'll be about two-three months before I can make the move, giving me time to save up a bit of cash, and find a decent place and job.
So, if anyone knows of any cool lil startups or lighthearted companies within Austin interested in a web designer/admin or mac os guy, send me a note..:]
_______________________________________________
--
driph
was trying to exchange a HDD I'd bought that didn't damn well work.
But no; they insisted on testing the damn thing first on this testbed hardware they had, and then claimed it worked fine for them.
Trying to explain that yes, I knew what I was doing, I was a professional UNIX sysadmin and did this kind of thing for a living, didn't help one bit.
I think half of the problem was that the particular Fry's employee was the kind of woman employee who is the biggest pain in the ass: so paranoid about men condescending to her 'cause she's a woman that she wouldn't even listen.
Eventually I asked for a manager and explained to him that there were two possibilities. Either:
He saw the logic, and let me make the exchange...
and I don't mean like DSL, I want a freaking 40megabit feed baby. you give me that feed, I'm yours for life.
Everyone makes fun of Iowa, but I get:
a nice house for ~$100K
a 12 minute commute -- on foot!
our son in a great public school where I can walk with him in the morning
no crime other than drunken college idiots
DSL
good food cheap
friendly people
Of course, Iowa, at least our "leaders", have fallen into the feeling-sorry-for-ourself because 20-somethings want to live in exciting places trap.
Frankly, I think this is stupid -- let'em go -- lure them back when they are settled-down, responsible, law-abiding, tax-paying, 30-something families.
Shut up, be happy. The conveniences you demanded are now mandatory. -- Jello Biafra
I can completely agree...
I moved from Wichita, KS to Austin, TX for very similar reasons. Better job market, more money, more entertainment, better bandwidth. Very standard stuff I guess.
-- No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats, approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care less.
petting-the-cat time
:)
M or F?
OK, I'm working a lot lately, and the humour just isn't as inspired. Sorry.
Pope
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Las Vegas/Reno Nevada. Think about it 24 hour town. can live in city or rural, cheap. Clean air For las vegas there are some great rivers not far away for boating and skiing.Reno there are the mountains for Skiing. Once the 'industry' see this and starts putting there companies there it will become geek paradise. Cheap company Tax's. If I was One of those cities I would aggresavly persue New companies to move there.
Portland, Oregon.
for the past five or six years i have lived in a fairly small university town. i plan on moving to a real city in the n.e. this year. the small town vibe has it's pluses but i am much more a city person. i like to go out once or twice a week to a local bar or pool hall. i also enjoy catching the melvins if they play a show in town. these extra activities outside of work and bandwidth or important. then again, some geeks are not social people by nature :) i am. therefore cities like boston, new york, philly, and dc appeal to me. oh yeah...being able to travel a few hours to most anywhere is also a plus. like in cali you got the ocean, the mountains, and most everything in between all within your grasp for a weekend trip. i think a lot of people will agree that extra activities or essential.
I stay in the Wisconsin/Minnesota region because they have the most intellectual and good looking women I have ever seen/met. I was so impressed, I even ventured into marrying one of them...
Besides that, it has everything I need - high speed net connections, clubs, the Mall of America, the Green Bay Packers, good companies (IBM, SGI, Western Digital, Honeywell, Rockwell Collins, etc) and the most important reason this area is so cool can be summed up with two words: cheese/beer. What more could a guy want?!? I can even get them mixed together in a delacacy from the area called beer cheese soup. What a great place!
Silly as it might sound, other less exciting places could learn a lot from this region. Sure, it is not Silicon Valley, but only because we don't have an ocean, and because it does not cost a royal fortune to live here.
Yeah, but, jwz's descriptions of how hip and cool it is just sort of make me shudder.
oh, maybe that's the site in and of itself.
Make them believe they will be happy there.
Divine Intervention! While I will admit that the two coasts do get a larger piece of the venture capital funds, Chicago now has DI (owned by former Platinum Technology chief Flip) which is doing its
utmost to make Chicago a tech hub. And its only getting easier in Chicago due to newer tech hubs developing in the city and suburbs. Beside, isn't the largest beowulf cluster (Chuba City)located just outside the city at argonne national labs?
Lots of good-looking women. If the play quake that is a positive. If they can set up game LAN even better. If they can run Linux and talk about Beuwolf clusters, you have everyone's attention. Seriously, I live in a college town with about 4 girls to every guy. Has not helped me much :( but it is very enjoyable. As much as I like LAN parties on Friday night, the last thing I want as a geek is a town full of male. But, if there were a lot of attractive women, maybe even with gekk interest, well now... Jobs also help tremendously, it sucks to have knowledge with one to pay for it.
Regarding Chicago weather, I was born and raised in NYC, went to school in upstate NY and lived in Chicago for 2 years. I have never been to a colder place in my life. One winter my door and window froze shut at a tollbooth. I think it hit -10F w/o wind chill. Don't get me wrong, Chicago is an awesome city, but it is damn cold. NYC is a rainforest by comparison. It almost never gets below 20F in the winter. It's been around 40F the last few weeks. Cheers, -Nick
I graduated in June from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, majoring in Computer Animation. I found out about halfway in that it was the last thing I wanted to do- I spent all of my time in the school Mac labs and output room, learning Photoshop, Director, and MacOS stuff like network printing and so forth. Now I'm unstably employed at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, exhibits department.
From a jobs standpoint, it all depends on what your interests and specialties are: I lucked out bigtime. I'm sure there are a fair amount of jobs in the burgh that have no artistic inclination necessary: art-based jobs are not easy to come by, particulalry since a company can just wait three months and have their pick of another crop of A students.
From a mental well-being standpoint, Pittsburgh has little going for it. Everyone I talk to that has a tech-related job wants to get the hell out: the burgh doesn't pay very well (depending on where yo uwork). If you like really, REALLY nasty traffic conditions and the Steelers, this is really a great place to be. But if you hate/dislike sports and are under 21, the burgh is a dry, dead and DUMB town to live in. The local gene pool is a corrupt mass of inequity- anyone seeking proof need but stand downtown for twenty minutes with a camera. Five minutes, if it's a game day. I'll be the guy in glasses, black beret and grey longcoat, chainsmoking camel lights.
Socially: plenty of bars, a few fetish clubs, fairly decent shopping. If you need tech hookups, you need to hit a mall, which is inconvenient. ADSL is available in some areas (like shadyside), as are Cable Modems: prime requisits for the nerdly elite.
If you can snag a job, are willing to spend a year listening to the local version of english ("yinz"- the less intelligible, the more inbreeding) and learning the town, don't mind hideous traffic and roads, and could care less about culture, welcome home. Is there any reason other than school for someone under the age of sixty to move here? (note: PA has the second highest geriatric population in the nation) NO.
Odds are far better of finding better and cheaper living, better ISP connections and better culture just about anywhere else. The thirty-somethings refer to the current generation as "Generation eXodus"- if you asked my boss he'd give you a dozen reasons not to come here. But then, every city has its downpoints and its detractors. On the plus side, the place has a FABULOUS transit system- if you have the patience and aren't in anything resembling a hurry.
If you want a tech job, you are DEFINITELY going to find something better somewhere else. They claim to be attempting to attract the youth back into the city, but do you really think building a new stadium is going to do it? I have yet to see any other efforts or incentives in any direction.
Dan Hinder
happy to be alibve- even if it IS in Pittsburgh.
There were several things I considered when I recently moved from a small city in Upstate NY to the Boston area. First (aside from the job) was the availibility of finding a life, when 60+ hr work weeks don't get in the way. Also, the potential to find a greater number of women who are interested in geeks. Finally, family. Internet access was a plus, but my decision didn't hindge on it. Anyway, just my perspective.
Eric VanAlstine All comments posted are mine alone, not Intel's
Geeks want affordable housing, safe neighborhoods, short commutes and nearby culture (theatres, museums, etc.)
:)
But they also want interesting high-tech jobs and high-speed real internet access. And I don't mean cable-modems, I mean something you can really run servers on.
Personally I don't need a $100,000/year job if the city can offer me reasonable housing with a reasonable commute with a job with interesting challenges.
think about it: People want to go someplace where they can talk to intelligent. and knowledgable people about technology. Try talking to a fry's employee about technology sometime.
I asked the guy in charge of CB's and asked what the range was on a particular modile. He said anybody in the world can recieve me. I said "Whta?!" he said "If you are on channle 4, anybody in the world can recieve you." true story.
Besides, why would someone who knows technology work for 7.00 an hour?
How about city full of women who aren't snotty, superficial, pretentious, and at least in their mid 20's or higher (to weed out the stupid high maintenance platform shoe wearing night club dance joint barhopping Salma Hayek wannabes)?
Here's a clue to all you geeks: the women in Pittsburgh don't like you for you, they like you for your money. Non-geek women don't marry geeks for anything else.
Be warned.
Geeks want: Hot Girls Fast Computers Fast Cheap Internet Other geeks to bond with Check out Silicon Island that Chicago is building!! That is the ultimate geek resort!
To keep geeks in a metropolitan area, I'd suggest a largish cage, plenty of food, water, and a heat lamp.
I think it's important to not say "to make a geek happy, he needs bandwidth". I recently moved to San Diego from Portland, OR, and I've spent some time in the Seattle area, so I'll be using those cities as a reference. While bandwidth is nice, most hard-core geeks work long hours, and might even "play" long hours at the office since the bandwidth there is almost always a lot better. Geeks often want to get "away" in their communities. What influenced where I moved to in San Diego? Of all things, the availability of a garage. A non-geek hobby of mine is to obsess over gas-powered vehicles, and I can't bear the thought of living in an apartment without a full garage. Is this a geek thing? No. But it attracted me to where I live. Most geeks have one or more non-geek hobbies. Winter sports (snowboarding/skiing), auto sports (racing, autocrossing), and "birkenstock" sports (hiking, camping) all come to mind. So maybe the thing is to encourage variety- in communities and workplaces. -ted
Hookers, lots and lots of hookers.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
one word...
AKIHABARA!!!
^_^ for those of you who are confused right now, akihabara is japan's techno-center.
(for the rest of you who are confused, try more ointment.)
--
I like to watch.
The town I live in (Springfield MA) is also attempting to pull in young techs. They've set up cheap "incubators" for tech. startups within the city, basicly a 3 year plan for offices within the city with free legal and business assistance. It's good to see the cities making an effort to attract the next business revolution, even if it's just to collect more taxes from that hot startup that just made a crazy IPO. :)
-- mikeDOTd
Having lived here off and on since '83, I can honestly say I like "da burgh". There're good normal and more adventerous restaurants, mainstream and alternative cinema, good Rails To Trails, really excellent public theatre (Pittsburgh Public Theatre) and the Pittsburgh Symphony (site done by a friend of mine, FWIW), low traffic compared to other metro areas (Philly, NYC, Baltimore, and LA from direct experience), nice people, good high speed access in a growing number of neighborhoods, etc., etc. There's also an advocacy group of non-codgers trying to work on relevant issues for geeks and other young professionals.
And to note a few success stories: Fore Systems (now Marconi), Lycos, Free Markets Online (woulda liked to have a piece of that IPO), the Seagate magnetics research center, a mysterious whiz-bang startup, etc.
On the political scene, the local county (Alleghany) just switched from a three-headed-dog-of-county-commisioners system to a single county executive. UPitt, CMU, Pittsbugh, and Alleghany County are starting to cooperate better in attracting business and supporting spinoffs and startups. CMU's actually figured out that the wild-eyed innovator rarely makes the best startup CEO and is trying to support startups/spinoffs with more serios business support. Pitt's learned that lesson as well.
Now that's not to say that we don't have 'issues', like tax structure, crappy roads, a high codger factor, but things are definitely on the mend around here. We haven't gotten to the point of choking on our own success: housing's, food nad clothing cheap, traffic's low (relatively), no more choking pollution. We've got good and growing support for ADSL (which brings you this missive), cable modems, and CPDP support.
All said, I'm glad I moved here and it looks like things are going to be moving in the right direction very nicely over the next 10 years or so. Meanwhile, we don't need to cope with the crap you need to cope with in longer-standing "high tech" areas.
Oh, and the standard disclaimer: "just my 0.02 worth".
- Barrie
I just spent some time in Toronto recently and yet again was amazed at the number of quality places to go. In the first two days there I found 3 places I wouldn't mind visiting on a regular basis if I lived there (I now plan on visiting at least twice a year.) They even have a internet bar/cafe with live dj's (I assume the good ones) with a dancefloor, although I didn't get around to visiting. 2am, 5 above freezing, you walk down the block and pass around 6 people coming from somewhere or to somewhere.
In Pittsburgh there are very few places that have themes, be it clubs, cafes, restaurants. They cater to the masses, and in the attempt of appealing to everybody, noone if fully satisfied with the experience. Rosebud(strip district) on friday nights was about the best thing going.
Transportation(i have a car so parking is my biggest complaint here) is another big miss with respects to the city. We have a subway that goes nowhere. The areas that have people and places aren't connected to it or each other.
Places to live there just aren't enough good places to live here. Most of Oakland is a dump and the college students ovverrun the place most of the year (at least South Oakland). Shadyside is good, and the South Side is alright. Beyond that you probably want to live in the suburbs, and that sucks as an option if you want to go and do something in the city if anything actally does happen.
Don't get me wrong, Pittsburgh has been improving, but slowly. (Another thing to consider is that a few years back we had sonthing like the second oldes average population in the country. (First was somewhere in florida)). The mayor wants to rejuvinate the city by putting in large stores thoughout the downtown area.
If you ask me it will not work without quality restaurants, cafes, clubs and bars. People want to live in a city, not a shopping mall. Even the people visiting to shop wnat somthing more that just the stores. They want to go to town, get lunch at a nice restaurant, and then go shopping, or the reverse. Perhaps meet friends at a cafe have some coffee/tea and visit a museum.
Mabey i'm crazy. IMHO Toronto is a good example fofa city that would appeal to geeks (and alot of other people.) It has alot of smallish places. Micro communities have the oportunity to build up and coexist.
penguinicide... when jumping out a window just won't do.
Geeks should not even try messing with non-geek women. I tried that for 10 years of my life and finally got smart and married a fellow programmer from college. Say what you will but she and I get along immensely because we understand each other the way no other type of woman could! Unless of course, you like being the butt of the hideous ridicules that females heap upon geek guys who try to talk to them, then go ahead and try Pittsburgh. I hope you have a thick skin though. Or a thick wallet book.
No one would want to move to Pittsburgh with such a sorry band of merry losers to watch on Sunday. The only people left living in Pittsburgh are people who love the way black and putrid 70's style yellow mesh together in a uniform. A scary bunch; my theories about Pennsylvanians in general center around the massive amounts of toxic metals and chemicals soaking the ground and water. Has to have some effect; either the babies have two heads and no fingers or are born Steelers fans. A toss up.
First you need Universities with excellent Csci (and other sciences) Good Jobs (lots of choice, and good pay) Tax breaks for tech companies. Realitively low taxes for employees And safe enviroment. Beyond that you cant say, a geek is no more the same than an any one else. Some like quiet some like Nightlife.
do they love you for you or for your earning potential? (See: the Silicon Valley debacle.)
