Leaving NYC for Nashville | Hacker News Reader

Leaving NYC for Nashville

wesmckinney.com

209 pointshappy-go-lucky380 comments

One consideration for me to live in the NYC area is the general level of tolerance/acceptance of diversity. Certainly it isn't perfect here. But having grown up in the mid-west in an immigrant family, I have strong memories of being rejected by classmates and the local community (daily taunts, regularly being told to go back to my home country by kids and adults alike, people vandalizing my house, etc). I strongly believe this was a function of being in a community where people from foreign countries was uncommon, and back in the day in podunk mid-west, this was very uncommon.

Now that I have a family with (bi-racial) children, I would be super reluctant to consider a place where my own children would encounter that kind of hostility. Nashville I'm sure is great, and maybe I'd love living there, but I would personally think twice - for a reason that the author of this article didn't at all need to consider for himself.

This is a big issue for me when people tell me to "move out of the coasts".

Apart from the hostility (lets assume that's waning), services for immigrant populations is non-existent in most cities. Well-stocked Asian grocery stores, temples, a good selection of restaurants etc. are common in most coastal cities, while not so common everywhere else (apart from say, Houston/Austin).

I don't doubt there is flight from these coastal cities, but just like in the 70's and 80's, this seems to be mostly "white flight" [1].

Immigrant populations have no choice but to stay in the coasts, I wish more effort was put into making the coastal cities more affordable than just assuming everyone can move out.

[1]: https://www.npr.org/2017/02/14/512875545/leaving-urban-areas...

Not as true as it used to be. In my experience any midwestern city over 100,000 in population will have an Asian grocery store, and it's often got the best fresh produce in town.

Here is an alternative perspective.

For the past 15 years I have been mostly working in NYC and around 6-7 years ago I had the fortune to work remotely on-and-off in Nashville for 6 month in total. So my personal anecdotal experience in Nashville was all positive, actually. Racism wasn't a big issue at least for me in the tightly knit tech startup community there in Nashville (12th South/Green Hills Mall area). My boss and teammates were smart and respectful. In fact the Southern hospitality made me feel right at home from the beginning. I missed those days.

And yes I come from an immigrant family as well.

PS: TN is not a midwestern state.[1] It is considered as a Southern state though.[2]

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midwestern_United_States

Without diminishing your personal experience, I should point out that kids can be pretty harsh and that almost all of us are picked on in one way or another, for a variety of reasons.

You know in 'Revenge of the Nerds' where at the end, the Nerds make a call to everyone who felt slighted and diminished to come out and stand against the 'Alpha Betas' (basically the cool/athletic alpha-bros?) - and everyone came out!

95% of people have either something that stands out that could enable them to be picked on, or, give them some kind of anxiety one way or another.

So, the adult world is very different.

I suggest there is a very low likelihood that you'll encounter acute problems (though maybe kids at school), issues would be more systematic than acute, i.e. the more local people have tighter social circles - much like Europe is very 'open, tolerant, progressive' both intellectually and in terms of policy, and yet at the same time 'very, very closed' socially. Even a white person, born and raised in Paris, utterly fluent and indistinguishable from anyone else ... but with a Polish last name ... might have some difficulty integrating outside of Paris. It's not like the French 'hate Poles'. It's just a kind of ethnocentrism that is fairly common in most places.

Other than maybe your kids having to deal issues perhaps a little more often than the kids next to them in class ... I wouldn't ever be apprehensive about living most places in the US at all.

I lived in France (not Paris) almost all my life with a Polish name and that has been a problem exactly 0 times. (I just need to spell my name when someone wants to write it)

I don't mean that it would be evident, definitely not in the way you could 'count the times' something would happen. That's not how I would describe systematic integration issues.

I lived in France for quite some time with near fluent French and it was nary impossible for met to break into French circles. I made basically zero French friends, most of my colleagues were ex-pats. And it's not like I was ever remotely 'mistreated', nor could I pinpoint any specific time wherein I was 'left out' or 'ignored' because I wasn't French but there was obviously some kind of invisible barrier. My girlfriend at the time, much like you, was born and raised French, but has Polish ancestry, and though, like you I don't recall her ever mentioning a single 'incident' ... it was clear she wasn't quite in the same group as the others. The demarcation was subtle, but to me it was there.

