One-third of SF Bay Area residents hope to leave soon, poll finds
mercurynews.com
mercurynews.com
I knew on paper the housing would be cheaper, but what's stood out to me is how much less crowded it is:
You can go to stores and find parking, and not wait 15 minutes at the cashier.
You can go to restaurants and actually get a table.
You can make unprotected left turns.
Things are busy during rush hour, but outside of that it's really not bad, and overall it doesn't perpetually feel like the infrastructure is about to collapse under the weight of being so far over-capacity.
There are some things I will miss, but I keep reminding myself that I can fly back to SF cheaply (or anywhere in the US from DEN, really) and hit all of my favorite spots. I am a little afraid I won't be able to find the same quality fruits and vegetables.
When I moved out to the bay area, I thought it would be great to have so many job opportunities and career flexibility. But now as I'm leaving I feel like that wasn't all it's built up to be. Having some options if your employment situation goes south is important, but I don't really need to change jobs every 18 months, or have 5 cold calls from recruiters in my inbox every week. I'd truly rather find a company where I am a good fit and just stay put for a few years.
I also think that is in some ways healthier too: having a bit higher switching cost forces you to learn how to work out some disagreements with your employer and boss, instead of just leaving at the drop of a hat.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11583455
https://journal.dedasys.com/2015/06/18/boulder-colorado-vs-b...
Not sure about Denver, I never looked into it much - it's an order of magnitude too big for me.
http://www.westword.com/news/colorados-300-days-of-sunshine-...
Someone invented the same number here too: http://www.hackbend.com/2015/06/17/so-where-did-300-days-of-...
More than anything, I suspect you'll really love the culture out here if you're starting to slow down and don't want to jump jobs all the time. It's a lot more laid back--this is a city that manages to be mostly wholesome without being boring. It is SLEEPY after 9-10pm, especially during the week, but the outdoorsiness and access to the mountains more than makes up for it.
If you want any tips or to meet new folks, give me a shout when you're a bit more moved in! My contact info's in my profile.
It may be worse than it was a few years ago, but it still feels like a night and day different compared to the bay area.
My sour grapes aside, on you expectation to no-longer job-hop: Good luck. I too would love that, but it is becoming more clear that is not going to happen. Lockheed and Ball have huge divisions on the frontrange. Which they are all closing right now. After they closed out of the mid-atlantic (Valley Forge excepted) too. There are a lot of people here that are very smart and very experienced and still have mortgages and the network of folks here. Nothing is good right now.
I do agree that Colorado is healthier though. Not many fat people to look at here. The skiing helps. Also, there is a sizable big-ish dog culture here, retrievers are somewhat small.
I struggle to even fathom how a 2 hour wait is possible here. Are you walking into places on Valentine's Day without reservations?
Maybe Capital Grille, but even then, places are rarely full.
I'm from the UK so I guess this is the US equivalent of turning right at a set of traffic lights... but what significance does "unprotected" have?
Typically it will look like this...
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========================================Consider an intersection between two perpendicular streets that is controlled by traffic signals.
A protected turn is one in which the turn through the intersection and across the oncoming lane of traffic happens when the oncoming traffic (that is going straight) is stopped.
An unprotected turn is one in which the turn through the intersection and across the oncoming lane of traffic happens when the oncoming traffic does not stop.
In the unprotected turn's case, traffic going straight has the right of way, so cars wishing to turn must wait for a break in oncoming traffic, or for the signal to change. In either case, one car goes straight into the intersection and then stops and waits with its blinker on for a safe opportunity to finish its turn. If it is still there when the light changes, it completes the turn as oncoming traffic comes to a halt and before the sideways traffic begins to move.
Unprotected turns are usually done when both streets are not very busy or when one street is much busier than the other street. In that case the less busy street will have unprotected turns, because it means that there is one less signal during which the busier street is at a complete standstill (ie one signal for both traffic turning onto the busy road and traffic going straight across the busy road instead of one signal for traffic turning onto the busy road and another signal for traffic going straight across the busy road).
Unprotected turns can also work in on very busy streets (think traffic jams), because the streets are so filled that only one car would have space to complete a turn without remaining partially inside the intersection anyway. This allows the lights to cycle faster, since there are fewer signals per cycle.
