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Comment by robbyking | Hacker News Reader

I'm a longtime Bay Area software engineer, and the problem is it's scary to move to a town that only has a couple tech companies. I'd love to live someplace smaller, but if I find -- and lose -- a job in a small town, I'm out of other options. Here I have recruiters knocking down my door.

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Man, it's not like there's 1000 software companies in the Bay Area and 12 in the rest of the country combined. I have a hard time believing you'd be out of a job for too long in Austin or Denver/Boulder or NYC or DC or Seattle?

As someone who was present in the so called "Silicon hills" (Austin, TX) and "Telecom corridor" (Dallas, TX) it was hard to find a tech job during the 2008 recession.

These places look great from the outside (cheap, plenty of space, infrastructure etc.), but the job prospects during a downturn are radically different as compared to the Bay Area (I'm only talking about 2008, not the dotcom bubble).

It's not that extreme, but it's quite a difference. The quality just isn't there, either.

The price to rent ratio in Manhattan is worse than San Francisco.

So move to a town that has a lot more than a couple tech companies like Austin or Raleigh. It’s not all SV and wastelands in this country.

I don't live in SV, but I've worked remotely for SV companies, and have spent some time there.

I think you're underestimating the gap. I wouldn't call every other city a wasteland, but it can sometimes feel like it's hard not to have a tech job in the Bay Area.

It's also possible that people in SV are over-estimating the gap, but I think the reality is closer to the extreme they imagine.

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