In Germany, where I lived for a year and barely speak a word of German, I felt as though my German surname gave me special access, as though I was 'a lost child', it's like I wasn't really 'foreign' just happened to be raised elsewhere - whereas the demarcation of Polish people (and especially Turks) was evident. Just like even in urban North America where you might see tables in a restaurant (or neighbourhoods) occupied by different groups (i.e. a very Asian table, a very white table), I found in Germany you'd see heavy demarcations as well, but more subtle: a table of Germans, a table of Polish/Germans, a table of Turks. Those divisions basically amount to barriers of a kind, because they will exist everywhere, at the office as well.

That experience was 20 years ago.

Comparing New York of today to the mid-west of 20, possibly more, years ago is unfair.

There is plenty of racism in New York to last a life time. I wish you had stayed and fought the racism instead of moving away for better comfort, leaving other immigrants to suffer.

Lastly, I don’t want to invalidate and your pain and suffering. I am sure it sucked, and the younger you were, the more pain it probably was.

Are you sure minority experiences have gotten better during these 20 years? I’m not convinced.

I was thinking the same thing. I'm not convinced in today's Trumpian times minorities are accepted- especially down South.

I live in the South. You're wrong. Boston is still the most openly racist place I've been, and NYC to most segregated (in terms of day to day encounters). I live in the South partly so that I do interact with non-white people on a daily basis without venturing far from home.

> In 2011, while primarily working on pandas, I was paying $2000 per month for a ground-level "1 bedroom" apartment in the East Village. It was less than 500 square feet and had none of the above amenities.

You know, you can always tell when a non-native New Yorker lives in New York, because they all choose one of five neighborhoods to live in, and then complain about their poor living conditions.

My guy, you can live in one of the other boroughs, have an average commute to work, and have good living conditions that satisfy at least half of your list of requirements there for $2000 in 2011.

Like other commentators here have said, people of a certain class (and age) want to have their cake and eat it too.

I guess you could get a slightly larger apartment in Sunset Park or Jackson Heights or somewhere but you would still be paying a preposterous $2000 (realistically $2500+ in 2018) for that, and now you've added NYC's cramped, unpleasant, "state of emergency" transportation infrastructure to your daily grind. For all that you get housing that is _still_ laughably austere in comparison to what you'd get nearly anywhere else in the country.

For what it's worth, I lived 7 or 8 places in about two years when I lived in NYC, in pretty much every Brooklyn neighborhood within a 20-40 minute radius from where I worked. Saved lots of money too - never lived alone, did social stuff in my neighborhood, took full advantage of the City to the best of my ability. After all that, I came to the following verdict: NYC is stupidly overpriced and has a substantial quality of life problem.

I am admittedly a non-native, so perhaps some of the finer charms of the City will always be lost on me. But I don't know - I'm living in Berlin right now, which isn't _too_ drastically different, and can't say I find myself missing NYC at all.

I lived in Sunset Park for years. My 2600 square foot house on 10 acres of land has the same combined payment for mortgage+tax as my apartment from ~10 years ago and that neighborhood was worse then than it is now.

My washer and dryer are enormous, I have a car, and I live 5 minutes from the interstate on a beautiful wooded property with faster internet than I ever had in New York.

I am originally from NYC and I think the time to buy a house there was around the 1980s. If you have no hope of affording a good property there now in 2018, you have no business living in NYC because you are on the wrong side of the trade there. All of your surplus is going to be captured by the hyper successful alliance of landlords and the government. Renters are just asking to be tag team bodyslammed. Every time you get a raise, your landlord also will give himself a raise.

I recommend looking west -- there are $2k 1BRs in Jersey City and Hoboken with 35-minute door-to-door commutes to most tech companies in Manhattan. Many even with central air, dishwasher, and in-unit laundry! PATH's reliability numbers are better than any subway line, and in case of issues there's bus, ferry, NJT rail as alternatives. And best of all, no NYC city income tax.

I would actually recommend to most folks the slightly less commuter friendly areas west -- namely the Fort Lee, Palisades Park area and down to Edgewater. Especially if you can bike or motorbike or pay for the ferry.

That's exactly where I would move to if I had to leave my place in midtown.