Big cities are for idiots...pipe that bandwidth to a nice rural area and telecommute...quit wasti ng tax dollars on an impossible task...CITIES SUCK to live in, they can be nice to visit, but if the population is over 50000 then it SUCKS...
DOWN with the MAN, whomever he IS....
Dude, Don't be such a wus. A little cold weather gaer and you'd have been O.K. Your sound like you've lived in Trinadad or something all your life. Any way I moved her from Detroit. Similiar weather, much better city to live in , although I live in the burbs'.
Contrary to what some of the other posts here about PGH either assert or imply, there are hefty tax breaks already for software companies, and Western Pennsylvania is one of the highest-growth areas for high-tech in the country.
The problems is infrastructural (*really* bad transportation infrastructure, high taxes) and cultural (not a lot of cultural diversity; few free activities; not enough museums, art galleries, coffeehouses; also, you can't get a decent meal here to save your life -- at least not without spending a fortune).
Contrast this w/ almost any West Cost city you can name where
The only real benefits I see to Pittsburgh are the extremely low housing costs (just bought a house for a sum I couldn't buy an outhouse for in Portland, OR) and low crime -- which isn't as much of an issue *anywhere* in the country as it was 10 years ago.
Bottom line: if I hadn't had a kid -- who deserves to see his East Coast-dwelling grandparents more than once a year -- and decided to buy a house, the West Coast would have kept me forever.
I am attracted to a specific location based more upon my pastimes than my occupation. While I am able to work anywhere, I can only relax where I am. This has two facets. One, I prefer to interact with open-minded people who are willing to challenge themselves and their surroundings. It is quite difficult to discuss prejudice both openly and intelligently with heavy handed bigots. Two, I prefer to live somewhere that supports my hobbies. It is quite difficult to climb mountains, or go ocean kayaking in the Midwest.
In general, I would suggest that cities wishing to attract geek residents should provide easy access to both high tech toys and distractions unrelated to technology entirely. I do not feel it is as important to provide the perfect geek business atmosphere.
Wanting geek businesses is one thing. Wanting geeks to actually take up residence is something else entirely. Cities that wish to attack a geek crowd should take care to make sure they know what they really want.
I'd sign that petition if it would bring females to Fry's :)
Fore systems (they ave been purchased by Marconi plc)
Lycos (moved)
Freemarkets.com (remember the ipo)
Probotics, Inc. (makers of Cye)
I'm sure there are many more, but these are the big ones that stick in my head.
Admittedly, many may have started and then left pittsburgh.
penguinicide... when jumping out a window just won't do.
Thank that asshole mayor murphy for building such great sports stadiums. Too bad people voted it down the first two times so he passed it anyway. Like new stadiums will make the teams suck less or bring jobs. Hot dog vendors will make a killing. Another thing, this city has absolutely *no* parking at all. Most are private lots that charge $20 per day, and that asshole wants more people to shop downtown? fuck him.
If I leave California I am leaving because of the 'California babes', which is arguably the most geek intolerant population group on the face of the planet. I say they should put the california babe under quarantine. Most of their 'good looks' is due to the heavy use of makeup, anyway. I've slept with these women and woke up next to them without makeup. The truth don't meet da hype.
I think your asking yourself the wrong question. Geeks are really like fish and the go to where there is an abundant food source. If you look at the growth of the silicon valley you'll quickly realize that geeks look for an area with good jobs and a few other supporting factors. Yeah if you have DSL or a cable modem its nice but the real key is the job market their. You need large venture capital firms and a lot of money moving around in the tech industry before you should even think about trying to recruit nerds. What you should be doing is trying to have more internet startups appear in the area. A lot of the east coast is trying that but they are doing it all wrong and many of the startups just move to SV. So the first thing to do would be to bring the money into the area (venture capitalists and not large corporations).
crime, overcrowding, minorities, fuck new york. i hope its the first place to get blown up on new years.
Oh, you mean where Hamvention is held once a year?
That'd be attractive to some geeks.
73 de N0YKG
www.eFax.com are spammers
This pretty much limits you to NYC, Boston, DC (really Silver Springs), Chicago, Cleaveland, and LA (Toronto, if you count .ca). Granted, there are Jewish communities (i.e. resource hubs) in other cities (such as Philly and Seattle), but the resources are not quite as plentiful.
- Richie
Good point, and one I was just about to raise.
Geeks are usually more tolerant of lifestyle and just about all things (except OS issues) than the general population. We are reared on sci-fi and istant global communication, so culture, race, gender, et al do not matter much to us.
However we react poorly to environments in which a repressive indigenous culture would pressure us to comforn to its ideology. We accept the lifestyles of those around us readily, but don't like being told how we should live our own lives. Live and let live.
So, an open-minded environment which offers opportunity equally, without prejudice, is a must. Geeks despise intolerance and authoritarianism. That's what makes us able to do what we do. Freedom to think and act is important to us.
Well, that and the ability to freely express ourselves. This is key for the pierced, tatooed and dyed minority of geeks.
Tolerance of the minority is key for the majority.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
Of course, now I live in an old house owned by a former geek roomate, with 100baseT jacks in the walls, hooked up to the cable modem...
"The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence." But it doesn't stop _me_ from trying to hop it every now and then...
:->
Jay, while I agree in principal with what you are stating, AND with what you are actually DOING; a haven like you propose does get stale after time, and a bigger arena, in this case a city, needs to be available. Look at yourself for instance, how many times have you "re-invented" yourself. From 1 Wilshire, to Earthlink, to Teklab. Things got stale for you too!
Los Angeles, and the Orange Curtain (Orange County for those not geographically here), is a pretty sad place for geek/tech culture. There are pockets, often 30 miles or more apart and few and far between. There was Kontrol Factory, there are Frys, Prebica/Coffee Emporium in the Marina, your local 2600 meeting, a few jobs at startups where people get together, the Pomona swap, etc. etc. etc. Pretty sad list really. Even here, south of SF/SV, things have a habit of closing up early. Your post makes it seem all too bright. Think for a second, its 2:13AM on a Saturday morning, where do you go to realx and find people of your own interests? Chances are in Los Angeles, you don't; at least not a public gathering place. Sunset Blvd. with the GQ, hanger-on crowd? $rd Street or Melrose with the type that downplay themselves?In a bar somewhere (real intellectual conversations there: NOT) But in SF, SiliValley, and other havens across America, these places _do_ exist, and thats what I am looking for. Hell, In SF its real easy.
Sure an easy commute, low housing prices (god it doesn't get worse than LA and Cali in general), nice weather, are all pluses; but what happens when you want those things that are not locally available? These small places/towns/etc being listed,...... what if you wanted to buy a Rolex? Would you really buy that from some e-commerce site, I would not. It would mean a trip to civilization(AKA city), and I think I am just too spoiled at this point, to give it all up.
My bets are on Vegas.
- Hunahpu
whas wrong with it? theres no law against hate groups. Black people have their NAACP, so why can't we have pro white people groups?
On the positive side for Silicon Valley. It does have a lot of young professional people in my age group (25+), there are a lot of stores (Fry's, Weird Stuff, Halted) geared towards my interests, and I'm constantly surrounded by the Industry and learning a lot for it. It is exciting to walk down the street and run into Trimble technologies while seeing the military planes flying into Moffett airfield next to Lockheed, or get lost and find myself in Netscape's compound. Or just play the driving game of how many times you see Sun/HP/Cisco buildings in your 10 mile commute home. The place is also very dynamic and powerful when reading the San Jose Mercury News and seeing familiar companies that either you've worked for or know friends who are listed among the technologically elite. But most of all, it's great to sit around with a bunch of friends discussing the latest finds in computing over a glass of wine. I love it!
However, on my return home, I have noticed a few things I do miss. For one, last night I had a bunch of my old friends over -- non-geeks in a large part so far less homogenous than those I am hanging out with in the Valley. The topics never touched computers or money, but strayed from politics to philosophy and morality and back touching a number of issues current and historical. The variety of opinions on the subject were from people with vastly different personal experiences and I realized just how homogenous the Valley can be and where this is, at times, a disadvantage.
Also, I miss working at pair Networks. It is not a company looking for IPOs and Get Rich Quick, so they are all earnest in keeping the company together and the people on board. It makes for a more bonded *team* of employees, and less sense of temporary company holdings. (Not to mention that pair is doing very well, it often makes me reflect if I did make the right decision in leaving). The problem is that so many of the companies out in the Valley are oriented towards selling out and making money that many of them have lost the sense of personal touch. Even the employee resources step into offices with the attitude of temporary staying power. That makes for a lot more sense of transience and less settled.
I could mention the issue of cost-of-living, but that's been discussed to death here and elsewhere. Though, I will note that I drove down a street yesterday looking at brick 3-story 1890 homes that sell for 1/5 the cost of a 1950's post-WWII tract house with maybe 2 bedrooms in Sunnyvale.
Lastly, everyone is a workaholic in Silicon Valley. To the point where one of the first articles I read in the San Jose Mercury News was a headline Sunday Paper about "How to Know You're a Workaholic" pointing to a big branch of Workaholic's Anonymous. The culture there reflects this greatly in that the valley shuts down after 9pm, and going to the movies is the biggest thing to do (and not much else). Or hosting a LAN party. :)
Summing up: I do miss a lot about Pittsburgh -- for personal reasons not applicable to this discussion, I am not moving back, however I will encourage those who remain to recognize the advantages they do have. Silicon Valley is not for everyone, but neither are Pittsburgh-like places. Seriously consider the options, and reflect on the advantages you do have where you are at. I am glad that I moved 5 months ago, but I do sorely miss a lot of the things I left behind.
(btw, on a less serious note, one word: snow)
Gwendolyn R. Schmidt
The thing is that if you're a tech, you have to work for IBM. There really aren't any other options for techs. Unfortunately, IBM knows this, and they use it to their advantage.
I'd have to agree with this. I started working for IBM in Burlington after I got out of school. It was a great way to start my "real life." I worked on a couple of interesting things, learned some things, and put 3 years of work at IBM on my resume. Burlington was a great place to do all these things. I lived downtown, went skiing in the winter; boating, hiking, and biking in the summer.
The only problem came when I decided I wanted to try out a smaller company doing something else. Then I was screwed. No other options really existed in Burlington, so I packed up my things and moved to San Francisco. I got a job at a graphics startup in Silicon Valley, and now I have a lot more options.
While the overall quality of life isn't quite as good here as it was in Burlington, if I don't like what I'm doing I can find another job pretty quickly. I just didn't have that choice in VT...
That being said, if you want to work for IBM, Burlington is a great place to do it. The pay there was very good given the cost of living and the average pay for other people in the area. And my 20 minute drive from downtown Burlington to work was longer than most peoples. (And yet *much* shorter than my current commute...)
(Sorry for the anonymous post, I can't recall my pw :)
High pay, Cutting edge technology, High bandwidth, cheap houses, no traffic, Open spaces, arts, good schools, miniumum work hours, large geek community, and lots of Capital being spred around all willie-nillie
I'm not pionting fingures or anything, I want that stuff too.But we do have it good compared to any other generation, ever.
Um.. is this /. or zdnet.com? Seriously, what geek would want to write another billing system, email client, or program that has 20 different versions when instead they could be working on cutting edge stuff. I rather be researching robotics or working on AI, than doing trivial programming...
Here in the Boston area, we've got the MIT Flea Market every month, April - October. I've never been to another flea market that has SO much different electronics and computer stuff. Of course, Linux abounds!
Try this one.
penguinicide... when jumping out a window just won't do.
Not that many companies around here (midwest) where I live make you sign non-compete agreements. I've never heard of anyone requiring an assignment of rights to IP like that around here.
I have DSL, I could get a cable modem. Unfortunately we have no beaches, no skiing and no nice national parks. Weather is hot and humid in the summer and cold and snowy in the winter.
However, we do have nice lax gun laws around here, so you can own just about anything you like. Unfortunately getting a concealed carry permit isn't that easy here (depends on the whim of the sheriff of each county), and you can't get type-III permits at all, so it could be better.
I'm not sure what would convince me to move to Pittsburgh, but I can point out some of the reasons I decided to make the move to Jacksonville: (in no particular order)
1) Climate: It's not especially warm here during the winter, but at least I don't have to scrape ice or shovel snow. And, if I hit I-95 heading south it gets warmer fairly quickly.
2) Beach: The beach is close-by. I'm not really a beach-bum or anything...I just can't picture living any great distance from the ocean.
3) Pay: This is pretty obvious. Better pay is always a great incentive.
4) Rent: Rent is cheap here (at least compared to New Jersey where I used to live.) I think this also what has brought Blue Cross, Merrill Lynch, First Union, Citibank, Amex, etc to the area as well. In my case (1BR/1B overlooking a fish hatchery in NJ) ~= (2BR/2B/W/D/Pools/Tennis Courts/Gym/etc on the golf course in Jax)
5) Stress: Definately less stress down here. People are more laid back, less traffic, more room to breath. I drive 10-15 minutes to work during "rush hour." Sometimes I go home and take a nap on lunch break.
6) Entertainment: Jax isn't exactly the entertainment capital of the world, but there's plenty to do...and more every day. It's only 2.5 hours to get to Orlando if there's not enough for you to do in Jax. It makes for a nice weekend trip. (The Space Coast makes for a good weekend trip too if you're a space geek.)
7) Growth: Jacksonville is definately a growing city. More buildings going up everywhere. New shops, theatres, restaurants and bars. I literally could think of at least 10 that have opened in the 1.5 years i've been here--and they're all within 10 minutes of my apartment.
8) Cable Modems and ADSL: MediaOne offers broadband cable Internet access for $40 a month. FDN/BellSouth offers ADSL (1.5M/256k) with static IP for $60 a month.
It's not that I'm especially attached to Jacksonville. I just don't know of anywhere I'd prefer at this point. If I were to move, #8 would be my first thought.
numb
Compared to Chicago, the Twin Cities seems to offer quite a few things that Chi-Town doesn't: -Reasonable cost of living -Surprising number of high tech & start up companies -DSL/Cable available in most areas -Large student population -Decent city life/fun natural surroundings -lots of stupid people, so you appear to be extra smart! Now, there are a lot of lame things about Minneapolis too (like the fact that bars close at midnight, its cold as sh*t, etc.), but seriously, can anyone think of a better city in the Midwest? Madison is up there, but I still think MSP has more. What do you think?
VERY LOW SODIUM
Now, I'm less certain. Fry's is actually a pretty mediocre geek store - maybe it's better clasified as a pseudo-geek store.
First, Fry's good points:
The downside is that you're still limited to their selection and pricing, which is limited by their business model. To elaborate:
I missed the car - are there any pix anywhere?
Wonder why all the statistics show that black kids always do worse than white kids in school? Because up until about 300 years ago most of them were running around throwing spears at each other while white people were living in an organized society. Science proves that white people are superior. Well maybe not in terms of basketball, whats it take for a 7 foot tall guy to put a ball in something 10 feet high?
You need to have a "1st Saturday" computer flea market/bazaar event like they do in Dallas the first Saturday of each month.
New York City has more hot chicks per capita than any other city in the country.
Silicon alley is in New York City.
Coincidence?
Hot chicks attract hot guys, so geekboys and geekgirls, paper rich off of their IPOs, can find that fine flesh that they've been looking for all along.
Tell Pittsburgh to get more hot people.