The Los Angeles area is (semi-)famous for its many intersections with unprotected left-hand turns.
I will occasionally abuse the term with the term "protected right", to mean waiting at a red light where the cross traffic moving leftwards has a protected left. (because the cross traffic's left is protected, the only conflict with a right-turn-on-red is someone in the cross traffic U-turning.)
Part of the problem with building more housing (outside of SF where transit is decent) is that it means even more people. Lack of effective mass transit means those additional people need to drive everywhere, and there's no space for more roads/freeways. So the roads will just get even more clogged.
Cupertino recently had a developer proposal for 4 large high-density housing developments (condos & some apartments), and of course they were to go into areas that already had ridiculous traffic, and there was no way to facilitate even more drivers.
Until the South Bay gets serious about mass transit, merely adding more housing is only going to make the traffic pain worse.
This. This. This.
A couple of years ago, I found myself utterly shocked by the price of homes in San Francisco. In a fit of frustration, I fired off a few emails a few random real estate firms in SF, asking one simple question:
"Who the BLEEP can afford these homes?"
You see, I was frustrated. I have a great job, great pay, and yet I can't even come close to buying a home in the city I live in.
The responses I got were jaw dropping, if not infuriating. The #1 purchaser at 2 of the 3 firms I emailed, were foreign investments. Unused, speculative, investments.
I am shocked that land isn't more protected in this state. It seems strange to me, that someone living thousands of miles away, can buy a piece of land with a home on it, thereby shrinking the available market, and driving up the price of housing. This means people who live in, work in, and contribute to, their local community, can't even afford to buy a home there.
The fact that this isn't seen as a full on crisis, confuses and saddens me.
That's generally how markets keep prices regulated: if they go up enough, more people jump in to producing the good.
That mechanism is severely broken in the Bay Area, among other popular places in the US.
(Though the real motivation for an imputed-rental-income law is usually to combat tax fraud: people who're renting out apartments under the table and not reporting the income. It just has the secondary effect of making it more expensive to sit on vacant real estate.)
You can get away with some cheating there, e.g. a couple who live together can claim to be living separately and rent the second one out under the table, or someone who lives with their parents can be dabbling in under-the-table real estate with an investment property they don't really live in. But it at least keeps it to that kind of small-scale thing; the couple can pretend to owner-occupy two properties when they really live in one, but they can't do it with five.
More significantly, they would mean that the increased demand for property driving prices would also result in increased public resources to deal with the issues produced.
Supply of land can be increased, but its expensive (and, for geological and hydrological reasons, particularly so in the SFBA.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyscraper
But you don't really need those in most places. Simply building 'in' more and up 2/3/4 stories would add a ton of housing in much of the bay area.
As I understand it, it's not really speculative, but rather is a way around China's currency controls. It's allegedly quite difficult, if you're Chinese, to convert holdings into USD or other currencies and get that money out of the country, and investing in foreign real estate is apparently a popular way to work around that
I get what you are saying, but this part above isn't a "natural order of things". For example, homes in Japan are expensive (perhaps representing an even larger fraction of lifetime earnings than in the Statse) yet they depreciate like they are cars.
My home is about 30 years old and honestly the only way you'd know that is by recognizing certain features and techniques that pin it to that general time period of construction and code requirements. It's not like everything shows "30 years of wear" on it. (Of course all the surfaces have been replaced at least once over time, but by mass of the house that's not that much; maintenance is maintenance.) So it seems sensible to me that it hasn't depreciated all that much, in the way that, say, a computer from the same time period is basically worth whichever is greater of "nostalgia" and "scrap metal" value.
For what it's worth, the 30 year old house will show wear in places you can't see, like the plumbing or the electrical wiring or the roofing. My parents' place is about 30 years old now and there's a fairly constant stream of small repairs that have been necessary over the last few years.
By the way Yahoo Auctions is much more popular than eBay in Japan so you might check that out.
It's like this all over North America. Not just the west coast.
I lived in a chinese-built condominium in Toronto a few years ago, and the rumor was that 50% or more of the building's units were owned by absentee landlords.
Which made sense, because almost the entire building was seemingly vacant.
Hardly any lights on at night. No furniture on most of the balconies. Never had to wait for an elevator (at 30+ floors, that is strange). Always ample visitor parking spots when there was only 15 of them shared between ~300 units. And I knew most of the neighbors on my floor, would see them come and go regularly, but there were always a few apartments that just never made any noise.