I would like to suggest that there are other parts of NYC to live, in addition to what evanelias mentions above.

Many who complain about high rents, and feeling poor, for reasons I do not entirely understand, have a stigma of living in the other boroughs other than Manhattan.

In Queens, in a well connected (express subway line) area, one can get the same 400 sqft "dump" the author cites, for less than 1000$. And commute-wise, about 30 minutes to midtown.

Having lived both in Queens and Manhattan over many years, I find this "Manhattan or broke" attitude with largely people who move from outside NYC.

I moved to Manhattan from Queens, when I was able to afford it and not when it became affordable.

Shhh - I live and work near Grove St in Jersey City. Life is sublime here.

Can concur on the shushness and sublimation.

However, PATH is meandering near the border of MTA's hellish confines and looks drunk enough to stumble in. Couple that with the incessant development (there are 4 towers in constructions near Paulus hook) and already stressed PATH infra and you can guess what can happen next.

On the whole, JC is better than BK for a myriad of reasons.

> there are $2k 1BRs [..]. Many even with central air, dishwasher, and in-unit laundry!

I'm trying to decide if this is a tongue-in-cheek post or not.

It's not tongue-in-cheek. This is a real issue in NYC, less so the further out you go in the boroughs. To break it down further:

* Dishwasher is much more common these days.

* In-unit laundry: Sometimes you'll find an in-unit washer, but no dryer. If there is an in-unit dryer, you have to ask whether it's a 110V electric or a true 220V vented. If it's the former, lower end models can take up to 4 hours to dry a small load. We had an in-unit washer, but just hung our clothes to dry and saved money instead of buying an in-unit dryer. Often times, you'll have no washer or dryer and simply take your laundry to a neighborhood coin-operated laundromat. If you're lucky, you might have coin-operated laundry facilities in the building.

* Central air is still a rarity. Most of the older housing (i.e. apartment) stock use radiator heating and window AC units.

The original article complained about not having these amenities in NYC. Much of the housing stock in the 5 boroughs is too old.

Why would it be?

But it's still New Jersey.

People used to say the exact same thing about Brooklyn and Queens. Not that long ago, even.

Disagree about your $2k take on a Sunset Park or Jackson Heights apartment. I've lived in the latter, and that's not the case.

Your "daily grind" doesn't have to happen at the same time as everyone else's. If the cramped subway bothers you, commute before (almost everyone can do this) or after (maybe not everyone can do this one though) the on-peak hours.

NYC is an expensive and densely populated city to live in. Your quality of life hinges on the set of compromises you make, which are unique to the city and have a higher impact on your day-to-day. Some people don't like to make compromises and decisions that affect their everyday lives to this degree, and that's fine. But to pretend that options don't exist is ridiculous.

The subway might be less cramped at off-peak times, but it's not more reliable or faster. It's still a long commute that's been getting longer and less predictable for the past ~2 years.

I live in Hell's Kitchen but I had a reverse commute to Sunset Park for 2 years, ending earlier this year.

My commute time ranged anywhere from 50 minutes to 2 and a half hours, each way, every day...more often towards the latter end of that spectrum. The situation of riding the yellow line to/from Brooklyn is atrocious and not something that I plan to subject myself to again.

Anecdata vs anecdata.

In 2011, I rented a 2-bedroom apartment next to the beautiful Prospect park, within a trivial walking distance to 2 subway lines, 30 mins by train to my office in Manhattan, for $1500.

It's not a posh neighborhood, but I don't care.

I’m not sure that you’re disproving any point. You paid $1500 for a 2br apartment in a crappy neighborhood.

Depends on what you need in life. Some need night life, some need good schools, some need short commute, some need a park to walk / run, etc. Some even prefer Nashville.

I defy you to find a 2 bedroom apartment in a non-crappy neighborhood in any major American city for less than $1k. Even smaller cities won’t make that cut - it’s tough to find that in Columbus, let alone Denver or Dallas.

You can always trade off commute time or access to jobs and culture for lower rent. It’s pointless to complain about more desirable cities being more expensive; if you want to live in a popular area it’s going to cost you more.

I paid $1450 for a 1 bed that was >1000 sq feet in Jackson Heights and it was _beautiful_. It's just not the Village.