--
Has anyone actually gone through all the traffic snarlling tunnels in Pittsburgh?
I moved from San Diego to Portland a few years ago and have loved it. Granted, many of you would absolutely hate the weather, but I find it almost perfect.
Business is not quite as torrid here as in Seattle, but there don't seem to be quite as many of the evil-SUV-landwhale-driving-cell-phone-yacking shallow yuppies here either.
Lots of really good pretty cheap restaurants, probably more micro-breweries per capita than anywhere else, and while I'd like to see more startups we do have a lot of long time tech companies - Intel, Sun, Tektronix, Mentor Graphics, Epson, and a bunch of chip manufacturing.
Another thing to try is getting somewhat caught up with the cities in Europe that are way more advanced than cities here are. Network infastructure seems to be what will make or break cities just a few years from now.
In the end, the types of companies found there is one of the big ones for me. Pay rate is mildly important, but not so much for the money as for the status of feeling important or whatever. If you have cool sunsets, plenty of high-speed net options, and a medival times resturaunt then I'm all there. It doesn't hurt that San Diego (where I live) was ranked the #1 fittest city in the nation...and that half of those fit people are girls...and that the temperature is great for seeing just how fit they are year-round...
OC-3's and Fry's and Strip Joints, Oh my!
".. I like pork!"
".. I like pork!"
- Brak
Anyway, this is my shortlist:
- transit should run late, ideally all night
- bike lanes
- diverse live music scene & dance clubs
- funky coffee houses, and restaurants without vallet parking
In short, it's important to me to live in a place where I feel like things are really happening, as opposed to a museum of a city, glorifying the things that used to happen (both NY and SF are in danger of going that route).Things that once would have been on my list:
- Lots of interesting, unattached women (the Valley loses on this one, including Stanford, which has lots of women married to their careers and/or their insecurities).
- Proximity of ocean and mountains.
- Lots of tech jobs.
The reasons these aren't on my list any more: (1) got a babe already, don't need another (though they do improve the scenery); (2) Geographic proximity doesn't help if car traffic will always turn any outing into an ordeal that you can only endure a few times a year; (3) good people are more important than "good jobs", everything is interesting from a certain point of view.There you have it, though it's not like anyone is going to read this. (Is there anything more quixotic than posting to a slashdot discussion with more than 300 responses?)
I say I spent a decade in Pittsburgh one winter. Frankly it felt like longer.
It was a very high paying contract job that included a car but when the contract was not renewed, I was very pleased to shut down my apartment and get the heck out of town. My stuff was at the shipper and I was on a 757 for home in 48 hours. Of course I was returning to my home town, one of the most livable places in america (Portland OR) according to every year's survey
So money aint it. Ya gotta be comfortable with the geography, the climate and the culture. Not much you can do about A and B but as for C: Pitt has a lotta culture, with museums, sports teams CMU and all the other U's etc.
One observable artifact from the industrial revolution is that this is still a solidly union town. Geeks don't love unions (perhaps I should add "yet"). We tend to avoid that mentality believing that we bring meritocracy with us. Being full of .edu's the town is also pretty mired down in folks with tenure, including the public school system, where you have people who've earned Masters and Doctorates in Education at the local .edu's earning $90k teaching 3rd grade. Great union town, not so great for non-union mentalities.
There's a big dip in the population of Pittsburgh in the ages ranging from 18-45. People just don't hang there during prime earning/breeding years, though they do seem to return there to retire. The common tale is that they either inherit their parents place or buy a house on the same block where they grew up. In reality this is sometimes as far a s 4 blocks from the house where they grew up
What to do? One hot idea is to promote that there are FABULOUS deals on amazing high-quality old homes. If the city or your employer could find a way to subsidize remodling gentrification in those homes and neighborhoods; a lot of cool things could happen.
Other than that, I dunno. I think however you'll know it's happened when
In Nearly All Paradigms, Shift Happens.
Aside from the salary issue, perks never hurt, like a free T1. However, the most important thing I have found in picking an area is OPTIONS. I'm in the Washington DC area working for a major Internet backbone provider. They are a great company, and I really like working there, except for a few minor HR blunders. (insert Dilbert Quote here) However, with the market in this area, there are hundreds of other companies in the area where I could go instead should I ever get disgruntled. With this kind of high-tech job market, the employee wins with higher pay, longer vacations, and whatever given your level of experience.
:)
That's what to look for.
Well, look for what makes you happy. This makes me happy.
It's John Rocker posting on Slashdot!!
1 - loose the name 2 - have sunny, moderate days 90% of the year 3 - develope a beach and coast line 4 - give up, it's hopeless... nobody in their right mind actually WANTS to live in pits-vile
Who's trying to attract geeks to Pittsburgh, and why? Landlords, because geeks are more well behaved? Bar owners, because geeks can wake up whenever they want? Pizza parlors and Chinese food restaurants, because geeks order more take-out? My bet's on the politicians, because geeks earn money that the politians can tax, which in turn gives them power.
The computer and its associated technologies have freed people to live anywhere that pleases them. This applies to the "geeks" more so than any other class of person in society. Unless the pub scene rivaled England's, I'd be loathe to submit to such macroscopic parasitism as a city government, given the choice.
But alas, I'm stuck in New Haven, CT, capital of local government corruption, until I finish school, then I'm off to Alaska, if I stay in the country at all.
---------
Once in a while you get shown the light,
---------
Once in a while you get shown the light,
In the strangest of places, when you look at it right -
this posting is directed at Slashdot's editors as much as to the throng. the editors could steer the topic toward a little bit more solid ground since it is too much, being realistic, to ask that everybody become expert.
It is not just trademark infringement to "steal" a trademark, but also to "tarnish" or "disparage" a one. Trademarks, it should also be noted, only cover commercial use of a name for the owner, but once a trademark exists in the commercial realm, talking about that word may be considered commercial speech and subject to restrictions. Again, I am not a lawyer, and I'm especially not familiar with the history of eToy, but it occurs to me that this is what the law may attempting to decide:
- eToy did not have a registered trademark. They were using the name first, yes, and that does give them some rights, yes, but it's not clear (esp. to me) that were engaging in trade.
- eToys came along and grabbed more or less the same name. It is very important whether they exercised "due diligence" in doing this. The law requires that they take reasonable steps to ensure that others are not already using the name commercially, but words that are already in use non-commercially are available as trademarks. But, once they get the name, they are both allowed and required to defend it against both dilution and disparagement.
- I think the question that is important to answer is: did eToy change its behavior in response to eToys "existence"? If eToy's web "art" said "fuckfuckfuck" before and after, ok it's free speech, but if it said "flowersflowersflowers" before and "fuckfuckfuck eToys.com" after, that's not "innocent" free speech.
Now, you may be a free speech absolutist, and you may be against trademarks, but the law is not. There are other restrictions on free speech, things that I'm not allowed to say to you or about you. Trademarks have a lot of the same attributes, you can't slander or libel them either.A quick search of the web found me this page which looks good but I didn't read it in detail.
I was once a Pittsburgh geek. Grew up in the area, have family and friends there. But, when I graduated from college for the second time, (1996), there was -nothing- on my job horizon anywhere near the area. Fresh out of art school with a Computer Graphics/3d Animation degree, and a previous degree in CS, I figured that I'd have a good chance at a job. Sure, there's at least one game company up there (Dreamforge), and a computer "catalog" company (Black Box Corp) But no "Big Name" companies. Every job offer I had was for out of state, what choice did I have? Go back to the Burger King Drive-thru where I worked myself through college, or leave?
I left.
Sure, I'd go back, if there was a good solid job. It's a great area, cost of living is alot less than Silicon Valley, and my current residence, Washington DC.
But I don't think that it's as simple as "What would the perfect town be." You can't support "Geeks" without a large tech infrastructure there. CMU is there, UPMC, Pitt, Duquesne, plenty of colleges, a dozen hospitals, but Other than those limited places, how many "Need Geek" places are there? I think that if Pittsburgh wanted to raise it's tech level, it would first need to raise the -need- and support for a raised tech level. Other than "Stand Alone" corporations, or Service/Support jobs, to paraphrase a quote, "No Office is an Island." You need clients too.
But, as a geek, what would -I- wish for, superficially, to entice me to $Town.
1: Cost of Living. I don't want to spend $900 for a studio apartment, Just Because.
2: Travel/Commute conditions. (Pittsburgh has a delightful Bus system, I used to ride it daily for commute) But I like "Non-Suck Traffic" areas.
3: STUFF. Malls, Events, Museums, places to go feed my brain and recover from my daily job. Bookstores == Good Thing.
4: Job Market Fertility: If I lose my job today, will I have to move far to get another job doing similar? Or will there be dozens of similar companies.
5: Climate. I hate Suck weather, but I can get past that. What I more likely mean here is "Population" Climate. Am I going to be sneered at for walking into Radio Shack? (which, has happened) Will the town be the living set of Jeff Foxworthy's next "You Might Be a Redneck" venture? Will I feel out of place because -everyone- has a Ph.D. and I don't? What I mean is "Will I fit in with little sociological camoflague."
6: Clueful Internet Access. I don't need gigabit speeds or $1/year access, I want something swift, fairly priced, with a static IP and an ISP who won't bitch if I'm running my piddly little webserver on it, or do something they don't immediately understand.
Internet access is last on my list, because I think there's more vital things that I should take care of in my daily life than wether or not I can get my e-mail from every street corner.
I would go back to Pgh. if a: I didn't own a nice chunk of the company here. b: There was a good job at good pay, that wouldn't fold up in a year. c: I could avoid my family on demand.
I lived in Pittsburgh for 23 years. The sports fans are fanatical as long as they're winning, The health care system is delightfully non-sparse, The transportation grids are.. well, could be worse. And its got alot of asthetic scenery. It just didn't have a job, or job prospect for me.
Plus, its Mr. Rogers neighborhood. That's gotta count for something.
Pittsburgh sucks. A lot. One thing geeks tend to be is innovative free spirits. Pittsburgh is way to parochial to attract and retain geeks.
Bandwidth is one thing, but building a culture of acceptance and innovation in a city that prides itself on its traditional family values is just impossible.
The atmosphere in the Burgh is way too repressive
to ever have the kind freewheeling innovative communities that constitute the heart of geek nirvana.
Just another schwartze.
What's keeping me in Pgh? What's the whole reason I'm in Pgh? CMU.
I graduate in May, and wherever I end up, it's not going to be Pgh.
the way to attract young people are obvious.. be dependenble, honest, direct, caring, and tolerant. you will never do these things because you are hypocritical idiotic politician types who do not know a feeling from a detergent advertisement. if you could murder half the population to attract a nuclear power plant and 'create jobs' so you could get elected next term, you would do it.
Girls, clubs and lots of ugly guys to make life easier. Wide roads, no speed limits and lots of shitty cars to make driving more exciting. Free 486s, fast Internet and no lame gameplaying wannabe hackers. Rainy days, Sunny days and no inbetween overcast windy miserable days. Linux community, BSD community and a good paintball field. Theater, Comedy and lots of kick-ass concerts!
:wq
We need decent housing for cheap, high quality adsl or cable for cheap, cheap telephone access, really good public transit for reasonable prices, and a thriving downtown where stuff HAPPENS.
Being close to the heart of things is the most crucial one. Being able to meet the faces you talk to behind the screen is important. So is having lunch, and bumping into people that are doing things related... cross-polination of ideas between companies happens a lot in Silicon Valley because its so thick with geeks. We go where other geeks are.
We need a place where people understand us, and preferably, ARE us.
Oh, and we need a Fries. Fries is our lifeline. And we need decent computer bookshops. And who has not had a hacking session that lasted till 4 in the morning, and not felt like going to Dennys for food? We need grocery stores and restaurants that are open 24 hours, as well as other stores and entertainment places. Any city that caters to this will attract geeks.
Robots. Lots of robots.
City councils don't attract people. People are attracted to the city by the city itself, not whatever government happens to be in charge. Attractions include job prospects, economic climate, culture and atmosphere, friends and family, etc. Some of these things can be influenced by the city council, but the more they pass regulations and pass out tax funds to special interests, the less attractive overall it becomes. People don't move to New York because of Ed Koch or Rudy Guliani. They move to New York because it's New York.
A city council *can* attract industry, but only through bribes of some sort. If a given company is intent on building a new factory, it will do so. But if Pittsburg (for example) bribes the industry in through any sort of preferential treatment, it doesn't help the industry, but instead screws over Baltimore, Philadelphia and all other cities that the industry was considering. City governments cannot create jobs. They can only relocate them.
A better way to attract jobs, people and geeks, is through good government. Stay out of the everyday lives of people. Ensure equitable justice. Keep the peace. Limit spending, and thus taxation, to what is necessary.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
I went to CMU. Pittsburgh is a GREAT city, but
at the time I graduated, all the jobs were down
here in D.C.
I do miss Pgh, though. It was great in that
college atmosphere. I believe Pgh needs a lot
more well-funded and LARGE companies to move in.
Sure, there are a lot of small startups, but
some tech people actually want stability (not
me). Very low cost of living there, too.
I also moved to the D.C. area because I like the
fast pace. Sometime Pgh got a little too weird
with some of the strange people you find. Still
a lot of pickup-driving hicks around there...
But I love the city. No better view than from
Mt. Washington at night looking at downtown after
a ride up the Incline. Wow! The city has a very
rich history, and the architecture around there
is amazing.
-Mike
--- witty signature
Gaak. There are so damn man posts nobody will
read this but, what the heck. I have half a day
off.
Important attributes for cities:
1) Lots of jobs within a reasonable commute
distance.
This is a big advantage for cities vs the burbs.
I've lived in both DC and Boston, and in both
cases I've been able to easily change jobs without
having to move. Moving sucks.
2) Reasonable housing.
This means reasonable apartments for those
starting out and reasonable houses for those
who want to stay. When kiddie time comes you've
gotta have a house. If they are too expensive
you'll move.
3) Schools
Lots of people like to take courses. Plus, as
some other posters have mentioned, for some
the number of um, er, interesting people of the
opposite ^H^H^H^H^H^N^H^H interesting sex is
important. Having a bunch of colleges around
can improve this.
4) Recreation
It is pretty important to be able to drive
somewhere interesting for the day. If there
is water there, great. If it is salt water,
even better. Otherwise you go crazy or broke
buying plane tickets. That's why I like Boston
and DC over chicago.
-- cary
There is so much work out here its pathetic. This morning I heard an ad for Pizza hut workers on the radio. The unemployment rate is so low that Pizza Hut has to recruit.
Everyday I'm glad I made the move to Virginia. There is so much competition for tech workers here, the companies have to wine'n'dine you to keep your employment. (the golden hand-cuffs help too!)
There are some things I miss though. #1 is the women. They are so plain-Jane it's depressing.
Here are some tips for any Northern Virginia women who may be reading this:
- Show some skin off for Gods sake! Slut it up a little! I know you watch TV! Do you see how the women on TV dress nice, do their hair, make-up etc... follow suit!
- Lose the sweat pants. You don't have to ware drab baggy sweats every where you go!
- Lose the mullet hair-doo's! Having your bangs chopped at your eye-brows makes you look like an 80's ass rocker. Let those bangs grow out.
