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
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.
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
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.
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
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 :-)
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)
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.
Cheap, sexy babes and parking space?
:)
'nuff said
Seriously, I value affordable housing, bandwidth, close grocery stores, and entertainment, in that order (I work from home, so bandwidth is very high)
Here in Toronto, I have all but #1!
Babes live *everywhere*, ya just gotta get out, and you'll find them.
Pope
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Like I told my friend, comparing Fry's to BestBuy is like comparing Costco/PriceClub to CircleK.
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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)
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)
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.
- 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.
---
120
chars is barely sufficient
Hand me that airplane glue and I'll tell you another story.
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.
Lego subsidies.
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
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
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. --
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
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."
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...
I live here in Minneapolis, and I think it's still got a decent amount of tech jobs around. The old companies leaving is just the changing of the guard, there are still plenty of jobs here.
I'll agree with the U of MN to a degree. I'm finishing my EE degree there. Most of the engineering departments are really good, nationally chemE is #1, mechE is #8, EE is #20, but comp sci is, frankly, shitty. I don't even know what they're rated, but, having taken a few of their classes, it has to be really low. Remember when Arne Calrson publicly spoke about how bad they are?
Whats happening here is nothing compared to whats happening in Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh has to completely transform itself from the industrial age to the information age, and it's nearly impossible when they were basically the center of the industrial universe earlier this century.
I can't verify this personally but I recall hearing that the tax rates on corporations are relatively high in MN compared to other states, which can be a barrier for new companies. Of course this might be corporate propeganda as well, I don't know.
Minneapolis/St. Paul is still a great place to live. High speed internet access is still spotty but other than that most everything needed is in place. We have a large number of parks, the highest ratio of museums/art galleries to population in the country (other than Seattle I think), the air is clean, good schools, etc.
There is a liquor store with a drive-up window about two miles from where I live. It is located in a building that used to be a bank branch or a restaurant or something. You can drive up, talk to the little speaker and pick up and pay for your order at the window...
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.
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
--
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 live about 250 miles south of the twin cities.
:-)
1. Cheap cheap cheap bandwidth. (Still waiting)
How cheap is cheap? We have both DSL and cable modem available here. I have 256K DSL, it runs between $40-$55 a month depending on ISP and whether you want always on and dynamic or static IPs. Cable modem prices are similar.
2. Clean air. (Not yet)
Air is clean around here.
3. Good theatres, both live and movie. (Check)
Movie screens are adequate and slowly improving here, live theatre is not nearly so good as the twin cities, although not completely dead.
4. Four distinct seasons. (Check)
Here as well, albiet winter is generally more mild. Personally I'd rather have spring or fall all year. I could live with summer all year. I hate winter.
5. More cheap bandwidth.
See above.
6. UNIX jobs. (Check)
Check here as well. Could always use more of course, but things aren't bad.
7. Did I mention cheap bandwidth?
Yes, you mentioned that one already.
8. Affordable housing. (Not as bad as SV, but nasty).
Here we have it much better than the twin cities. House prices here are much cheaper. You can actually buy a decent starter home here for under $100k. You can buy a really nice home between $125-$150k. For $250-$350k you can get a small mansion. Rent is corespondingly cheap compared to other places.
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
You left.. to where? I'm curious why anyone would want to leave Austin?
Did you graduate from UT and went off somewhere else?
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.
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!}
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.
- Everything here is expensive - food, housing, cars just everything
- The public transport actually sucks even comparing to most Eastern Europe countries
- The internet is expensive (although it starts getting cheaper now)
- Taxation in Europe is on the edge of madness (I give away around 36% of my income to the state and I'm not exactly a high earner)
- THE COUNCIL TAX (for those who left the UK many years ago it's the new name for the poll tax)
- Scottish weather is as bad as they say it is
- Glasgow is ugly, it is just verry very ugly. Gosh I just can't describe to you how ugly it is
- Lack of space. Properties are small because prices of land are high because there is no space. In fact everything in Europe is downsized (houses, cars) to squeeze it to such small space with so many inhabitants.
All in all it is not a place for a geek to be in. That doesn't mean that the UK will suck for everyone. If you want free health care, low crime and low prejudice and don't mind being taxed like hell you may be very content with living in Europe. But if you want space and more freedom in locating your earnings Europe begins to feel a bit claustrophobic.Ok so I guesss you've figured by now that I don't want to spend the rest of my days in the UK.
Where then? Well, the choices are actually limited unless you have $1M burning a hole in your pocket to buy a passport of your desire. The choices narrow down to Canada, Australia and New Zaeland and possibly South Africa. Only those four countries have active immigration programmes to attract foreigners. Most other governments treat any external labour force influx with a tremendous amount of hostility (I know a bit about this - I had to get a work permit to be able to work in the UK).
Let us consider the choices:
Australia: perfect if you like it hot. If you are an exploring dude you will find yourself right at home. However, a typical nerd that's in front of his/her screen for most of their spare time will find little appeal in Australia. Its poor communication infrastructure and their recent string of anti-internet laws make it less than a perfect option for a typical slashdot reader.
South Africa: This country is trying to rebuild its image after many years of appartheid (spelling errors excepted!). But it's finding hard to cope with its soaring crime and the wounds of many decades will not heal in a short time. I know nothing about their internet infrastructure though.
New Zaeland: I guess it's much like Australia in many respects with perhaps more sensible laws. However to get to NZ you have to have a job offer first but realistically you can only get a job offer if you're already a NZ resident. I just can't see the logic in their immigration policy. Can someone enlighten me how this is supposed to work?
Canada: They have a vigorous immigration programme and they are quite open about giving priority to high tech people. They get a lot of slack for high taxes but at least their health service is free (and unlike NHS quite good supposedly). I'm not sure what their internet infrastructure's like but I'd bet any money on it being miles better than anything one can experience in Europe.
On average Canada seems like the only sensible option for a non-US nerd to go to with some realistic chance of actually getting there... And that's where I'm headed.
(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
----
lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
"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."
.22 pistol on your belt to kill the giant cockroaches. There is a reason peoples in temperate climates live longer than those in tropical climates (on average): 2 months of zero deg.F kills a lot of yucky stuff.
The downside being that in those locations you have to carry a
Plus, I would go batty if it were 75 (deg.F) and sunny outside all the time (well, maybe I already am). Give me four distinct seasons any time.
sPh
(former Chicago, former St.Louis, soon to be working in Pittsburgh).
Well, I was living in Grants Pass at the time, and so I guess I didn't get enough time to really dig through Eugene. Woulda been nice to be closer to Cougar Dam. :]
Eugene's a great city, I'll not deny that, I loved it there. We drove like 2 hours to spend Saturday market there a coupla times, and went camping out at the hot springs a coupla times as well. Great culture, great people, and apparently some decent jobs.
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
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
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.
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.
Used to be like that around here about 15 years ago before the state ended their monopoly on liquor retailing (although unfortunately not their wholesaling monopoly, which keeps prices higher than they should be). Actually it wasn't quite that bad, as you could buy beer (although only weak beer) and wine coolers at grocery stores and gas stations even back in the bad old days.