Berlin is a very good analogue to NYC, I've found, except the rampant indoor cigarette smoking, which makes it unbearable for me.

Really? Indoor?

I just took a 2-week vacation in Bavaria, and indeed, the rampant smoking was shocking to me as an American. However, I did not see it inside, only outside. It was especially annoying when I wanted to look at a restaurant's menu outside and some idiot with a cigarette was standing in the doorway; I just went by and found another restaurant when that happened. I saw tons of people (usually male) smoking outside right next to doorways, in entranceways, on the sidewalks, etc., many times in the rain and cold. The level of cigarette smoking, plus the poor city air quality due to all the diesel cars, really made me question if I could stand living in Germany any time in the next 20 years (probably about as long as it'll take to become more like America now).

However, I did not once see anyone smoking indoors, and it seemed to be illegal in public places from what I could tell. Are things different in Berlin?

It's illegal in Berlin as well but completely unenforced in bars and clubs. Also in general the smoking population of adults is like 1/3 of men and 1/4 of women. I'm an occasional smoker and I even find it disgusting.

I was in Berlin exactly a year ago, and it is indeed unberable. Think bars so filled with smoke you can't see all the way across the room. Smoking outside just wasn't a thing, and it was in the 30s when I was there, so while there is in general a good outdoor drinking culture where you can avoid it for much of the year, in the winter you just can't.

I had to leave some places because it was so unbearable.

Indoor smoking is quite common here, but only in bars and clubs.

I live in Sunset Park now and pay $2000 for a two bedroom apartment, though the second bedroom fits only a twin sized bed. It was mostly a bonus room and use it for storage.

My previous Sunset Park apartment, of just one bedroom, raised its rent to over $2000 before I moved out. Sunset Park, unless you live close to 8th Avenue, is not even that nice or quiet of a neighborhood to live in.

Because Sunset Park has a) high home ownership rates and b) tons of apartment exclusive to the Chinese community, it's actually not a very cheap place to live in. Or perhaps that's just how expensive NYC is now.

I've chosen to move to a nicer neighborhood next year because if I'm going to pay $2000-2400 I'd rather live closer to Manhattan, even if the apartment is smaller.

This. NYC is more than just Manhattan. My two children, my wife and I live in a 3 BR apt, with backyard access and laundry in the basement, in Ridgewood, Queens for 1750 a month. Its 30 minutes to Union Sq. by subway and 40 minutes by bicycle. I am amazed when new college grads at my job tell me they are renting a room in Manhattan for how much I am paying for a full floor apartment in Queens.

Some things never change. The absolute amount would be different but otherwise you could cut and paste the exact same comment to Usenet in the mid 1980s and it wouldn't look at all out of place.

Shh, don't spoil Ridgewood! When people find out they can get a whole house with a yard for the price they pay for a room in Williamsburg we'll get overrun.

No one paying for a room in Williamsburg (or most of the other high costs neighborhoods) wants a "full house and a yard". I really don't understand the American obsession with huge living spaces. Just increases the amount you have to clean, and the amount of junk you're liable to fill it with.

The best argument is for kids, but for me and many (most) of my peers at least, that's the last thing we want. I'd also argue that raising children in the South/MidWest does them a great disservice in terms of cut potential in education and career prospects but that's neither here nor there.

The space is more about supporting a variety of hobbies that require space and/or the space is available at minimal cost likely both in time & money.

With my tech friends, they seem to be able to live ridiculously minimally as their life outside of the essentials fits into a laptop/desktop. My non-tech friends are less so.

Some activities that like having more space are as follows. Sure, most on this list are available via affordable to semi-luxurious subscriptions and/or coops or definitely can be done in a small space, yet having a personal version of it or additional space offers a decent QoL improvement in the form of time saved, or simply not having to share space/equipment with family/strangers.

  - Gym Equipments (powerrack, barbells, etc)
  - Sauna
  - Gardening
  - Music (neighbors don't complain about your noise)
  - Crafts
  - Wood/Metal working
  - Cooking/Baking
  - Pets
  - Art Studio (ceramics, painting, drawing, etc)
  - Automotive

A bunch of these tend to also be activities/skills that some people derive a large part of their identity & happiness from, thus giving that up for living in a small space sounds like a preposterous suggestion to them.