- Drag a fish bone through your mop every now and then. I'm so sick of every woman here putting their hair in a bun and going out. Don't be so damn lazy.
- Quit smoking! all the half-decent women I've met out here smoke! (a half-decent NOVA girls doesn't even compare to a sloppy California girl)
I really don't get it. I've tried to come up with an explanation for their depressing looks. The best one I can think of is there are more successful, attractive, males here then women. Tech cities tend to have more males because men seem to flock to tech jobs more (i can feel the flames coming...) Because there are more eligible males then females the homely-women here don't have to compete as much. Why take any time to fix yourself if you already have suitors?--Aaron
I think an ideal geek city needs to have eclectism and night life. No one I know who works in the computer field puts in anything like normal hours....unless they work for the State in a totally 'Dilbert' job of COBOL maintenance
Here in lovely Harrisburg PA, there is nothing like a night life except Denny's. We used to have other late night diners, but they all shut down, and young high tech people leave this area as fast as they can.
I'm leaving as soon as I can.
In San Jose try the the little techhead shop across the street from Fry's called "Weird Stuff". I loved it!
Hoo Doggy.
He shoots! He Scores!!!!!
Toronto has a lots of computer companies, lots of work, pay is more than decent ( I make 3 times as much as average Canadian family, and I am single).
There is plenty to do if you like nature and sports, there is actual theater.
Universities of Toronto, Waterloo, Queens, Ryerson, McMaster are within 2 hours drive from downtown.
Important thing for a lot of non-NorthAmericans like me is multicultural factor, and I think no city beats T.O. when it comes to that. So, I will not be moving anywhere for a while.
If you are thinking about moving anywhere, check Toronto out, you will be surprised.
If you live in the county and work in town, public transportation is pretty good. Parking is a little scarce and they never seem to get arround to fixing all the bridges and widening all the roads.
I've worked for some places that are really formal and others that are very casual.
Cost of living is pretty decent (of course the pay is scaled down to match). If you don't mind a commute of over one hour you can live real cheap in the neighboring counties.
The culture in the 'Burgh is pretty unique. The same guys that do business over a round of golf in the summer, wear cammo and hunt deer in the fall and then go fishing in the spring. I've heard that more money per person is spent on the arts (Opera, Ballet, Theatre, Orchestra, etc.) than on sports (baseball, hockey, pro football, college football, highschool football, college basketball). Most of the big shows make their way here eventually.
I think the high-tech outlook in Pittsburgh is getting better. But there are still a lot of people who wish the mills were back and let's face it, no one is afraid the crime rate will rise because geeks can't get jobs here. Democrats still run the city (and they have to cater to the unions), but Republicans have been gaining more control over county government.
What keeps geeks in a metro area? Young geeks seem to like large, active geek communities (Pittsburgh has this in CMU, though I'm not sure how active a community it is). Besides that, they like what all other young groups like; generally, vibrant cities with lots of stuff to do, not too much crime, government that agrees with their general views, a transportation system (public or otherwise) that's not choking on itself, etc.
:)
I'm finishing up at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta come May. And then I'm packing my crap into a U-Haul. And driving to Pittsburgh.
Why? A couple of reasons. One, I, like many more experienced Linux geeks, tend to see things on the rise and jump to them. That's why we were all suffering through difficult installations and a relative paucity of applications in the early 1990s. Pittsburgh has the potential for a great explosion in information technology (a supportive local government, lots of jobs, and lots of people to fill them) as well as in general (Pittsburgh's older, depopulated urban demographic and adequate urban infrastructure is extremely ripe for the type of young, educated urban recolonization that has been sweeping American cities, especially those hardest hit by white flight in the former Confederacy).
Also, Atlanta is on the decline. The metro area is choked by battles between urban and suburban governments. The transportation system is abysmal. Land use decisions were made years ago with no value placed on quality of life. Atlanta has the lowest population density of major American metro areas, and the traffic, smog, lack of a sense of community, and jurisdictional bickering that come with it. In short, while Atlanta's geek community is quite active (see Requirement One), all of that other stuff is leading Atlanta's optimistic boosterism into a head on train wreck with reality.
Pittsburgh, on the other hand, has fewer of these problems. The former Steel City choked in smog now has air that is far easier to breathe than that of Atlanta (or Boston or the Valley for that matter). Pittsburgh was a fair sized city before the advent of automotive transportation, so the types of walking neighborhoods so prized by the recolonization people and their new urbanism brethren are abundant. Fewer surrounding jurisdictions mean regional planning is possible without political deadlock.
In short, the answer then is "do nothing." Pittsburgh's upswing will start soon enough. Just wait for it. You can help by trying to stir up more activity in the geek community. Start or help out a Linux user's group. Help out PUMP (the Pittsburgh Urban Magnet Project, pump.org) and maybe see if you can start a geek interest group. Become a city booster in general. If you're not into the whole extroversion thing, find a friend who is and convince them to do all that.
I'll be there in May to help you out.
- Brian
Being an older /.'er I'd have to say that my priorities are based more around my family than personal interests. When I was young, in my twenties, yes that's still young ;-) SF was really nice. But now with kids, I prefer a small town atmosphere, you know, low crime, good schools, etc. But I don't know that you could simply quantify a 'geek' appeal factor, my computer can plug in anywhere.
I'm nineteen years old, which hopefully classifies as "youth", and I moved to Pittsburgh about two and a half months ago.. Prior to moving to Pittsburgh I spent about two years travelling from Texas to Massachusetts for my old company..
Reasons I moved to Pittsburgh: I grew up about four hours east of Pittsburgh, so family is always a jump away. I knew of a job in my field for a good company in Pittsburgh (Fiber optics) which, combined with the geographical advantages, convinced me to pick up and come here sight unseen (I never saw Pittsburgh until I went for the interview). I had previously been contemplating moving to Charlotte, NC, but I spent enough time in Charlotte to realize that it wasn't for me. On the other hand, I never heard anything about Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh is a city you don't seem to hear about much, in comparison to other major cities), and anything I did hear was positive.
Things That Keep Me In Pittsburgh: The traffic isn't a problem; it's a ten minute ride to work (in downtown Pittsburgh) from my apartment (in a close southern suburb). There are ALOT of concerts and similar entertainment opportunities for youth. Pittsburgh is one of the nicest-looking cities I've ever seen (this is subjective ). The technology/science/education factor is very high here, with attractions like the Carnegie Science Center or the Cathedral of Learning. Oh, and cheap, high-speed internet access (ADSL and Cable access are available). The price of living is also suprisingly low for a city the size of Pittsburgh.
Things I Don't Like About Pittsburgh: The older population, and hence the city "attitude" as a whole, is very conservative. The streets are, without a doubt, some of the worst to navigate that I've ever seen (barely beating out Boston). Actual GeekPlacesToBe are kind of hard to find (granted, I haven't looked that hard yet. Any ideas?)
On the whole, I'm happy with it. I don't think it'd be for everyone, but, as the saying goes, it's the largest small town around. If you want a prototypical bustling, huge city, go elsewhere. If you want to avoid (many of) the problems associated with large cities, come to Pittsburgh.
I am a resident of Eugene, and I would like to inform you that Symantec is certainly not the only option. For example, Eugene is also home to game maker Dynamix, embedded hardware manufacturer Versalogic, a large Hyundai DRAM fab plant, and lots of small software development companies.
Many smaller companies choose to locate here, because we have clean water, hydroelectric and wind power, abundant local pruduce, clean air, multiple DSL providers, and now cable internet access, too. We also have low crime, good schools, and clean streets. Eugene is, in fact, one of the fastest growing tech centers in the Northwest.
Eugene is also home to the University of Oregon which you may have seen mentioned in a recent article on new research into quantum computing. They also have LAN connections in all the dorm rooms.
Sure, if your concept of a good job is working for MS or some other large corporate slave driver that will keep you in a small cubicle and feed you the scraps, then Symantec might be your only option here. But there are also a lot of good employment opportunities available here, also.
I think the main problem is a lack of high-tech companies. Pittsburgh definitely has some, including Marconi (formally FORE Systems), Lycos, Black Box, the recently IPO'd FreeMarkets, and for those of you wanting to get in on a promising startup, there's the newly formed Spinnaker Networks.
Pittsburgh isn't a technology city yet, but it's getting there.
I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
I have lived in San Jose, CA for years and the thing that keeps me here in silicon valley, despite 1.5 hour commutes and ungodly hours, is the fact that geeks like me are respected and above all understood! My friends and neighbors(even non-technical ones) all have a fairly good understanding of what I do and why I am the way I am.
In many other places all people see is a seemingly unqualified(no degree) kid making big bucks for tinkering with boxes. They don't know or care what a net admin is. I'm not trying to dump on other peoples cities/countries but the point is that the geek culture here has sprung up(fungus like) and evolved over time, it was not added on as an afterthought.
Q: So what do I think is necissary for the true geek city?
A: Other geeks.
Houston is a nice place for IT. An overabundance of IT positions makes for a cutt throat marketplace where many good IT people can just about name their price. Also the widespread availability of affordable broadband access makes for another nice point.
just why exactly would i want to move to pittsburg? its not like you hear much about their winning sports teams or their kickin night club scene... just letting you guys know... if you want to attract ppl you need to have something really cool and cutting edge... not just mediocre and getting some friggin high speed connects all over pa wouldnt hurt either (god i hate reading, pa :P)
But the rate of change in the SouthEast is accelerating, partly because of the way technology breaks down barriers to communication. When companies large and small (MCI-WorldCom, BellSouth, S.E.D., etc.) create profit centers and pay geeks (Oops! "technology specialists") real money for real work, it forces other businesses, politicians and school systems to rethink their entire value system. And when people start using their brains . . . it's amazing what can be done!
The SouthEast may not be for everyone, but I'll stay put. It's not because the rent is low in my city. It's not because I have a 20 minute commute to my job on a bad day. It's not because I am being well-compensated for my university-level education, two certifications and several years of experience on various platforms. I like it because my fiance (yes, I have a life) likes it here, too!
Legalize prostitution.
Frye's is the geeks holy pilgramage.
Lets take the Sacramento store...
Full CD section
Full VHS section
In their day they used to carry Laserdiscs, no longer
Largest DVD section ive found
about 300 feet of Computer books (4 shelves) with everything from certification to 'for dummies'
Dreamcast,N64, Playstation
Vacuum Cleaner, Pasta Maker, Convection Oven, Toaster Oven, Dishwasher, Deep Fryer, Coffee Makers, Coffee Grinders, Kitchen Aid Mixers & Slicers, Electric Rice Cooker, Bread Machines, Clothes Washer & Dryer, VCR's, DVDs, Receivers, Speakers, TV's (normal,hdtv, jumbothings)
THAT MAKES UP THE FIRST THIRD OF THE STORE
Then you have your software, your hardware (from crappy premade deal of the month type things to individual components (motherboard, floppies, cpu, ram, power) to the really prettily boxed Graphic cards and sound cards and speaker systems and then there are a couple isles for cabling for networks and hubs and switches and tigers oh my. They have some toys, whatever is popular, a magazine rack the size of hell, a small minimart worth of food and paper products. Then there is the small cafe for snacks, ice cream and coffee. Plus during checkout you are subjected to every candy known to man.
It is the truly one stop geek store.
But Frye's is pure evil
The staff is stupid
No, beyond what you have encountered before. These people are specially shipped in. They are stupid, lazy, annoying, and have no interest in what you may or may not be purchasing.
Without a doubt they take returns, slap a sticker on them (if you are lucky) and put them on a shelf. My friend bought a spindle of CDR's and 90% of them had already been burnt. I know one guy got a video card, got home opened it, and their were scorch marks on it.
Exchanges take at least a half hour (more like an hour plus). It's an amazing process where they can go through as many as 5 supervisors depending on wether its a return, an exchange, and exchange for an item in their cage.. (did i mention they keep all their small electronics (chips, etc) locked in a cage with a special warden.)
Get this, to buy memory:
They ring it up
Call a supervisor
The supervisor takes the request to the cage
The cage person finds it
The supervisor signs for it
The supervisor brings it to you
You pay for it
Then they want to inspect it at the door
The golden lining. THEY ARE INCREDIBLY STUPID.
If you know what you are shopping for you can make out like a bandit as they NEVER PRICE ANYTHING CORRECTLY
When 28.8k modems came out, I bought it at the 14.4 price. about $150 difference
Back when 4x CDRoms were a cool thing they had a 1x for $50. Oh and the identical boxes of 4x were the same price. (instead of like $300)
Back when DRAM was insanely priced and most boxes had 1024k, he bought 4 megs for his 386 running a bbs, and they only charged him for 1 meg. thousands in savings.
Lots of times they mark things down for sales and then dont fix it. So you find all these boxes at one price, and then another that is like 30 dollars below.
You absolutely must know what you are shopping for though. And accept you may have to a return (repeatedly)
And that, people, is what Frye's is. A little bit of heaven and hell all rolled up in one.
Hunahpu wrote:
"Jay, while I agree in principal with what you are stating, AND with what you are actually DOING; a haven like you propose does get stale after time, and a bigger arena, in this case a city, needs to be available. Look at yourself for instance, how many times have you "re-invented" yourself. From 1 Wilshire, to Earthlink, to Teklab. Things got stale for you too!"
Actually, it went ELN -> 1 Wilshire, etc. I left ELN for political reasons (long story, beaten to death).
1 Wilshire was cool though - no lack of bandwidth down there what with the UUNet hubs and MFS fibre all over the place to support the financial district, but the reason I left was the same reason that I'm an advocate of Vermont - there was *NO* Geek supporting infrastructure down there in downtown LA.
It was all business/corporate, and it was extremely limited in terms of choice, selection, and more importantly: hours of operation. After 5pm, the place died. No point staying down there if I can't hack past 2am and still be able to reliably get a decent cup of coffee during a decompression walk... not to mention that LA Downtown turns downright spooky at 3am in the morning.
So I don't disagree with you that the scale is important in these Geek Ecosystems - on the Vermont corridor, I see a lot of opportunity however, because this is a veritable real estate waste land, particulary on the easterly sections of Hollywood Blvd where there is an abundance of empty and abandoned office space.
Word is that the land lords in that area are doing all they can to survive -- given bandwidth, this area could become a Geek haven. I know a lot of us in this area are happy with the DSL services and options available, that's for sure.
And Vermont has certainly got the counter culture swing in its favour... the place is already full of geeks as it is, albeit fashion geeks not computer geeks...
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
I want to reply to this article in two ways, so I'll make two different posts.
The first problem is the subject line. "Not all cities can go high tech"? That's complete BS, and pretty inane for a slashdotter. High tech can be anywhere, that's its virtue. I believe this particular server we're on comes from some tiny place in Michigan, for example. The second silly aspect is assuming that "high tech" is some kind of strange, alien, different business that you can either get or not. High tech is everywhere, sometimes it's the front door (dot coms), sometimes it's an add-on (catalog companies), sometimes it's a whole new way of doing business. The innovations of the next ten years are far more likely to come from places outside Silicon Valley than in.
Practically the only reason for the concentration in Silicon Valley is the combination of startup money and abundant potential employees.
