Comment by paulsutter | Hacker News Reader

Comment by paulsutter | Hacker News Reader

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Dallas misses on a few of pg's key points: it's a sprawling driving city, lack of a top university, and a red state culture.

> Pittsburgh is fortunate in being a pre-car city. It's not too spread out. Because those 25 to 29 year olds do not like driving. They prefer walking, or bicycling, or taking public transport... Cities where you can get around without driving are just better period.

> Pittsburgh has something Portland lacks: a first-rate research university. CMU plus little cafes means you have more than hipsters drinking lattes. It means you have hipsters drinking lattes while talking about distributed systems. Now you're getting really close to San Francisco.

> The culture of Pittsburgh is another of its strengths. It seems like a city has to be very socially liberal to be a startup hub, and it's pretty clear why. A city has to tolerate strangeness to be a home for startups, because startups are so strange.

EDIT: map of red/blue counties in Texas: http://frontburner.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/upload...

I wouldn't associate "red state culture" and a particular city in that state together. Remember, Austin is a city in Texas.... The 4 major cities in Texas in fact are either well mixed or liberal (Dallas, Houston, Austin, San Antonio). I hardly move my car on the weekends, get around just fine. My current job I have to commute by car (actually I could ride the train technically...), but many people walk/use public transportation. There is even an entire underground tunnel network between most of the buildings downtown...

Also, what is your definition of a "top university"? Ivy?

Also fun fact...Dallas has the largest public transit system in the nation as far as length of track.

That last fact is a negative. You maximize track miles by having sprawl connected with trains. That's not what you want. Number of riders per mile of track is a much better metric.

I understand that, I was mentioning that because it's interesting, not to say it's better than others. It's an interesting fact because it shows how much of a massive area the Dallas metro is. It's fun to take the DFW area and overlay on other metros on a map. I wouldn't call it negative either. The potential Dallas has BECAUSE we have so much more room to grow is why I stay here.

> Also, what is your definition of a "top university"? Ivy?

Great, well-known, research CS university. Think Stanford, Berkeley, etc. In Texas there's UT and to some extent Rice... neither in Dallas.

It doesn't have to specifically a CS research university... A good research university does much more than CS. I'd argue that having a great CS research university in close proximity is somewhat irrelevant to creating a great startup hub. Startups are SO much more than just tech.

Yes, there is. UT Dallas is third ranked public school in Texas and a top tier STEM research school. Dallas is perhaps best suited for building a company.

When I think of the top engineering schools in the US: UT Austin is on that list. Dallas isn't. There's a pretty big gap between the two schools.

It's not even ranked in the top 100 US universities. That's nowhere near the level of Stanford, Berkley, or even CMU.

>In Texas there's UT and to some extent Rice... neither in Dallas.

How do you mean "to some extent Rice"?

Rice is #18 in the US News ranking of top colleges in the US and has a 17% admission rate--the highest rated univ in Texas. It has a top-notch CS dept, most particularly well known for its compiler research.

Disclaimer: I did not attend Rice, but know several people who attended its CS program.

Sorry, I know it's a top school (I lived in Houston) but wasn't sure if it was considered in the same group as UT Austin, MIT, Stanford, etc.

Length of track is completely unrelated to the quality of the system. It's something you could be proud of for sure... But it's still completely unrelated to the quality of the network.

Dallas has the largest light rail system in the nation by length of track. New York, DC, San Francisco, and Chicago all have larger rail transit systems overall.

"I wouldn't associate "red state culture" and a particular city in that state together"

You might not, but many of the people you're trying to recruit will. I realize it may not be accurate but there's a perception that Texas is universally horrible except for Austin, at least if you're left of center or want urban living. It doesn't matter if that perception's wrong if it means you never even talk to your potential candidate to say how great Dallas is.

Also, having the most track is a dubious distinction, just as having the most miles of road would be; that makes it sounds like commutes are long too. Interestingly a lot of the earliest suburbs weren't enabled by the car but by rail; San Diego and Los Angeles both have neighborhoods (now considered pretty close-in) whose construction was really enabled by rail.

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