I also hope the author was joking about being part of the underclass--which I'm willing to give them a charitable interpretation because of the quotes.

The mere fact that they can afford to live in a 1-bedroom in the EV is, well, evidence against that fact. You're not even part of the underclass in Manhattan if you can do that.

Very true, but understandable if you are constantly surrounded by immense wealth.

But that's exactly what I take issue with - you're not! Someone's delivering your food, someone's working at the bodega you go to. You won't encounter nearly the same level of homelessness as you do in SF, but you will encounter homeless people regularly nonetheless. You run into the actual underclass far more often than you encounter the extremely wealthy.

If you call yourself part of the underclass, either you're: Forgetting that they exist, or you're pretending that your economic situation is somehow roughly equivalent. I don't think you need to keep that on your mind every single second of the day, but at least be honest about it.

You are much closer to your deliveryman than to fat cats making multi-million dollar salaries on Wall Street. That's the comparison the Author was making.

I assumed it to be a joke, or at least referencing that a person with a "white-collar" job in NYC at times feels like they live more like the middle/lower class than the upper-class.

For instance, New York City made significant efforts to include a large number of affordable housing in many recent developments. People within a certain income range(30-100k ish) can apply for these apartments at a significantly reduced rent. This allows people who work middle-income jobs to at least live close to work. I'm not arguing the against the merits of these programs as I think income diversity is good, but this combined with the reality that many new developments included mainly luxury units or affordable units without much in-between, causes a significant rent burden for many New Yorkers making 100-200k.

Contrast that to say taking a 15% salary reduction to live in Nashville, that same person now probably lives much more like the upper-class of Nashville than the lower class.

I should point out that this isn't universally the case, there are plenty of people who moved into these areas during a very different era and are protected in the form of rent control, public housing, or simply purchasing during the height of the crack epidemic that did a ton of damage to the east village.

The single place I've lived the longest in my life was a little apartment in "East Williamsburg" (read: Bed-Stuy / Bushwick). I was five stops away from the LES on the JMZ and the L and my rent barely notched up annually. Back when I worked around Wall Street, it was 30-minutes door-to-door, and if hanging out in Manhattan during the summer I'd sometimes walk home from anywhere below 23rd street.

When I first got that apartment in 2001, my rent was $900 and when I finally left after 11 years, my rent was $1,350. I loved that little apartment, the neighborhood - which has barely changed since, and my neighbors. I was truly sad to leave it.

I've been trying to convince other friends who moved to NYC to stop complaining about rent and join the common folk in the other boroughs, some of whom never left Manhattan except to head to and from the airport. I can't imagine what NYC looks like from that perspective, but I'm positive it's a lesser view.

This is the first comment I've read in this thread from someone who actually "figured it out". It's not rocket science: move out of Manhattan, ride a bike, learn to cook, enjoy the finer parts of NYC.

Yes! This person was living in East Village, which is probably the most happening/hip neighborhood in Manhattan. Tons of bars, restaurants, theaters, other young people. Neighborhoods in upper Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, and Jersey City have easy access to the city (30-45 min train rides) and cost less.

I don't think it makes sense to live in New York unless there is something you can only get here. There's only one MoMA, one City Ballet, one Film Forum. (Not to mention the business and professional opportunities - the city is a business city first and foremost.)

The difference between 45 minutes (+60 mins/-5 mins) on the unreliable subway and a 15 minute walk / bike ride / UberPool / etc cannot be overstated. That's 250 hours per year, not to mention the stress and hassles of being reliant on the ever-spiraling subway.

Definitely.

As with anything else, there are compromises to be made, and NYC has a unique set of them. If you really think this way, go ahead and live in a densely populated neighborhood with the compromises that come along with it.

For what it's worth, I commute before/after on-peak hours to avoid delays. The subway is very efficient at 7am-7:30am, and is a shitshow at 9am when everyone is trying to get to their 10am start job. Then everyone complains about the delays, as if they can't make changes to their schedule when they _know_ it's a shitshow at certain times.

You can get things done on a train that you can't if you need to focus on walking or biking. By the time I arrive at work I've gotten through my emails and read the days headlines.

Depends on the train type and crowdedness.