You've listed a number of issues that should be considered, and those are good ones. But the question was, what can Pittsburgh change? What they need to attract are VCs and techs, and don't think that all of those want to go to SV, because more and more people are hoping to build a tech career where they want to be. I grew up in the Midwest; it took a year in New York before I realized I belong in the Midwest. I'd rather build a career here, with recognized limitations (e.g. not likely to be on cover of Fortune), surrounded by friends and others like me (stolid, unprepossessing, Midwest folk). I believe that a lot of others would say the same, no matter where they're from. The challenge is to keep them, and Pittsburgh is approaching that question. I think it's forward thinking of them; they long since gave up on being Steeltown USA, and they've rejuvenated the downtown somewhat. They have a lot of old building stock that's just aching to be converted to high-tech lofts. They need to do it; the only question is how.
----
lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
...is a pretty good geek town. We have some hip tech businesses (Seagate not least of them) and a flamy LUG mailing list, so Slashdotters would feel right at home. ;)
I understand this is common, but there are unfilled geek jobs everywhere around here. The only drawbacks are the lack of public transportation (it exists but it sucks) and the nasty weather (which some people like).
Oh yeah and our university is a piece of shit. But I'm not sure how important a geeky university is to a town. Most of the geeks I know are self-taught and without peer in terms of their abilities. I didn't major in CS, and none of my friends did either, but we all have very nice software development jobs. There are several strong geek sub-communities here.
Don't you geeks like mating?
- Public Transportation: We have a very very good bus system. Eventually we'll have light rail, but for now, especially if you live in the city, we've got a really good bus system. Virtually every place young people want to live has fast bus lines during the rush hours, and service goes around the clock. Yes, I can catch a bus downtown (or home) at 3:30am.
- Public Space: I admit, Portland, OR, kicks our asses up and down the West Coast on this one, but, up and down the West Coast, we come in second. I live in an urban neighborhood, and I'm across the street from a park system with a few miles of trails around a wooded stream, a 15 minute bike ride from two large parks, a 5 minute ride from a huge system of bike trails, and a 10 minute walk from my neighborhood Pea Patch (community garden space, perfect for appartement dwellers like myself).
- xDSL: We've got it, and it's expanding into increasingly blue-collar areas.
- Decent wages: For tech jobs, yes. I know the slashdot crowd has particular vitriol for MS, but they are (in)famous for creating entire suburbs of millionaires, and other local tech companies have to compete for labor (which is a tight market here).
- Of course we've got a good name.
- I'm not sure how telecommuting facilities are different from telecommunications facilities, except maybe in corporate attitude. The attitude around here is positive towards anything that reduces people commuting in cars, due in part to a particularly progressive city ordinance requiring almost all businesses to have a plan to reduce single-car commuters among their employees.
- Innovation? We got it. MS can keep their "innovation" in Redmond, we've got some good stuff going on here.
adding to your list:Our largest problem, though, is that our system of electing city councilmembers (all seats are city-wide) means that our city counsil is always pro-corporate upper-middle-class "liberal." The good-old-girls club. We've got a ton of syndicalists, progressive queers, leftist (read: cooperativist, libertarian socialist) blacks, and such, who all can work together okay, but the political system of this city severely exaggerates the power of the majority political bloc. Yeah, so Californians, don't move here, but East Coasters, please do. Especially Bostantonians. Oh, and this city likes Cannucks.
I expect to go try Vegas for a couple years after I'm done with school. My sister lives there now, and it looks pretty nice -- high speed access is cheap, rent isn't too bad, and there's always something to do. The disadvantage as I understand it is that after a few years you realize that it also attracts total losers would haven't made it anywhere else so thought they might take a stab at Vegas. That and no one is actually *from* vegas.
I've actively used DSL and cable...... Cable plainly sucks...... just too much latency and slow... DSL is great, but still 1 or two megabits isnt enough........
:) DSL would still be a good private connection direct to the backbones also....
true geeks want microwave encrypted 10/100Mbit inner-city lans with network connection points running at 100Mbit....
just think, if a few thousand people in your town played Quake ][ or ]|[ on a nice well built network like that.... cable would be out of business
Ever need an online dictionary?
Vegas is the city for p0rn geeks... we got it all, believe me :)
x-empt
Ever need an online dictionary?
As I've said before, Vegas is a very geeky town.... p0rn freaks love us, 24/hr everything.... even weddings.... the backbone to vegas is improving dramatically also..... a large portion of vegas is on cable and DSL is expanding rapidly...... you name it, we got it.....
x-empt
Ever need an online dictionary?
Free beer would be nice.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
There seems to be a geek mantra.
"cute geeks, bigger better and faster connection, and 24 hour everything"
She became a geek by absorption, one day she woke up with a bad taste in her mouth.. and knew how Linux worked
24/hr fast food & supermarkets
24/hr p0rn
24/hr b33r
24/hr entertainment (rides and such)...
Theme parks
Hot tourist chicks
Lots of babe neighbors that work in strip joints
Lots of jobs
Lots of sunlight, so you can get an occasional tan and look normal :)
Fast backbones to the Internet (quite a few providers are getting in here nowdays)
DSL / Cable is widespread.... Cable is in need of something faster though ... true geeks use DSL at home
Great Conventions... or they used to be at least, defcon is now pretty kiddie-ish... time for my to start my own :)
Ever need an online dictionary?
Gun Laws? Who wants guns? Better live in a place where you don't need the damn things in the first place (like the country I live in - the Netherlands) and be done with it. Now if only we had those mountains and parks and space it'd be bliss... Oh yeah, and maybe somewhat less than 50%-60% income tax... Any Canadians out there hiring Unix guru's? Got Unix, will travel...
--frank[at]unternet.org
I agree that San Diego is expensive, but so is Orange County and Los Angeles. I think that life is easier in San Diego, which makes it worth it. Here are my 2 cents:
I have lived in Los Angeles (Pasadena), Sacramento (CA), Orange County (CA), and San Diego. I really like the City of San Diego, not the entire county. Parts of the County of San Diego feel like Orange County. I still like Los Angeles, especially Pasadena. You can design your life so the traffic congestion does not effect you very much. There is so much to do in the Los Angeles, it is amazing!
Orange County is boring to me and so very 'average'. Most of the area developed over the last 30 years and has very little history. Tons of mini-malls. Almost the entire county is designed around the automobile. When I think of Orange County I think of corporate chain stores, freeways, huge parking lots, malls, track homes, and low diversity. I lived there for 1 and 1/2 years, and was bored out of my mind. There is limited culture. Orange County basically survives off of Los Angeles. Some people like this life-style, which is fine.
The City of San Diego has history, it is right on the ocean, has a laid-back culture, is divided into communities so you really know where you live, especially in the historic communities like La Jolla, Hillcrest, University Heights, Kensington, or Ocean Beach. There is culture, although less than Los Angeles. San Diego has walking communities, and there are tons of unique little stores that exist no where else. Take a stroll through Hillcrest or Normal Heights. It has a thriving downtown nightlife. Pacific Beach is great for the 20's-30's crowd, many clubs and many attractive people. The unemployment rate is lower than the national average. The job areas that appear to me to have the most job growth are Internet, cellular (communication/engineering), and biotech. The worst traffic is probably going into Sorrento Valley (San Diego's silicon valley.) There are tons of high-tech companies located in the small area. Also, Mexico and its Tijuana are only a trolley ride away.
San Diego is expanding its light rail (Trolley), and new apartments and condos are being built in the downtown area (right on the bay), where high tech companies are starting to move. You can 'almost' design your life without a car, yet the freeways are still pretty nice, with the expception of the 805. Cable modem service is available through Cox Cable. We have three major universities in the City, (UCSD, SDSU, USD). San Diego is the 6th largest City in the country, but feels like a small beach town with class. We also have a great Fry's, and tons of small computer stores in Clairmont Mesa (near the old General Atomics). You can almost find a User Group for any product or platform, including Linux (http://www.kernel-panic.com). As a geek, I heavily recommend San Diego. (I think the immense high-tech military industry in San Diego really helped the City out in terms of being involved in the commercial high-tech industry.)
If you want a standard track-home life-style with the Utility Vehicle and enclosed mini-malls with McDonalds and Olive Garden restaraunts, they exist in San Diego (Rancho Bernardo, etc.) but you will have to fight the traffic to get to work. I would really not 'highly' recommend San Diego to you geeky folks, perhaps Boulder Colorado? If, on the otherhand, you want a really nice Craftsman Bungelow in one of the histric communities, San Diego is ideal. Or if you like a walking community like Hillcrest, and want to live in a high-density, hip area, San Diego has it. Many unique stores and restaraunts, high-density, pedestrian friendly, and fun. Plus, only about 2 miles from downtown. (A few San Diego headquartered companies? CSC, SAIC, Gateway, Qualcomm, MP3.com,...)
Although the weather is nice, I think the weather is almost as good elsewhere in Southern California. I live in San Diego because of the beaches, the landscape, the jobs, the history, the people, and the feeling of community. :-)
My favorite Fry's purchase was a SCSI hard drive that had already been formatted by a Macintosh and given the volume name "PIECE OF CRAP HARD DRIVE". Sure enough it had a shit load of bad blocks.
It only took about 2 hours and a trip in rush hour traffic to Sunnyvale to exchange it.
Nashville is really starting to grow. We have DSL, Cable Modems, and relatively cheap ISDN (except they keep raising the prices). Its large enough to have several theaters, all night bars, and dance clubs, but small enough where traffic isn't *all* that bad. If you don't mind a 45 minute commute then you can live in the coutry with your sheep and cattle... err wrong fantasy. As soon as they legalize prostitution then it will be perfect! Who has time for relationships? The only down side is the type of jobs. Mostly boring internal corporate software design and intra/extra/internet jobs working with clueless morons that think they can design web pages.
.02
I think that another reason that the Bay Area has prospered with high tech for so many years is that it has a long history of being accepting of people far from the norm. Geeks and our ilk tend not to hold too much with societal norms (be it clothes, sexual practices, exotic food, etc.), and there are relatively few places where such a life can be experienced freely. Even when the local economy was in a high-tech recession in the late '80s (uh, yes, that does happen, you know), i knew there was nowhere else i'd want to live (well, maybe Amsterdam...). Fortunately, i was born here, so i didn't have to move :) The Web boom picked up a huge pool of creative, educated people who were working retail; they lived here because they liked the freedom and creativity of the place. Which is being destroyed by the current prosperity, i fear.
People have been moving to California in droves for several decades (i just heard a state prediction of 60 Million people by 2040) for many of the reason people have mentioned. The boom is only making it faster (and ruining my chances of buying a house in San Francisco).
mahlen
I'm a slow walker, but I never walk back.
--Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
(I want to reply to this article in two ways, so I'll make two different posts.)
... maybe we're not web geeks here, but we are wiring geeks, manufacturing geeks, and appliance geeks.
You're severely underrating Chicago. I live and work here, and I think it's a great city with potential. They've carefully nurtured the city during the Long Boom, and we expect that the population will have grown in the 90s for the first time in 50 years. There's more housing in and near downtown than in a couple of generations. The worst vestiges of "urban removal" are being corrected, and the Loop is once again vibrant.
Ameritech has no unlimited local calling
Wrong. As you can see in this chart of Illinois Ameritech rates, Band A (and the Chicago area has poor DSL and ISDN access.
In 2000, DSL is readily available almost anywhere in the metro region, as dslreports.com shows. You may not always get a choice of providers, but it is available, and the fact that Ameritech sat this particular revolution out ought to be grating on them as they sleep. Your information is just out of date. (Rhythms claims that they'll have half the country DSL-covered by sometime next year, anyway.)
Commonwealth Edison can't keep the damn lights on in the summer, because their transmission and distribution systems are crud and Edison doesn't seem to realize this.
I'm not sure it's the network so much as the management. After the embarrassing downtown Chicago outage this year (my building was affected; I was inbound to work, but my coworkers had to walk down 20 floors), they hired a new team. I'm not defending them; I just don't think that frustration over a power utility is unique, and would point out that stress on a system is a sign of rapid growth.
Local regulations require that Ethernet cable be strung through metal conduit,
I believe this is true in the city, but I'm certain it's not true everywhere in the metro area. The bigger problem is dealing with the unions. You have to have a licensed electrician on site if you're a big shop.
So, despite having several major universities with very good CS departments (University of Chicago, Northwestern, DePaul, University of Illinois at Chicago, and Loyola University), not one but two nearby national research laboratories, and recently starting up a new communications center in the old Donnelly Directory building,
I won't quibble with this list, but I could add to it.
Chicago will probably never become a center of computer business. Chicago has Motorola in the suburbs and that's about as good as it's going to get.
Besides Motorola (which is not only the top high-tech company here, but the biggest company in Chicagoland period), there's: System Software Associates, Tellabs, CDW, Anixter, Whittman-Hart (bought USWeb), Comdisco, DeVry, Galileo, Tribune Corp. (AOL partner), US Cellular, yesmail.com, Hewitt Associates, and Zebra Technologies. Other companies from around here have been bought up: US Robotics (3Com), Platinum (CA), Whitewater Group (Symantec), and others I can't recall.
No, we're not flashy like Silicon Valley, but unlike some of those SV startups, we have people who've worked their whole careers right inside all those boring, low-tech businesses that are trying to get wired right now. I think it's more likely that Chicago will continue to be a center of this kind of boring "infrastructure" high-tech, as opposed to VC-attracting, Superbowl- one-shot- advertising, gone-by-next-year SV firms.
As an example, Hewitt is well-known as a human resources consulting firm. They've built a worldwide reputation, but they found themselves stagnating. The last few years they've turned their HR software and expert systems into the foundation for many human-resources intranet sites, which has turned into a thriving side business. Will it get them dot-com street cred? Nah. Will it pay the light bill? You bet.
US News profiles Chicago high-tech market
On the other hand, Chicago has very good resources for another industry entirely: biotech.
I agree with you here, where I don't agree is that this is overlooked. Try Chicago Biotech Network, a city-funded virtual incubator, and their parent organization says "The agricultural biotechnology revolution began in Illinois, and now there are over 1,280 biotechnology, biomedicine, pharmaceutical firms located here." I don't think that's overlooked.
ask, what kind of geeks can we attract to this city?
I think this is a good point. I just think you undersold Chicago, and didn't catch that even in the computer industry, there are different kinds of geeks
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lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
Obviously not!
> We geeks need a city built from scratch with geeks in government, geeks in utilities, and geeks
> in Public Planning. Since we might as well try to move to the Land of Oz, or some other pipe
> dream, I think we'll just have to wait...
I've been thinking about this, actually. I want to get together a large cadre of geeks and move to South America!
Think about it:
+ Good-looking women
+ Nudity on TV
+ Cheap land
+ Low taxes
+ Few distractions from coding and other geeking
+ Government not likely to get heavy-handed with encryption/censorship policies
+ A large group of geeks could probably convince a small South American government to grant us land, give us hefty tax breaks, and generally improve infrastructure if we'd all congregate and make it the Internet Mecca of the World [tm] [pat. pending]
+ Lots and lots of raw natural beauty and wilderness to explore
- Bad beer, but some of us like to brew
- The infrastructure there sucks now, unless you can fly a helicopter
- Building infrastructure could be rather costly, but if you're making money hand over fist in a few years, would you mind making a personal time/money investment in growing an area full of geeks?