Transit is abysmal in San Francisco. Muni is an utter disaster.
The fact that it exists doesn't make it "decent." Cities with decent public transportation include Berlin, Munich, Zurich, Moscow, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Taipei, Portland. Even New York is much better. SF is a far cry from any of those.
I'm not sure what developments you are referring to, but the Main Street and Hills developments are running shuttle buses to caltrain. The one by the Oaks shopping center certainly seemed ill-advised, but it got shut down by the city council.
I didn't mean to imply there were lots of houses like this, but even two houses kept up poorly on a single street in this area is a relatively new thing.
There's no reason for houses to sit empty. They're much more economically productive (a nice way to say "profitable") with tenants in them.
A 10-20 year old building in Vancouver will have many units with kitchens that have literally never been used. There's wear and tear and a lot of extra work and risk that comes from renting a place. And as odd as it may sound, the resale value can take a hit when a property is "used".
Unlike San Francisco, rents in Vancouver have not gone through the roof. Recently AirBNB seems to have put some upward pressure on rents, but rents still remain fairly detached from capital costs.
Frankly, the rental income is almost a rounding error. Vancouver real estate is about capital, not cash flow. It's a place to store capital (which in and of itself is quite valuable for many foreign owners), and current supply/demand trends also lead to price appreciation.
Traditional views of real estate market fundamentals are nearly irrelevant to the observed behaviour of the Vancouver real estate market.
I don't see the math on this working out. Have you been in a house that hasn't been occupied? Things depreciate: roofs leak, water pipes break, floors rot, bugs get in, etc.
Given a sane property rights regime (something notably absent from San Francisco), I would vastly prefer real estate I own for investment purposes to be occupied. Tenants make sure the place is at least habitable, pay rent, and you can feel good as an owner about giving someone a place to live. I get that the market may not view it that way, but I think the market is wrong, and maybe that's an opportunity in and of itself.
Honest question: do Chinese people understand capitalism? Even poor people in the US have some inkling of understanding about the stock market -- it's on TV, in the newspaper, the presidential primaries, etc. I get that the main motivation might be just getting capital out of China and into the US, but I really don't understand the investment thesis of holding empty real estate, at all.
For single family detached, the value of the building is not a big deal. It's the dirt the building sits on that people are buying. Prices went up ~30% over the last year in Vancouver.
There are also buyers who think nothing of tearing down a relatively new building because it's not quite what they want.
As long as the city remains a place people wish to live, the dirt will retain value. Perhaps it goes down 50-80% - you can live on your land or you can use its cash flows to help cover your living expenses. As a safe-haven, it's not a bad option.
The price in CAD/USD/EUR/CNY/XBT is almost irrelevant to these owners.
The problematic purchasers in my view are the locals. Many are buying because the market is going up - "I'd better buy now or I'll never be able to afford it". In a falling market, that demand many not exist.
Though I also remain unconvinced that the foreign demand will remain strong in a falling market.
What's going on in Vancouver isn't sustainable in any traditional sense. But the market can also remain irrational longer than many can remain solvent.
I agree that the phenomenon of properties remaining vacant represents a failure. I'm curious what opportunities you think there are. I suspect that many of the opportunities would require regulatory changes to be viable, but I'm open to a different perspective.
Regarding Chinese people understanding capitalism, I suspect there's a very different view culturally. I'm told that the advertising for financial products is quite different - in North America we tend to expect a convervative branding. In China you'll see investments with more of a WeChat approach (including being actually promoted on WeChat). Property rights were recently codified in China - i.e. 2007 or 2008. Real estate is mostly only available as leasehold in China. There's a lot of people who recently became quite wealthy quite quickly. I think it's very likely that they have very different understandings of capitalism than North Americans, who also have a different understanding than Europeans.
I'm not at all a Marxist (pretty pro-capitalism in general) but this does strike me as a case of over-financialization. Wasn't there some Marxist/socialist line of thinking that in late capitalism, so much gets accumulated that the economy shifts from one oriented around socially useful production of goods ("socially useful" is the broad sense, anything people want), to a purely financialized system driven more strongly by investment returns vs. profits from production?