Similarly, I've taken to using UberPool during winter because, while it's a little slower, it gives me back 1-1.5 hours per day of productive time, for a marginal cost of $2-3 beyond the subway cost.

Granted, and vice versa: you can do things walking or biking that you can't do on a train. Eg get a regular amount of exercise.

Which wasn't possible 10-15 years ago before ubiquitous smartphones and cellular data.

What does one do in the winter?

The issue for me is the "average commute to work". I need to be on the 6 (or 4/5). Anywhere outside of Manhattan makes my commute ~1 hour instead of ~35 min. I don't currently live in the EV, but I'd entertain doing so if I could get a bit more for the money.

Any advice on where else I should be looking?

Crown Heights close to Nostrand to Grand Central should take you 30-45min, and you can have a semi-luxury building or renovated apartment for the same price as the author of the article posted. There are other similar neighborhoods in BK. UES or East Harlem could work too.

If you don't mind a bit of grungy asthetics, the areas near the JMZ trains just on the other side of Manhattan in Williamsburg and the Bed Stuy/Bushwick border have a relatively fast commute - much faster than far more expensive neighborhoods in Brooklyn.

For example, it's like 10m from Marcy Ave to Essex St. in the LES. The J goes downtown in the Wall St. area while the M takes much of the same path as the F along 6th Ave, and both of those trains follow the same lines up until Myrtle-Broadway. In fact, it's literally two stops from Essex St. during rush hour as the J runs express (sometimes it sees itself as a Z).

JMZ will be impossible to get into above Mytrle-Broadway come April. Maybe even above Gates.

That's potentially very true. That said, numerous lines are going to get squeezed as well, the A and C in particular.

Are you commuting into midtown? If so, there's a reason Astoria is exceptionally popular.

I live in Brooklyn, east of Prospect Park, and am on the 5. I can also take the Q/B which are express to Manhattan and switch to the 6 or 5 at 14th. My commute is to Midtown, and it takes about 35 minutes.

For many years, I lived in Westchester, took metro-north to grand central (30 minutes on an express train), then the 4/5/6 to work (10 minutes. 15 when things were slow).

I looked at this before leaving NYC and the problem is that once you add the time to get to the metro-north station, time to switch from metro north to subway, time from subway to office, and time waiting for trains, elevators, etc, you can easily have a 75-90 minute commute. And that's when things go right on two different transit systems, which seems far too rare these days.

Lately, Grand Central Station has become an overcrowded tourist nightmare where you have to do breathing exercises to stay calm getting from the station to the subway.

I cannot believe they put an Apple store in there. It should be a crime to choose profits over efficiency.

Queens Village - a little further from the city.

Flushing

Fresh Meadows

Rego Park

Maspeth

Middle village

Kew Gardens

Take a look at the NYC subway map. Follow trains heading East of Manhattan: E,F,7,L etc...

What are the good neighborhoods to move into if you're a non-native New Yorker moving there for a tech job?

It depends on your preferences, but if you can afford it, my recommendation would be to live in Manhattan (below 100th St) somewhere close-ish to where you work when you first move here, even if that means compromising with a smaller/less nice apartment than you could get in Jersey City or the outer boroughs.

It's hard to find a great apartment if you don't already live in NYC and know what you're looking for, so you'll probably only be in your first apartment for 1 year anyway. Living in Manhattan will give you a central base to explore the city, get to know your transportation options, and make trips to other neighborhoods around the city that you might be interested in moving to. You will also avoid locking yourself into a commute that might be longer/more variable/more miserable than you might originally understand.

At the end of your year in Manhattan, you'll be able to make a more informed choice about whether to stay, or to "upgrade" to a nicer place in Brooklyn, Queens, uptown Manhattan, Jersey City, or even the suburbs.

This is great advice, thank you! Not something that's in the works for the next year or two but long term I think it's a good career move. And I'm close enough (~3-3.5 hour drive) that it's not as huge of a change as moving across the country to SF or something.

Deep Bushwick ( Mytrle-Wycoff to Bushwick Ave ) if you are not doing it next year - the L will be down.

Queens off the M line.

Anywhere off the F line.

In general you want to use something like StreetEasy search that lets you specify search areas based on commute and subway lines.