I wonder if such a thing could actually be done... of course, this would be in a somewhat temperate zone in South America, as I don't want to bake my noogies off near the equator, nor freeze them off near the cape.
Also, if we could, say, boost the economy of an area significantly (and I think a few hundred geeks could certainly do that - not only are we tech-savvy, but we're resourceful in lots of other ways), we might be able to affect the local populace in positive ways. For instance, if we located in Southern Brazil, and turned it into a booming tech area, we might get enough money flowing to stop all the folks in the interior from chopping down trees all the time. Idunno...
Just my 2 pesos.
--Corey
Not only will they not deserve liberty or safety, Mr. Franklin, they will be DENIED both!
High free bandwidth, cheap living, subsidised cafes with RJ45 jacks on the table, mixed sexes, and interesting work, all promote networking. No wonder geeks want to continue to live at uni - forever. Oh yeah, free health care too + surrounded by junk food outlets with a coffee dispenser everywhere - work whatever hours you like, and access to experts/Mentors. Now look what Microsoft does - the same, plus pays well. Funny, this is what Japanese company men get + bad pay, in cp. Not so far from army conditions. Now Pits. We pay you a wage, you sort everything else. Need to set up a low cost 'dormville', that can't be bought out and gentryised, and restricted to knowledge workers. Bohemian lifestyle, where a cheap bike is all you need.
san francisco has a huge population of people who moved here from all over the world. this has been going on since the 1800's and obviously isn't limited to geek types. what you get here, if you're willing to uproot, is a progressive, artistic, diverse community, employment opportunities at the technology center of the universe, surfing, skiing, culture, you name it. you don't get $300 a month rent, but why is everyone crying about cheap housing?
Some of us artistic, progressive, diverse people that make San Francisco so interesting and desirable are complaining because huge numbers of folks who make several times what we do at our shit jobs are moving into our neighborhoods (do you live in the Mission?), driving up rents, and taking all available space. The building that I live in is up for sale. The landlord wants to sell it because he knows that he can get far more for it than it is worth in rent. Why is the building worth so much? Some scandalous rabble dare suggest that it's because of you folks moving into our hip, interesting, edgy neighborhood (I use these terms with my tongue firmly implanted in my cheek). I see swarms of you on Valencia Street every day. Almost every week, it seems, a new yuppie bar, club, or restaurant opens up, designed by people who clearly have little taste and far too much money.
I say this hoping for some understanding and, immediately following that, action. You're destroying our neighborhood, you're driving us out in hordes through rent increases and evictions; soon the Mission will be just another yuppie playground, filled with trendy nightspots and chain stores (it's well on its way). So, please, leave. Find another place to go. You're such interesting, intelligent people--go somewhere else and make it interesting, rather than taking what we have, driving out the working people (the ones who *don't* make enormous salaries), artists, and radicals that attracted you (I can only imagine).
For anyone who failed to grasp my point (surely not you, gentle reader), Go Away. Now. You Are Not Wanted. You Are Hurting Us Very Badly. You Have Resources--Put Them To Use Making Some Other City Desirable For Geeks.
Incidentally, I believe that this was not entirely off-topic in that when discussing what makes a city desirable for geeks, one should consider the ramifications of such desirability and the effects that making a place so or moving to such a place have on those already living there.
It's funny--we've lived here for decades, many of us, and now we're being driven out by "market forces", as surely and cruelly as being driven from your land at gunpoint (and if you're evicted, the sheriff will indeed make you leave at gunpoint).
I like geeks. I am a bit of geek, from time to time. I've worked at start-ups, but no longer do because I found other things far more interesting. Please understand, and leave the Mission immediately (and tell your friends).
1. http://www.arcosanti.org > Hyper building...
- Advantage: Low Cost of living.
- Coolness.
2. Put GIGABYTE FIBER jacks right next to each power receptical. =P (probably at least one per living unit).
Seattle area has plenty of mouse pushers, but it seems to me to have a lower-than-average percentage of old-fashioned geeks of the type that are drawn to Unix and Linux. The local LUGs (and BSD UGs) are pathetic compared to many others I've read about on the web. Not even being the home of the Linux Journal has brought us any ambitious leadership. (Not even me!)
Pretty, not incredibly disgusting, great weather, close to lots of stuff (and lots of nature), relatively tame traffic, commute-able from all types of living areas ranging from urban to rural. And hey, guess what, there's a poopload of geeky jobs here. Maybe that's why it's Mecca & also one of the most expensive places to live.
You've hit upon something there. It's incredibly expensive (prohibitively for 'ordinary' working folks) because of the influx of overpaid geeks. If you're thinking of coming to San Francisco and you make $50k+ a year, don't. And if you must, stay out of the Mission. We don't want you. You're driving us out. You're destroying our community.
Thanks.
Besides the obvious (cheap high bandwidth and such) I want a city with a progressive cultural climate. In other words, the place has to have an eclectic mix of people and places, culture, lacceptance gays and lesbians, a good music scene, as well as an active techical culture (user groups, computer magazines, shows, etc)
A fine thing to want. Many of us want these things; I certainly do. But when you (in huge numbers) move into a place or district (such as the Mission in San Francisco), you destroy that environment. You drive out the people that made it progressive and interesting, and you replace them with yourselves. How does this happen? Lots of highly-paid folks move in, landlords realize they can now charge far more in rent (and there's a simple increase in overall demand), so they find ways to evict people, they sell the building, etc. The progressive folks, workers, artists, etc are driven out. The places (interesting shops, cafes, bars, clubs) are converted to or replaced by yuppie bars (check out the "Beauty Bar"). Please understand the effect that you have by throwing your absurd salaries around. You're destroying communities. You're destroying what you came for. It's quite tragic for those of us who have lived here for decades, building a community, and now face the prospect of having to leave the city.
If you're a yuppie geek and want to live in San Francisco, please move to the Presidio and stay out of the Mission.
Thanks.
Oh, and please consider the effects of your moves elsewhere, as well.
>5)Kinda segragated - "Over here we have black >people, and over here we have white people", I >think cincinnati was declared the 11th most >segragated place in the US
I'm surprised no one has pointed this out yet, but here in California, many (and in some parts most) of the computer workers are Asian. So it helps if a city has an large ethnic community and a reputation of treating minorities well. I think this is part of the reason why so many Asian geeks decide to stay in Cali. I like it here.
I've lived and travelled all over the US, and I haven't run in to very many bigots, but I still feel strange walking into a place and being the only non-white person.
I may be wrong too but I think that Alberta enjoys lower taxation than Ontario, right?
I'd be interested to learn what you think of Calgary as a place for a high tech job hunter. And how does Vancouver shape up (besides the weather)?
Get the state to legalise marijuana. And watch them young folk come pouring in.
We haven't had any snow yet this winter
Gentrification: The rest of the world found out about this cool place I live in & they're coming here. Oh, rats.
Hey, outrageous to live, outrageous salaries. Nobody said you have to be a baby & live IN the City or some candyass place like Sunnyvale.
But go ahead, talk it up, you & Mr. Gentrification make everyone stay away. I'm digging my ridiculously high pay & think a little extra $$ is worth it to live in such a kickass place.
How is the living space though? Commuting in from a nice little town just outside of Toronto is what I'm aiming for, mainly because it can get pretty crowded in the city itself..
And the Bay Area is not San Francisco. San Jose is not SF, but you can drive there, Santa Cruz is not SF, but you can drive there, nor is Oakland, Hayward, Mtn View, etc, etc. If you dont dig living where homeless people shit on your sidewalk, you can find someplace that a 1/2 naked hippy is doing tai chi in the middle of the street, or where the homies are keepin it real, or the pasty potato-shaped nerds are havin a Linux meeting somewhere. You could be closer to the Living God Torvalds.
But you can't -handle- the Bay, I understand.
I don't agree with the sentiments expressed by this author, but I do believe it's important that people contemplating a move to SF understand that all is not wine and roses for the non-starving-artist types there.
I have heard that if you move into particular parts of town (e.g., Mission), your car WILL be vandalized or stolen, just out of spite from less-well-adapted people like this.
no matter where you live. How about somewhere with a burgeoning prostitution industry?
Blah. And who ever said having 4 seasons was an advantage? I'll take two: Sunny and Not-so-sunny. Sorry, it's West Coast or East Coast. And East Coast smells funny.
good things about Paris:
-cheap bandwidth for an european city
-you do not need a car
-lots of geek jobs
-speaking french
-real food
-the weather is hardly ever really bad
-any street have more nice buildings than
the whole Pittsburg
-best night scene worldwide
-free schools
-no crime compared to US
bad things about Paris:
-net access is miserable compared to US
-you can not afford a car
-high rents
-high taxes
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Dev elpizw tipota, dev phoboumai tipota eimai lephteros http://euclidian.org
nt
We've got Bentley, which produces Microstation, a very high end CAD system. There is also a lot of positions for CNC programmers. Pittsburgh & the surrounding areas have a lot of machining companies, which require CNC programmers. Oh, & we've got cable modem access in almost all of the Allegheny & surrounding counties.
I live in Saint Louis and this is the most non-geek friendly city on the face of the planet. The amazing thing is it ranks on the map as one of the high-tech cities of America. The problem is that all the "high-tech" jobs are for Edward Jones, Ernst & Yound, or some other boring jobs where you support systems. There is absolutely no inventing happening here.
One possible exception is the company I work for- which will go nameless.
P.S. If anyone remembers, Saint Louis is the city where the mall tried to ban retailers advertising their websites. That about gives the frame of mind here.
I go to CMU, and although I love it there, when I graduate I want to live somewhere where I can find people my own age to hang out with, date, etc. Pittsburgh is at a huge disadvantage with respect to other cities in terms of attracting young people like me because:
1) Pittsburgh isn't on a coast
2) the weather sucks (it's not as bad as it's reputed to be, but a reputation for lousy weather is enough to keep people away)
3) everything closes too goddamn early
4) you need young people to attract young people.
Of the 4 things I listed, only one is somewhat easy to change, and probably wouldn't make much of a difference. As for jobs, there are plenty of Pittsburgh startups from CMU alone, but as far as I know none of them are wildly successful enough to attract nationwide attention to the area (I live in Indiana and the only people I know who have even heard of CMU know of it because I go there, and only the medical types seem to have heard of UPMC). All I can think of that the city could do would be to encourage businesses to stay open later and to run a nationwide advertizing campaign. I am doubtful as to how effective either would be.
Don't worry.. I live in New England and I don't get them either! They are just as pretentious, snotty, and materialistic as women from anywhere else.
Women want your money - not you.
Um, no Austin isn't what you want. Um, no there's no live music here, no beer, no jobs, weather stinks, and the traffic is absolutely horrible... stay away! Bad for geeks, bad for Californicators, bad for Pittsburgers, just plain bad... go away. No barbeque here, no gentlemen's clubs, no TexMex food, not here.
Just turn yer SUV around and go back where you came from. Yep, just go on back. Bubba don't like you if you talk funny or use yer turn signal or eat quiche or sip tea with yer pinky raised. Go, git, scram!
(damn furriners clogging up the highways...)
Hey, I live in a canadian city where it is often -20 to -40c -- but I still don't like it. I'd much rather live somewhere with hotter summers and more mild winter conditions.
NOT even the SF Bay Area.
Why? It probably has to do with opera-goers standing idly by while I am the ONLY person who stops their car on the busiest street in the city to keep an old lady from being mugged in broad daylight. Nobody else did anything. This was the third elderly person I saw attacked in broad daylight in a one year period.
Maybe it has something to do with the outrageously lousy, expensive housing and equally lousy local transportation standards. Or maybe the bus depot signs that say 'Its hip to get tested for Hep'- as in Hepatitis.
Maybe it is the smell of urine or feces emanating from the sidewalks. Or the used needles and other fun stuff on the beaches. Maybe the entire area used to be beautiful a decade or two ago, but now it is overcrowded and worn down.
And maybe it is because of a very specific lack of sane governance and social involvement by the region's own population that has led up to these problems. Most of my friends have been longtime residents of this area, and most have moved away. I am one of the last two left. The other is moving back to England. The rest already got tired of trying to work and live in an environment that is so rife with problems that nobody wants to look at or solve (in spite of many of them trying to actively work on solving them). You can't force hundreds of thousands of people to think if they don't want to.
But you can move to another place where people require you to act and live within the means of the community's ability to remain cohesive.
After searching for about 2 years, I have come up with close to a half dozen US communities I would live in. None are in California. My requirements are:
Affordable, well-planned housing
A transportation system that mixes adequate use of roads and public transit systems
A strong communications infrastructure.
A growth policy that is sustainable for more than a decade
A city government willing to plan ahead for the above
A local citizenry that is involved enough to ensure the government does its job.
You can get most of the above without the last two items, but you will never be able to depend on them for the long term unless the last two were there first.
01000101
Pittsburgh is a good example of how NOT to attract the younger "geek" culture. Let me list them.
:)
:)
! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1. No really good clubs (except for Metropol, Bar Pittsburgh, and a few other choice hang-outs). Other than that. You don't have much going for you.
2. Pittsburgh has become decentralized. With the recent growth of Fore Systems, people have begun to move towards Cranberry. Other similar suberbs (or "distant" branches) have begun to grow, moving a lot of big business out of downtown (Major companies such as Westinghouse have moved out completely.
3. Cost of living around here isn't bad, but most places you work for are WAY under the national salary average.
4. We don't (currently) have any major attractions other than the Steelers (don't think so next year with the way they played THIS year).
5. Our local government is run by an older generation that remembers when they had to do calculations on punch cards (cool stuff, but WAY outdated). We don't seem to have a very good influx of younger politicians to help "stir things up."
6. With the way the Job Market is right now, a lot of companies are pulling people currently employed from Pittsburgh to other cities. Pittsburgh is either too nice, or too dumb to do the same.
7. With the way us native Pittsburgher's talk n'at, yeunz would wonder why those out-of-towners look at us a little askew
8. Did I mention lower pay versus cost of living?
9. Everything gets TOO quiet at around 6:00pm downtown. Everywhere else shuts down at 9:30pm. Only places left open are your bars, Eat-N-Puke's, and the occasional decent Hang-out (still no better than point 1).
10. We are slow to get technology here. Even though we have had DSL since around Dec. 1998 and cable-modems slightly before that, almost 40% of the surrounding and downtown areas cannot get their high-speed kicks.
11. Traffic is terrible. I HATE taking the Parkway East in to downtown. It takes me about an hour to move 3 miles, where as it would only take me 5 minutes to move the same distance at night.
12. Weather isn't always the greatest. One minute it could be snowing, the next minute you are out at the local pool trying to cool off
13. Starlake is a RIP-OFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
There ARE a few redeeming qualities.
1. Steelers, Pens
2. TONS of movie theaters
3. TONS of local brews
4. John Harvards
5. Low crime rates (relatively)
6. Major/Minor Bands tour/reside here frequently
7. Perogies (prolly misspelled)
8. Retirement Plans are normally MOVE TO FLORIDA!
9. You can make fun of West Virginia, but NOT New York
10. CMU, UPMC, PITT.
11. Perogies (prolly misspelled, but I STILL like 'em)
Keep in mind this is the jaded view of a younger person. so BLAH, n'at
These are the main things you need. The most important is the variety of geek jobs. And to have this, you need a lot of geeks there already. So, you need some tax-free zones for technology companies to start. It should be outside of the urban area so you don't have to worry about traffic, safety, or cost of living. Or, inside an urban area with VERY GOOD PUBLIC TRANSIT. Also, you need to subsidize things like fast net access. Then you will have a good body of geeks on the way. The rest can come in time.