I recognize there's always an element of balance between starting a company to satisfy the demand for goods vs. the demand for return, but cases like this make me think the investors are more in the driver's seat than marketers/product people thinking about what we should make.
Sort of like there's this giant mass of passive capital chasing yield and there isn't enough to go around. And I think this view is consistent with the idea that asset ownership isn't backed by a legally sound property rights regime in China. It seems a lot of this would be fixed if they could channel more accumulated domestic capital (profits) into housing, business equity formation, or even consumption.
It's funny to think that "make something people want" (YC truism) might be good investments, rather than products. But maybe true here?
A real estate friend has actually refused to represent clients on the buy side for a couple of years now since he cannot in good conscience facilitate a transaction that he seems as questionable in judgment.
Do you have any idea what's behind this?
https://youtu.be/SBjXUBMkkE8?t=2m35s
The other issue is that the high school I went to there, Monta Vista High School, is extremely well-ranked. As such some investors buy houses, then rent them to a single custodian who boards as many students as possible so they can attend the schools. These custodians don't seem to have a high priority on keeping the house in great shape.
This sounds like student housing in any major city.
[1]http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2014/11/ec...
But then, this is SF's usual cycle.
This would be a code violation. Neighbors would in theory be reporting it.
This seems very chicken-and-egg. SF has a million dollars in its annual budget tied up in maintaining the status quo for homelessness -- if those people had homes, that money could get redirected into mass transit.
A million? If only. Try $241M
http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/S-F-spends-record...
We're seeing decades of parochial land use policies turn into affordability crises in SF and similar cities. Which is why so many people are moving to Texas: http://time.com/80005/why-texas-is-our-future, despite some of Texas's other challenges (like travel and inadequate mass transit).
It's also important to understand the reason you can't have both, in the US, is political. Infrastructure spending in the US is currently below depreciation (http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/03/10/spending-on-our-cru...) so we aren't building mass transit at a rate that meets growing demand. Rich, mobile people buy up property in cities and along transit lines. If we invested in transit we could make a lot of underused housing useful.
What about Chicago. Way cheaper than New York, and has the second best train system in the country.
You double that and the infrastructure collapses. The tax base doesn't support large investments in transit to get a system built from nothing, and the roads and bridges aren't equipped to handle 2x the volume.
Because it's dense.
For comparison, Seattle is denser than Rome. I'm pretty sure housing is still cheaper in Rome than Seattle.
Rome is pretty spread out in terms of a city.
Most of Europe has good public transportation and reasonable housing prices, although of course there are tons of local variations (London is super expensive).
I just don't see any reason why you can't have both decent transportation and reasonable housing prices.
I agree that Rome is not really cheap. But I don't think it's fair to point to Italy as an example of affordable housing driven by higher density when it's not more dense. Especially since density actually seems to correlate well with price. San Francisco is way denser than Rome or Seattle.
I don't really agree that most of Europe has reasonable housing prices. For the most part, in urban areas homes seem to be quite expensive and quite small. I wouldn't call that reasonable in comparison to, say, Austin or even Seattle. Just about anywhere is reasonable compare to San Francisco of course.
I'm not decided on whether it's possible to have good transportation and reasonable housing prices. You have to have a pretty dense population to make public transit cost effective, and to pay for the up-front costs. And density does tend to imply very expensive housing.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Rome,+Italy/@41.9036094,12...
Regardless, if Rome is "spread out", it's not dense. If Rome, being among the densest of Italian cities, not dense, then neither is Italy.
Why's that?
Who knows, though?
The high cost of housing here is often presented as Bay Area specific phenomena whereas it's phenomena that's appeared many urban areas, especially the most desirable ones that Bay Area residents might consider moving to.
While unaffordability and its many causes needs to be addressed everywhere, SF does seem like the odd one out of the bunch.
As a Bay Area resident, I'm eager to escape to places like the Bay but with a lower cost of living and scanning craigslist for such places, I have consistently found the differences less than I'd imagine.
A variety of things seem to have come together.
On the demand side, the job market today seems to favor certain of the young and the educated. The social consensus has become that no one, especially not the young and educated, wants to live in America's vast expanse of suburban developments - and investors are equally shy about investing her.