Brooklyn (non-Williamsburg) while getting pricier is still afordable. Without kids I'd recommend Clinton Hill area (schools suck there). If with kids, South Slope is a recently gentrified version of pricey Park Slope (where the Mayor lives) which hasn't quite caught up with Park Slope prices yet. There's also a bunch of commuter towns all around NYC in NJ that can guarantee sub-1hour commutes to Midtown where 1 bedroom can be had for 1200 or so with all of the aforementioned amenities.

> There's also a bunch of commuter towns all around NYC in NJ that can guarantee sub-1-hour commutes to Midtown

On days when NJTransit wakes up on the right side of the bed...

Yeah, if you're not living next to a PATH train stop or the Secaucus train station, I would assume +30min of travel time to any day's commute. That kind of variance basically means your weekdays are spent going to work, coming home, eating, and going to sleep. Terrible. And you get to pay ever increasing NJ Transit fares and property taxes for it.

So obviously everyone's situation is different. I agree that NJT is a cluster$#% of epic proportions. In my case I'm in Montclair, around 12 minutes from an NJT station but around 1 minute from Decamp Buses which is what I take every day. I take the downtown Wall Street bus a block from my house at 6:50 AM and it drops me off near the bull at 7:50. The bus takes around 25-30 minutes to get to Port Authority and around around 20-30 minutes to traverse to downtown (people request stops). This year it's only been late (i.e. 8:10-8:20) to Downtown twice. One of those times was when major roads in TriBeCa were closed because of mailbomnbs. That's how rare of an occasion that is. Of course that's an early bus, later ones are subject to traffic variations.

There are neighborhoods in Queens to consider: Forest Hills, Astoria, Kew Gardens, Long Island City.

I visited a friend of mine when he lived in Astoria ca. 2012-14 or so probably 3 or 4 times, it seemed like a good area and the rent seemed reasonable at the time. He commuted to Columbus Circle and while I never made the trip during rush hour it was not bad at all.

Newport NJ is a pretty nice area right next to a train that takes you into Manhattan.

From a Bay Area perspective that seems like a fantastic deal. You only live once, living in Manhattan seems like an amazing opportunity.

Manhattan is pretty much a unique urban environment in the US. (Chicago probably comes closest.) There are a lot of things to like about it but it really is a city on steroids. Crowds, noise, etc. all take getting used to and, for a lot of people (including myself) more than a week or so of it really gets to be too much.

>Like other commentators here have said, people of a certain class (and age) want to have their cake and eat it too.

a particular shade of cake at that. i lived in bedstuy a couple of years and everything was ridiculously affordable. what's the catch? you have to live around working class people (read: black/hispanic).

You can also live in most cities in the US and get the entire list filled for $1000/month.

I also expect to make half my income in most cities in the US.

this is wes mckinney. have some respect...

So you just ignore the list of things that generally people don't get in Manhattan? -A dishwasher

-A in-unit washer and dryer. For many NYC-dwellers, having one's own washer and dryer gives the feeling of having "made it". -A spare bedroom for hosting out-of-town visitors

-Central heating, ventilation, and air conditioning

-Enough space to have people over or host dinner parties

-A kitchen area that can fit more than one person

-A comfortable and separate area to work at home

Things that people in almost every "second tier" city get standard for much less than $2000 a month?

Like I said in my comment ("[...] that satisfy at least half of your list of requirements[...]"), I have everything in that list apart from the spare bedroom. I rent a 2BR/2BA and my share of rent is $1750. My roommate pays $1450.

If I were to live by myself, I'd get half of the amenities in that list at $2k. If I were to venture an extra 15mins (by subway) out, I can find a similar place to my current one for $2k/mo that's a 1BR.

Funny how people are tiering up cities. NYC rent should be compared against NYC salaries. Cost of living is still high in NYC, but so are your chances of landing a salary that can let you afford a comfortable lifestyle. Especially in our profession.

I'm ignoring Manhattan, and so should most people that expect suburban comforts, unless if you're living (north of) Harlem.

I've found Amsterdam to really have everything I'm looking for in a tech hub.

- Super friendly and easy regulatory environment. The Dutch have regulations but there are actual humans you can call at almost any department to get an answer. It's really incredible. I've literally spent more time waiting in the line at SEA/TAC customs then I've spent combined at the dutch immigration service IND.