I live in Canmore, Alberta, Canada and work in Banff, which is a 15 minute drive away. For those of you not familar with the area, these are both resort cummunities of about 7,000 people each in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. I know that I could make more money living and working in a city, but at what cost? I'll keep my life here with small town values, skiing, snowboarding, mountain biking, hiking, rock climbing, and not having to have an alarm in my car!
Besides, where else can a geek say he's got a million dollar view of nature out his office window?
Oh, and BTW - I'm EXPECTED to wear hiking boots to work!
thehermit
Don't go to Calgary. It is truly in the middle of nowhere. I am one hour of Toronto and I just accepted a job offer in high tech there. Toronto rocks. It is a world class city, cosmopolitan as London (London wins though if I had to choose between both cities). Toronto is safe, clean, large without being monstrous, and it is the center of Canada. It has a hub airport, making air travel cheap, besides the fact that it is close to Europe and the main cities in the East coast of the US.
Calgary is a small city, with nothing around except another small city: Edmonton. The biggest event is the stampede. If you want to feel isolated, go to Calgary.
Negatives: 1) Idea of night life is Denny's 2) Too many old people 3) Absolutely no tech companies, although you can find a job doing cheesy business programming 4) Nothing to do 5) An hour away from other "cities" like State College and Johnstown, where there is also nothing to do 6) Two or more hours away from crappy cities like Pittsburgh and Baltimore 7) No DSL...we might be getting cable modems, although, for some reason, there is an OC-3 backbone running through here 8) No tourist attractions, unless you consider trains interesting 9) Voted least physically fit city in United States == ugly chicks 10) People leave old kitchen appliances out in their yards, and there are lots of pick-up driving hillbillies 11) People cannot hold an intelligent conversation Positives: 1) Nice scenery when driving to State College on Rt 45. (i.e. lots of cows) Mooooooooo! 2) Penn State 3) Housing is cheap. 2000 sq. ft house is about $130,000 4) Always can find a place to park 5) Out of the range of Chinese ICBMs
If I were to make a suggestion to Pittsburgh, it would be to try to get a more diversified group of Hi-Techs into town...especially start-ups and R&D facilities. Nightlife in Pittsburgh is already pretty good. They get a good collection of concerts, etc. every year, they've got good restaraunts and night clubs.
What they don't have is interesting work. Most of the computer/tech jobs that I see listed locally are either for Big Iron shops supporting the steel and chemical industries or for Banking or Insurance. BORING!!!!
I'm the IT Manager for a local site of an International Customer Service company. I live in a little podunk town...with good schools for my kids and pretty much _NO_ crime rate. For this area, I make good money although I could probably double it if I wanted to live or work in the City. That's not what keeps me in my job, though. I stay here, (job, not location) because the work is interesting and challenging. They can pay you a zillion dollars a year but if you don't like your job...if it doesn't challenge you and keep your interest...you're gonna start shopping yourself around.
Face it, the Bucks are nice but it's the Buck Rogers that keep us in this racket.
My city, Ottawa, is often called Silicon Valley North. We don't seem to have a problem at attracting techies/geeks. I believe there's a few things that make this happen:
;) etc...)
Schools/Training: There's alot of technology oriented schools (IE: Career colleges) in the area. The 2 big Universities and the 1 college in town have amazing technology/computer oriented courses.
Opportunity: There's hundreds of high tech companies in the area, ranging from the big (Nortel, Corel, Newbridge) to smaller yet innovative (Nuvo, Rebel.com) companies with a wide range of services/products. If you get bored of one company, it's not hard to find work elsewhere within the city. Not to mention since we're Canada's capital, the federal government is another big employer of technology based people. The tech industry here has been booming for years and shows no signs of slowing down.
Entertainment: There's plenty to do outside of work, whether your past times revolve around technology or not. There's sports (NHL hockey, AAA baseball, football coming back in a year or two). If you're into participating in sports, there's sports clubs, hunting, fishing, climbing, skiing (both downhill and cross-country), skating, hiking, camping, sailing, etc.. all within an hour's drive. There are great stores to shop, great foods (being the capital, there are a high number of immigrants. You can find practically any world food here. Great for those who wish to expand their palet). There's great National museums and the usual crap (movies, bars, strip joints
Traffic: Traffic in Ottawa isn't bad. Even in high traffic, you can usually get from one end of the city to the other in around 30 minutes. We also have the best rated public bus transportation in the world, which doesn't hurt.
Living: Apartment/houses vary in price. It's easy to find a nice apartment without having to blow even 1/4 of your paycheck on rent. With the multiple suburbs (and Hull/Aylmer on the other side of the river), houses aren't ridiculously overpriced and the neighbourhoods are fairly quiet and safe.
Culture: We have *plenty* of it. Ottawa is a true melting pot, giving you a taste of different cultures/religions. There's a strong a vibrant arts community.
And if, you get bored of all that, Montreal is a couple of hours away to the north-east, and Toronto is 4 hours to the south-west. So if you need to get away for a weekend, there's plenty to do just a hop, skip and jump away.
What it all boils down to is work opportunities and things to do outside of work. Ottawa offers a wide variety of great things in both those cases. I personally believe that's why we have little to no problems attracting techies/geeks to the region.
Sandman71
(the preceeding opinions are my own. If you don't agree with em, tough!)
I live right across the river from NYC (Literally! It's amazing that a scene I see EVERY DAY OF MY LIFE -- the NYC skyline -- attracts people from all over the world. And I take it for granted. But I digress...) and I'll tell you -- it's an almost
ideal place to live and work. The beauty of the
whole thing is that you get the benefits of NYC -
such as the HUGE job market, the nightlife, the
culture (like someone else said, it _IS_ the capitol of the world!), etc, but without the bad parts. When I get home at night, there's very little crime, my car stays where I park it, and it's nice and quiet. Maybe the city doesn't sleep, but I like to occasionally!
Plus, of course, there's the infamous Jersey diners... mmm..... diners...
Yeah, but you also have the Red Sox!
Strikes 1, 2, and 3 against Boston.
Long live the Bambino Curse!
Living in Pittsburgh, I'm glad there are so many people that can't find any reason to live here. It's a city with a very small town feel to it... and we like it that way. Usually we walk around with a "wink wink nudge nudge" kind of attitude about living here. You can always tell an out of towner... No traffic, almost no crime. Plenty of things to do... if you're an insider... otherwise, you're left out in the cold. Most of the people that don't like it here are from New Jersey or New York. Thank God they don't stay. Being born in California (Ventura), and travelling around the country my entire life, I can say that the best thing about Pittsburgh is the "fend for yourself" attitude. Lots and lots of freedom. If you're a cattle minded person, you're out of luck here. Lots of forest, rivers, wildlife... plus the city can keep you up busy if you play it right. By the way, Pittsburgh has over a million people living here. Most census numbers don't take just the city limit population... since NO ONE LIVES DOWNTOWN!!! Only an out of towner moron wouldn't know that.
Pittsburgs problem is not very well stated. Why do they want geeks? Why do they care? Knowing the answer goes a long way towards determining what kind of geeks they want, which goes a long way towards determining how to attract them. If they're interested in an upwardly mobile tax base, they may well want younger faces. However they will have a difficult time attracting talent. Geeks that I know have the unsavory habit of thinking for themselves. They usually don't go "BAAAA" while being sheared...
Right on dude!
I laughed my head off marc
In order to attract "geeks" as the writer put it. You need to prove that a city can bring in the big dollars that high tech cities in the past have shown. If money is there bandwith, people, and other technology companies will open their eyes as a new playground for their product or service.
Neighbourhoods that are
a) safe
b) attractive
c) affordable
Employment that is
a) stable
b) rewarding ($$$)
c) rewarding (enables personal growth)
To toot the horn of Cleveland, I've gotten close to a 1,500 square foot apartment in Shaker Heights, complete with all the luxuries, including a 10 minute subway ride downtown. It's costing me $750 / month.
What the city needs? Better connectivity (ADSL, Cable not yet avail.) and better shopping. A few more fine restaurants would be nice, too. All of those are comming, though.
I'm a firm believer that geeks are no different then others. Unless you're into telecommuting, there's no real reason you need high speed conectivity at home, because most geeks (IMHO) like to leave work at the office when they go home. As much as I joked that DSL service was a requisite during my apartment hunting, the reality is that the ability to grow my MP3 collection at ludicrous speeds can wait, I'd much rather live in a real "community" then those you find in the more wired centers.
I am a current resident of Pittsburgh, PA. I'd like to say it sucks alot. The only good thing I can see about it is that alot of areas do have high speed internet access, one of which is my area :) As for anything else going on in the city, it plainly sucks.
First off... this is a perfect example of why I think Slashdot needs to be retrofitted... HEAVILY:
All of the comments moderated as INFORMATIVE were completely stereotypical and misleading.
I live in Pittsburgh. I know Pittsburgh. You sir are no Pittsburgher!
First off, Pittsburgh isn't dying. You'd have to have your head in the sand to not see all of the money pouring through this city. New stadiums, new airport, new convention center, tons and tons of new businesses... not to mention Cranberry Township (which was the fastest growing area in the country a year or two ago.)
Secondly, there are no more steel mills! The old politicians were voted out four years ago. Allegheny county is now run by REPUBLICANS!!! (I'm not sure that's an improvement, but it is definitely a change!)
Thridly, Pittsburgh is fast becoming a new corridor. Demographics show a new area cropping up with an increase in commerce between here and Cleveland. Mark my words, in 10 years this area will be referred to as Cleveburgh. (It's a safe bet, I heard the term used in an economic discussion on NPR already.)
And what's all this crap about NO TECHNOLOGY here? Pittsburgh had the HIGHEST ISP PROVIDERS PER PERSON in the country! No kidding! Everyone points to silicon valley for technology advances, and that's fine... but there are tons of advances in technology that happen in hidden corners everywhere. In fact the first television station in the country was here. What's to say that the first 3D O/S won't be invented here also? Take FORE systems for example: it is my understanding that the company was founded by a couple of CMU professors. Billionares now I'm sure.
Add to all this the Biomedical Engineering school that Pitt added a few years ago. Then there's the high tech council here... the Birmingham Maglev at the airport (soon to be cloned by the maglev downtown). Some of the best hospitals in the world (including Children's). Watch some Discovery channel or The Learning Channel sometimes. There are tons of technological stories coming out of this town.
Every company here is growing, new control systems in the industry fields... new equipment in the medical field... you name any aspect of this city, and it's completely UNLIKE a steel town.
I'm a very successful control systems engineer. This is a wonderful city for working. For the last six years, I have never wanted for work. Of course I could move to another "hipper" town to make more money... but the cost of living would also increase. Reality is, I live in a house that cost me less than $100k and if it was in NJ would sell for $250k. It's in a safe and quiet neghborhood, 20 minutes from a brand spanking new international airport. Cheap, clean happy living. If I want to go to the beach, I can drive the 4-5 hours and spend the weekend. (Personally, I think beaches are dirty and littered nowadays.)
I was born in California, and I hated it. The weather was gorgeous, but the people there suck. I need more out of life than crowds of flakes, space cadets and rude self-centered vain people. (Yes I'm stereotyping... ironic isn't it?)
To each his (/her) own. But, for those of you that are capable and thrive in an environment where you don't need other people (those of you that think of yourselves as Grizzly Adams types) would love it here.
(On a final note: the decrease in population is not solely a Pittsburgh phenomenon. This is happening everywhere on the east coast. NY state was hit hardest! Philly was hit worse than Pittsburgh)
I am leaving a good job in Silly Con valley because I am sick of rejections. This is no joke. I meet women when I travel. I get looks from women in any other city. But here, I have trouble FINDING a woman to hit on. Single women are extremely rare. And then they always want to know what kind of car I drive and where I work. I can't blame them for it's impossible to buy a house here if you're not a semi-millionaire. Still, the materialism makes me want to throw up.
When I moved here, I was fine because I had a woman. Since we've split up, I can't stand it here. This place is fine for a 23 year old trying to get rich, but it's hell for a 33 year old trying to get laid. I won't tell you where I'm moving to because I don't want anyone else moving there.
As somebody who lived in Pittsburgh for two years while going to school I can say that it is most definitely NOT a "geek city" or even a "wannabe geek city".
Pittsburgh is a drinking town with a football problem -- and I don't mean that the way a football fan might, I mean it the way a straightedge geek might.
When I was heading for Pittsburgh I figured it would be sophisticated and modern -- much more so than the fairly rural area of Michigan I left. What did I find? Bell Atlantic. Inbreds. Police brutality. Bars every five feet. People who say "yinz". Oakies. Bums. Football crowds. Eternal construction. More bums.
No cable and no DSL. I would bet that the bulk of the intelligent adults in Pittsburgh are the Corporation XYZ employees who are only there because their corporate HQ is there (which in turn is only there for tax reasons).
Yeah, it's a fucking paradise. Is it any wonder there are billboards with "Mammas, don't let your babies grow up to leave Pittsburgh" on them?
Now I'm back in that rural area of Michigan and I can't help noticing that the more "civilized" the area gets, the more "white trash" it gets. At least before there was a strip of fast food chains here you didn't see massively obese women in spandex tripping down the street drunk as fuck. Although you DID used to see dirt-ass mullet-haired redneck scumbags, that population is definitely on the rise.
I moved to Pittsburgh in 1990 to teach at CMU, and my family found the town very provincial.
It is hard to get around because of the geography. Pittsburgh is crisscrossed by rivers and hills. The maps need to be 3D. You follow a road and look for a road that you want that crosses it and when you get there you see it is a bridge 200 feet up connecting two hills and you are in the valley. There are neighborhoods that you can only find by being born in them. This tends to create a very insular mentality.
When we wanted to sign the kids up for softball we never heard about it until we saw games being played in the park. We asked when and where sign up was announced and we told that it wasn't. Everyone knows when signup is.
You are expected to know about what goes on in town from your parents who learned from their parents. Many of the young people who do stay in town live down the street from their parents.
I do not see Pitsburgh ever attracting a critical mass of any type of newcomers, unless they pay them to. Compared to this basic problem I think evrything else is unimportant.
Weird Stuff rocks. I got a 17" Sony Trinitron monitor for $100. Highly recommend weird stuff as the place to find 1 generation old hardware for bargain prices.
NO frickin' parking anywhere.
Pay doesn't match other metropolitan areas.
ALL the radio stations suck. This is because all but 2 are owned by the owners of WDVE. Just ask any of them if they know, say, Chemical Brothers. "Is that a video game?"
As per an earlier post I saw, if you're not a Steelers codger, forget it.
Stupid one-way streets everywhere.
Housing is expensive if it's not a rat-trap. And sometimes then, too.
On the plus side:
Metropol plays some forward-thinking music once in a while.
Lots of hotties up on the bar at BAR Pittsburgh.
Pirmanti's Brothers. If you have never had a sammich from Pirmanti Brothers, you have not lived.
The view from Mount Washington of the city. Priceless.
Anyone else?
"We apologize for the inconvenience."