But also on the supply side, investment in any and all stores of value has gone up all along with the process of the Fed printing money aggressively with investment rental property going with that; the Blackstone group is now one of the nations' largest landlords. And of course a array of Home-value protectors in the form of Nimbyists, prevents construction and a lack of land central cities naturally restricts supply as well.
But still, I think it's reasonably to say you have a national phenomena which simply manifests locally in different ways.
No this is exactly what I thought OP meant and is just a softer way of telling people to not move somewhere.
Its the same thing in Austin, even though Austin has really be fully deconstructed at this point and it is nothing like the nice place it once was. It's become ever more exclusive, ever more restricted, ever more douchy and pretentious, ever more expensive, ever more packed with people that are trampling everything.
What's actually disgusting is people like you who are incapable of understanding why people would rightfully be resentful about freeloaders and moochers trampling and disrespecting things they created and have a bond to. It's easy being a freeloader and moocher, but it really does undercut any incentive to create anything.
I suspect that in the future we will see examples of restrictive legislation or policies that will rightfully penalize newcomers and mooching types that started swarming to the next version of Austin due to the internet brigading effect.
Now that you are provided with the information to understand what you could previously not, let me further help by illustrating the only way in which it could not be freeloading and mooching. If new comers had to pay exponentially higher tax rates, essentially as a kind of compensation and even a rate of return, which in turn then lowered the taxes of locals that would be the only way to not be freeloading and mooching, especially in a system like Austin that is in no way capable of sustaining the influx of people without significant impact and degradation of the very thing that attracted the freeloading and mooching types.
You seem to be under the impression that somehow paying the cost of operation is sufficient to compensate for prior investments, let alone rates of return. It's quite ironic that such an erroneous mindset would exist in this forum. Then again, it is a tech startup forum, so it really isn't all that surprising.
Think of it this way. If you take n amount of money and invest it in starting a company by buying facilities, equipment, various other capital goods, and hire people; how long to you think you would last by selling your product or goods at the cost of variable inputs alone? ... not even to mention the return on capital or investment. And that still doesn't even get close to capturing the human factor of community and society and culture that is lost through such a destructive locust like swarming of places.
I get that most people in here can't think past their own selfish wants and desires, but what do you think makes a place, any place, so attractive so that you want to go there, it's not your contribution that you made to that place. You are a textbook freeloader at that point, especially in smaller places like Austin used to be where all the things that attracted people to Austin like community and culture existed before they smothered it.
We are going to see ever more of these kinds of things happen as the internet causes human swarming behaviors. Maybe one day people will start realizing it and its absolutely detrimental impact on society and humanity. It is in effect a great leveling and averaging of humanity, a regression to mediocre mean that destroys uniqueness, actual diversity, and civilization, and incentive for community and creation. What are we when there is nothing unique anymore because the second something becomes great and a community comes together, an influx of freeloaders that want to mooch off of it start pulling it down? We are facing a future of the commoditization of humanity, accelerated by the internet and the exponential pace at which anything good or unique is discovered and immediately smothered and trampled.
How does that work? More importantly, if they have it so nice, why don't get what you're due and start freeloading?
If you don't know what I'm talking about, one of two things is true, either you're naive about this matter, or you are precisely the type I just referred to and, as expected, fully lack self-awareness. I realize that hearing something like that will not necessarily be well received here, but it's really a pestilent type of cultural phenomenon which is a pernicious type of cancer that is constantly eating away at any progress that can be made.
It's time the US grew up a little bit and realized that moving to "the next place" and repeating the same patterns that made the first place too expensive isn't going to work.
A somewhat interesting counterpoint: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/04/28/the-m...
I wonder what this study would find if it expanded the "racist term" set. Maybe Texans are very racist against Mexicans. Maybe Washingtonians are especially racist against Asians. [2]
[1] It's not hard to overlook racism directed at a tiny fraction of the population because you just don't see it much. I didn't think there were really people in the US racist against Jews until I was an adult and encountered people who grew up around sizeable Jewish populations.
[2] I'm not asserting either of these as fact.
I don't mean to pick on you in particular, but your comment is an example of a pattern I've noticed over the last few years that results in confusion more than clarity -- using the term 'racism' outside of the context of 'race'.
In most cases, I think 'prejudiced' or 'bigoted' is probably a more accurate label when you are talking about irrationally negative attitudes towards religious, political, cultural or national groups.