Sorry to say, but the Symantic jobs in Eugene is for tech support only. Not really high tech. There are a few places in town, PSC Inc and there was Percon. They are both high tech embedded systems and application programming jobs with stable companies (PSC just bought Percon though).
The Hundai plant is manufacturing only, as is the HMT and Sony factories.
But don't get me wrong, it's a great town, and I'm glad I live here. Moved here from Pittsburgh too (keeping on topic) and glad I did.
major us cities.. like ORLANDO? Tampa? Miami?
those ring a bell?
I have heard that if you move into particular parts of town (e.g., Mission), your car WILL be vandalized or stolen, just out of spite from less-well-adapted people like this.
I'm less-well-adapted because I don't make $80k a year? What stupidity and arrogance. I'm talking about a community (ever hear of such a thing), people with real lives and roots and connections being destroyed by a million acts of consumption.
You want to live in a cool part of town, so you find a place in the Mission.
You want to go to a 'hip' place to eat or drink, so you go to the Mission (of course, what you find is warmed-over yuppie schlock, but if you want to swallow that shit, that's up to you).
Consider the effect this has on the people living here. Have you ever thought that, just maybe, even though devotion to the so-called "free market" is the only permissible ideology, people might have some other rights? Or that, perhaps, it's not such a nice thing to drive people out of their homes (sure, it's indirect, but it's very, very real)?
All I'm suggesting is that people consider whether they are ok with harming others to allow themselves every luxury available to them.
You do know that most of the people who actually live in the Mission do *not* go to those godawful places the yuppies go to?
You also realize that, with the influx of affluence, poor people are going to be harassed and swept away at ever-increasing rates? Homeless people are treated as non-humans here. You're not helping it--in fact, you're exacerbating it.
At least a dozen of my friends (and I) are currently living in fear of their building being sold and find themselves evicted. This are not merely the rantings of a malcontented lunatic (or perhaps it is--you judge). This is destroying our neighborhood, our connections with one another, our community. I don't think yuppies mean harm. I just think that they're either thoughtless consumers or selfish pricks who believe that somehow such behavior is virtuous.
Oh, and by the way, yes, there's a fair chance that your car will be vandalized or stolen if it's parked in a neighborhood where the median yearly income is 1/5 the value of the car. For some reason, that rankles quite a few people.
Since you mention transportation, I feel compelled to mention that Pittsburgh is a horrible city to bike in (2nd only to Manhattan in dangerous bikeing). They *never* fix the potholes, they are really slow about plowing the snow, and don't do the side streets (especially considering that there is both a state and *city* income tax). And I once got a $300 citation for riding my bicycle on the sidewalk outside of University of Pittsburgh (Pitt)!
Pitt was forced to discontinue their student shuttle because it "competed with the city bus".
- bridgette
Hey,
I hate Fry's, there is no reason to go there. You can get all of the computer supplies they have for a lot less online. You can get CDs and DVDs online (Fry's CDs are cheap, but they have the worst seelction I have ever seen). All of the home entertainment stuff they sell is cheap consumer grade crap, go to a dedicated Home Theater store and get better stuff and better service.
Hmm about the only thing useful there is the home appliances...
Fry's is nice if you need to get something in a hurry, but of course you will most likely have to pay through the nose for it.
Q.
specifically vancouver and victoria.. never snows, cheap high bandwidth, pristine untouched wilderness unlike anywhere else in north america within a couple hours. occasionally touched wilderness just down the street. the beer is unparralelled. the people are friendly, and the user groups are rich.
i feel like a tourguide, but i'm just passionate about my home. who isn't?
geeks generally don't want to go too far from mom's cooking, do they? i mean, i would waste away to nothing without the occasional over-feeding courtesy of momndad.
anyways come to where the air and water and land is clean, the people are civil to you, and the internet is full 10 meg cable for $USD25 per month.
heheh
Harv
"..Constructive critizism is always welcome however."
Since you mention transportation, I feel compelled to mention that Pittsburgh is a horrible city to bike in (2nd only to Manhattan in dangerous bikeing). They *never* fix the potholes, they are really slow about plowing the snow, and don't do the side streets (especially considering that there is both a state and *county* income tax).
I once got a $300 citation for riding my bicycle on the sidewalk outside of University of Pittsburgh (Pitt)!
Pitt was forced to discontinue their student shuttle because it "competed with the city bus".
And IIRC they have stupid anti-skateboarding laws as well.
(o.k. I posted it above, but it's releveant here as well)
- bridgette
What keeps me here in the 'burgh is a multifaceted jewel. I've got my friends, my family, and the fact that my wife and I just bought a house less than 2 miles from where I went to high school.
I've heard my friends say that "there's nothing to do here" as the reason why they want to leave Pittsburgh. I've told them that that is bullshit. If you go to the south side you can party untill your legs fall off. If you want education you've got Pitt, CMU, Robert Morris, Chatham, and CCAC. You've got Fore systems, Alcoa, USX, Westinghouse, GT-Systems (the pgh geek's holy grail) and the various colleges/universities providing good paying jobs.
This city isn't perfect, but it's just as good as any other medium sized city for IT professionals. If you've got yhe knowledge/experience you can make 60k+ per year as an entry level IT professional. If you get in on the South Side that I mentioned earlier there is a good chance that you can get a tee shirt and jeans job making 40k per year to start.
People at circuit city can make 45k per year in this city. I used to work with one who did. When I finish my degree (hopefully next year) I should add 10-15k to my yearly income without leaving the city.
This city found a way to get nearly half a BILLION dollars of state funds to build new football and baseball stadiums, if we'd tell the Al Bundy's of the area to go to hell we could get that type of money to bring new "high-tech" industries to the area.
The death of the steel industry nearly killed this region, but football and baseball won't get us back to our former glory.
It's high time for the "steel city" to concentrate on silicon. That's the future and it's our ticket to future economic growth.
Lord Kano
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
SpamMan
http://www.geekrights.org/articles/99061901.html
TheGeek
http://www.geekrights.org
TheGeek
TheGeek
http://www.geekrights.org
Kill the monkey
I used to keep a copy of an article from 1993 or 1994 about how to keep Windows programmers happy, because the things it listed seemed to me to apply more generally to any computer geek. Unfortunately, I don't know where my copy is (or even if I still have it), and I can't find it in Google (no big surprise there, given the date), but I recall three of the points, two of which are probably still accurate:
;)
1) You need an alpha geek. While it's fair to say that leading geeks is like herding cats, geeks also swarm around alpha geeks like bees around a queen.
2) Provide the geeks cool toys. Just like, if you keep bees in an area with plenty of nectar you can steal their honey, if you keep geeks in a steady supply of cool toys you can reap the fruits of their labor. By 'cool toys', I don't mean frisbees and puzzles and yo-yos and such (although walk through the exhibit area of any geek convention and you can tell we're attracted to those), I mean things like that new dual Athalon 800 system, or a Visor Deluxe, or ADSL.
3) The item that I'm not sure applies as much is that, in return for reaping the fuits of the geeks labor, you don't have to pay them a king's ransom, you just have to pay them enough that when they hear their father say "When are you going to get a real job?", they can reply "But Dad, I'm making more than you are." (this all occurs in the geek's head). I'm not sure that it's quite that easy any more, but you can prolly substitute some stock options for hard currency.
As for myself, if all of my relatives were to be moved outside of a 300 mile radius, and I could find a comprable job, I'd be in Pittsburgh. I love my family dearly, but I like them far enough away that they have to call before they show up at my door.
After all...
Their hockey team is the Penguins....
-----------------------------------
"I have as much authority as the pope, I just
don't have as many people who believe it" - George Carlin
MR. NUTTY !!! w00t! I lub the Artic and its Circle Candy!
>We geeks need a city built from scratch ...
I personally live in Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium) a city build from scratch 25 years ago. This town is nearly all property of the University even if more and more normal (non-student) people tend to live here.
As a geek I enjoy my Cable connection (3Mbit/s) at US$30 a month connected to the PC provided free of charge by the housing project.
The crowd of geeks and science guys and girls near at hand makes me feel like I'm living in an encyclopedia and that feels good.
Anyway I think I'll move, when finished with my studies, to a place with more expensive connection, more expensive housing, and much like a real town.
Build-from scratch towns don't make you feel good in the long run, there is always something missing and it aint easy changing it. But the way to attract geeks is indeed to provide cheap high speed connection, some high quality art-places (playhouses, theatres,...), a good library, and some high-tech jobs. As for the jobs, your town could be the first Open-source Valley with a townhall funding open source projects, and other closed-source companies could take profit from interaction with those project.
Ah, to be at the ground floor. What an exciting time to do the sort of work we do! We're all excited about how we can share ideas, develop software... hell, shape the future... without regard to who or where we are. Yet..
How is it that we can embrace decentralized living while still thinking that a big (centralized) city offers some sort of advantage? Sure there are lots of good things, and there's a lot of money to be made, but as a previous post said, 'at what cost?'
The way I'm living now has drastically reduced my tolerance for stress. I have very little, and it's an easy thing to become accustomed to. But, I never knew such a baseline existed before I changed where I worked. City people are like that, too. They don't even know at what horrible levels of stress they function at *all the time*.
I live & work in my apartment in the middle of Springfield, Missouri; a pissant midsize quasi-city known best as a place you go before you get to the very bottom of the cultural foodchain, Branson, MO. Springfield is cheap & relatively safe. After peristent harrassment, Southwestern Bell may actually get their asses in gear by Feb 1 for some DSL service. Some people here make a brave attempt at culture, but St. Louis and KC are only 3 or 4 hours away.
But, the sort of clients I choose don't care where I am. I do good work, I'm readily available by phone or email, and they get their money's worth. Do I care where I am? Damn straight. The same kind of money that's bargain basement entry-level most places lets you live like a king here. A fair wage? Well... if I billed a 40 hour week for half the year, I could buy a house and sit around in my underwear in it for the other 6 months. cheap, cheap, cheap.
My point is: Cities are relics of a day when you had to be close by to relate and work with people. God bless the Internet; you don't have to do that anymore! Leave Pittsburgs to the steelworkers, they still have to punch a clock. I build web apps- I can punch the clock without getting out of bed. Many of the big-city benefits have no teeth in this situation.
I hope as our economy continues towards knowledge as a commodity, the necessity of giant cities will dwindle.
Oh, and desipte what another previous message said, New York is *not* the center of the universe. What a bunch of industrial-age bullshit. I hope it burns down instead.
...working to better yourself that you now spend whining on Slashdot about rich yuppie geek scum jacking up your rent, you could afford to buy the building you're living in.
Ever think about that? Or does it sound too much like the infamous four-letter word "work"?
I frequent 3 cities. I live in Milwaukee, Go to CMU, and spend a lot of time in Boston with friends. Boston has kick ass public transit, the T will get you where ever you need to go. Milwaukee Busses go everywhere, are plentiful, and reliable. But nothing pisses me off more than trying to catch a bus in Pittsburgh. You wait for 20 minutes, then finally some busses come, all clumped together, and all busting at the seams with people. They don't even stop 3/4's of the time. Pittsburgh needs to build a subway from the airport, to downtown, to oakland, to squirrel hill and shadyside. Tie it in with that one train that services the westside. That would kick serious ass, subways run much better than busses, they don't get stuck in forbes traffic.
I think this *is* a valid question. While it's true that any one of us can pack up the VW Microbus and move the the middle of nowhere to do our programming, that's not what this post addressed. One programmer with a laptop and a modem can make a reasonable living anywhere.
But, if that person wanted to found an Internet start-up company with a dozen employees that might grow to 50 or 100 employees in a year or two, it's a different story. Infrastructural issues, accessability to bandwidth, power, etc... all come into play. There are a lot of places that just can't cut it.
You pseudo-Socialists give white men too much credit. As a white man I can tell you we are not so clever as to be part of a mass conspiracy to dump drugs on "poor" minorities, and kick them out of their neighborhoods, and do the million other things we were supposed to have done.
BTW, every notice the people who are really in charge in SF are black? Why don't you ask them what is going on? Or are they part of the conspiracy as well?
Well stated .... I just want to add a comment or two.
... causing old, poorly configured, and/or second rate Technology Application acquisitions. Afterwards they recognize and award anyone that agreed with them, ....
... end here ... blah.blah.blah....
As my tag implies I'm "4565". I know what (troubleshot systems and resolved problems with) toroidal core memories and fixed (non-movable) RW heads harddisc are on sight and lift.
I have a PC with Win2K and teaching myself Linux on another PC (at home). I'm not rusty just a little older than a lot of Geeks (TEK - TAP).
I just found another job, because I got tired of being under utilized and dealing with management/supervisors that are know it all's.
So, work staying interesting (on the edge/new and paced well, and not overloaded and abused)
Bosses showing respect for Technology Experience and Knowledge (TEK); So, I don't tell them I told you so-n-so last year and here is the email follow up to our conversation you said you never got with your receipt. They get tired of me and I get tired of them.
Some corporate and US Government DD.../Civil-Service managers/bosses are frequently laughed at (by contractors behind closed doors), because of their lack of technology understanding, but persistance in their (I'm in charge) demands that thing be done this way or that
denounce the others as non-team players, and promotions go the way of the
If I don't have a TEK savey boss and the boss is an ego-tripper, then I go looking for another job.
I don't want to be the boss, but I do want a workplace with good-positive Colleague/Geek Attitude/Spirit (depends on the boss and Colleagues).
Anyway
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
I only need to say two words wea-ther! Did everyone forget that the HIGH TECH places don't have too bad weather. Okay in Seattle it rains, big wow! Bay Area 55 degrees like now it considered HELLA COLD! I am suprised there aren't more tech communities in hawaii or the Bahamas! Thats where I wanna work! (Accepting offers now).
Also, about 20 years ago some guy named David Lee Roth wrote a whole song about "California Girls" which by the way helps if just for eye candy.
Also the environment has been reiterated about a million times, who the heck wants to wear suits and ties and kiss a bunch of @$$ to get ahead. I would rather come in some khackis a confortable pair of tennis and a sweater walk down the hall and start to work.
I have noticed that alot more people are starting to telecommute so Bandwidth (availability and price) obviously plays a roll it it.
I think a beach is important to survive as well as easy access to the snow.
well I don't know how you would get those all to your city so I guess this post was a quick waste of my minute.
johnnycal
yah, I brake it all.....
Pittsburgh's got bandwidth and companies, just no PR! I work for one of dozens and dozens of companies in the Pittsburgh area that were hatched out of the labs and classrooms of CMU (which, I should note, is home to the Software Engineering Institute and some of the best degree programs in the country). We just can't seem to get the word out. The smoke's been gone for thirty years now. The city is beautiful, hi-tech, cheap, low on crime, and unpretentiously hip (we have one of the country's best Thai restaurants, but we also still choose domestic beer over Starbucks lattes). Pittsburgh has a low self-image. We were voted Most Livable City in the U.S. several years back and continue to show up on Top 10 Lists svery year, but all we do is focus on our weak points (loss of the steel industry, lack of racial diversity, diminishing population). So don't listen to Pittsburghers. Listen to people who moved here from L.A., Chicago, Philadelphia, Florida, Boston, Seattle, or Cleveland. They'll tell you what a surprise it is to learn how wonderful the Burgh actually is.