Not all negative attitudes are necessarily prejudiced or bigoted. Religion and politics exist in the realm of ideas -- one person's 'bigotry' can be another person's rationality and of course reasonable people can agree to disagree without there being any prejudice or bigotry involved.
I think most of the anti-Muslim rhetoric in the US these days fits into the same bucket. I don't believe most of it is really religious. You've got Donald Trump claiming he loves Israel and Jews and then claiming that Muslims are ruining/attacking America. That's not a case where the issue is religious disagreement or Jews would be as much a target as Muslims.
Again, you could certainly call this xenophobia. I think racism is still pretty accurate, though.
Portland is great, but it is changing. Housing is growing fast, transportation is not keeping up with the growth and the city is not doing enough to solve the homeless problem. Conversely, amazing food, everything you want in a metro but not the size of NY, excellent outdoor options and a growing tech scene.
* Nashville
* Pittsburg
* Charlotte
* Orlando
* San Jose (at least in terms of population, not sure about industry)
It's an interesting phenomenon given how in the developing world there are more super large cities, are we going the opposite direction?
https://www.tsheets.com/living-in-boise/
(I don't work for T-Sheets but have friends that do.)
We have a great high tech community that is searching hard for more engineers. Great outdoor activities for those few minutes you want to spend away from your keyboard. Low traffic, good wages, great biking environment, decent weather.
Move to Boise!
Lots of small tech companies here.
(... jokes on me, you were all going to keep away anyway)
I say this as someone that graduated from CWRU. Cleveland doesn't want developers badly enough to increase wages and benefits. This is all super unfortunate since I still fly out to Ohio several times a year to visit family and it would have been nice to stay in the region.
To be fair, I think that all of the rust belt cities sit on an economic spectrum that runs from Flint/Youngstown all the way to Pittsburg/Chicago. Cleveland has teetered towards both sides at different times. It's trending towards a more healthy post-industrial identity now, but could really use a shake-up in the city leadership.
http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/bill-swerskis-s...
We're also getting a surf park (Nland) this year and have a ton of wake-boarding/cable parks.
An hour south we have Dripping Springs and Wimberley with Jacobs Well, Blue Hole, Hamilton Pool, Krausse Springs, etc. If you think Austin looks like the rest of Texas, here are some examples;
Hamilton Pool; http://yestotexas.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/hamiltonpoo...
Blue Hole; http://ww3.hdnux.com/photos/27/63/44/6240562/3/920x920.jpg
Greenbelt (twin falls); http://www.austinmonthly.com/Twin%20Falls.jpg
I'm breaking Austin rules by talking about these, but hey, I already own a house, so move on in and make my little house even more ridiculously valuable!
"It's like an oasis of dirty water in the sahara," a former Austinite once told me. I'm sure they were being hyperbolic.
http://www.theonion.com/article/report-98-percent-of-us-comm...
Stated intent is different than actual intent. I think it's interesting to note that employment is going up, while people state that they will leave in a few years. What does a few years mean - 2 years? 5 years? Wouldn't ones actual move correlate more with economic outlook than stated intent to move?
I figured I would stay there 2-4 years tops though, since my family and girlfriend live in the southeast. I don't mind living in a box-sized apartment for a while, but if there's no longer a career benefit to doing this, then perhaps I should focus my job search efforts on other cities?
With respect to cost of living, I think it is fine to start a career here. A PhD starting salary at most (big) places will cover a 1 bed room in a good area with decent transit options like San Mateo just fine. You won't live like a king but you won't like like a miser either. That being said looking for places while still being Tennessee will be hard, so you might get a sublet for 2 months and look for a more permanent place after you arrive.
Where it gets really hard is when you start looking for homes to buy when you start a family, and care about school districts. If you're open to moving out to the South East after getting established in your field (not sure if you want to stay in chemistry/pharma or head towards purely data oriented roles), you would be able to mitigate this [1] One thing I'd consider is how feasible moving across the country will actually be.
Anyways, happy to answer questions over email. Contact is in profile.
[1] you should definitely look at Cambridge/Boston if you want to stay in pharma/chem.
While a lot of companies will try to lowball you, others will pay well if you apply some pressure. There was recently a post here by a guy who learned to programming at a coding bootcamp and soon after got an offer for $210k+ total compensation. At that level (depending on how liquid that offer is) you won't really be suffering nor living lavishly.
But yeah, I don't really mind where I live as long as it's not in too dangerous of a location. Once I have children I'll want something more comfortable though.
- Prague's ultra-affordability (avg. salary is about $1,000/mo, so if you're selling to global market you can live with luxury) - travel opportunities--I'm in the middle of everything - proximity to relatives - great British school--very liberal, easy international atmosphere, we're lucky - overall "easygoingness" - full decriminalization (no problem in CA) - economically uniform society, although sometimes it's a double-edged sword - no requirement for pretending being a patriot
Things I will not miss: - very short summer, always feeling cold, gloomy skies - crappy food, although it's improving fast lately.
Am I crazy? Where would you move if you'd want a good weather? I enjoy Berlin immensely, but it's too cold. I'd move to London, but it's cold. I hate being cold.
but if you are considering living anywhere in california, and want nice warm weather, you should also consider orange county (~30-40 minute drive from LA depending), san diego (~3 hours south of LA) and santa barbara (~2 hours? west of LA, nice but maybe a little more expensive and also prob fewer tech jobs). the sf bay area gets colder than southern california but nothing extreme, it doesn't really snow and rain is infrequent (both a good/bad thing for california).
More than $150,000 16% Prefer not to respond 11% Rest of the % are all under $150,000.
Good senior engineer/product people make way more than that. I don't think any of those people are leaving. They are the critical-mass who will make/break good technical companies and power the innovation cycle. SV is in no trouble. There is no real scare of brain-drain.
I am interested to hear what other people have to say about this.
In that sense, the distribution of salaries attached to the answers is telling. How do the startups and non-elite companies survive if nobody they can actually afford wants to come or stay? The area can't just be a playground for the elite megacompanies that can pay the salaries you state.
It becomes extremely elitist, with all the costs and benefits of that. The benefit is that everyone who can afford to live there is implicitly vetted by a rich employer or investor, so there could be extremely high serendipity. The costs are massive insularity, risk of the next big thing coming from elsewhere, and hugely inflated costs for basic service labor.
But, if the vetting is good enough, maybe those costs are worth it?
Even the senior folks making bank aren't necessarily all willing to plunk down $2m for a crappy house in Cupertino. Simple economics will disperse at least some of this talent pool.
It looks like they may have been super-concerned about water running out instead?
Nobody buys houses there anymore, because the bidding wars have gotten out of hand.
Nobody drives to work there anymore, the commute traffic is just too bad.
Nobody wants to work there anymore, there are just too many jobs producing competition for scarce housing and transit.
0 - http://sf.curbed.com/2015/2/4/9995388/sfs-population-is-grow...
1 - http://www.paragon-re.com/San_Francisco_Real_Estate_Feb_2015
[1]: http://www.tvcog.net
Not necessarily a bad outcome...
The wisdom of Silenus applies to life in the San Francisco
Yes, in exactly none of the big cities in the USA there is programming being done, let alone medium cities.
Nothing in NYC, nothing in Chicago, Seattle, Boston, Austin, DFW, Minneapolis, Portland, etc
Only on SFBA
Sure
In particular i think only CA has non-recognition of non-competes (and moonlighting protection too if i remember right) while the rest of US - doesn't.
C'mon you know what you are saying is wrong. I worked in SV/SF and now live in NYC and I much prefer the tech scene here. In fact there's a massive shortage of programmers so you could actually make more money in NYC.
But you don't even need to live there. You can work remote. Programming is one of the only jobs you can do literally from anywhere.
you're putting theory ahead of practice. We're talking right now inside of one more thread where programmers discuss how hard it is to live in BA - don't you feel any contradiction between that fact and your statement?
You with your theory reminded me about that joke yesterday in Prairie Home Companion : "People of Galveston can look in the eye of reality and dismiss it" :)
Go the Who's Hiring thread today and there's plenty of remote options. I worked remote for a few years. I also worked in gasp the flyover states for a bit too. You really can program anywhere.
Or you can keep drinking the BA kool aid. I spent some time there, not for me, pretty awful place really. But apparently the programming job I work at now outside of the BA doesn't exist according to you?