- Incredible internet. I have 500MB/50Mb at my house and it's no big deal, and perhaps equally importantly my latencies are incredible. The second largest peering point in the world is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amsterdam_Internet_Exchange

- Unmatched bicycle infrastructure and public transit infrastructure.

- Airport with incredible connectivity. I can have direct flights to most major American cities, almost all of Europe is a ~30$ easyjet flight away and Nairobi is an 8 hour direct flight.

- Pretty reasonable combined income tax burden. There's a 30% ruling that lets you exclude the first 30% of your income as if it didn't exist for most tech workers in NL.

- Reasonable rents (I paid 1450 Eur for a furnished 1BR, probably no where near average rent in Nashville but I live in the center.)

- Almost no homeless people. It's pretty great to live in a society that actually takes care of people.

- Tolerant attitude genuinely. Whether it's marijuana or prostitution in 2018 or other religions in the 18th/19th centuries, Amsterdamers don't really care if it doesn't impact your neighbors.

If you're thinking about taking the plunge and moving somewhere, drop me a line at earl at apolloagriculture dot com. DAFT (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DAFT) makes it pretty easy to set up a Dutch company and get immigration to go with it. If you don't want to start a company/go it yourself and can code, send me an email.

To be eligible for the 30% tax ruling, the company needs to prove that it cannot find an equivalent Dutch person. It isn’t a blanket ruling for any foreign person. Even if you do get it, it only lasts for n years. If you don’t, you will find that in light of the otherwise very high taxes and low salaries in comparison to nearby tech hubs, your one bedroom, 1450 a month apartment becomes a dream.

Blue cards and HSM pretty much always get the ruling, it's definitely not any foreign person. I believe the 30% ruling lasts 5 years now, which also means that you would typically be eligible to be a permanent dutch resident. At that point, you'd have largely the same access to social services (disability etc.) that dutch people do and it seems fair to have equal taxes.

What would be the lower tax/high salary comparable in Europe? London has remarkably similar salaries and super high cost of living. (I hear Berlin has a cost of living that's exploding and generally lower salaries.)

I’ve lived and worked in both NL and London for significant lengths of time.

You are wrong about taxes. In the current tax year, 70k in one year in London would give you 4052 per month after tax. In NL, you would get 3668. That is no insignificant difference. You can verify this by using an online tax calculator.

I also don’t agree about the difference in cost of living. To dispel the most common trope, half a litre of beer in Amsterdam is at least 5EUR, and in London a pint (just over half a litre) is 5 pounds, about the same, given differences of currency and units. Eating out is strictly cheaper in London, and of higher quality. Some supermarket items are more expensive from my experience.

For a one bedroom flat not too far from say, The City or Old Street, you’re paying at least 1200, and maybe 1400 for something of higher quality.

On jobs, I have personally been hard pressed to find anything near the same variety and range of salaries in Amsterdam. There is a reason why so many Dutch programmers move abroad.

To attempt to add a bit of rigor to the discussion, here's what Numbeo thinks about the cost of living. They have 70k Eur in London as being about the same as 62.5k euros in Amsterdam taking into account taxes[0].

https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou...

I definitely agree that there are more/interesting jobs for a lot of people in London, but I think that's changing. I think the other hard part for Dutch programmers is that the education system seems to be quite good, leading to a pretty deep talent market for a somewhat shallow hiring pool.

I do have one bit of terrible news: I think you've been overpaying for beers in Amsterdam. ;)

[0] One phenomena I've noticed is expats/immigrants tend to get better deals on housing because they have less cultural baggage about which areas are "nice" and can often see with clear eyes which areas are actually nice and which are actually bad.

Hamburg checking in at 930 € furnished. 15 minutes from the city center. My salary is 3.200 a month after taxes. I have a blue card.

Looks pretty comparable to salary + cost of living in Amsterdam.

https://thetax.nl/?year=2018&startFrom=Year&salary=66873.6&a...

Blue card minimum salary included in the above link. Hard to know if you'd come out ahead given local cost of living, but you can also probably beat the blue card minimum for your salary in the Netherlands. I know a couple people who make > 100k euros (some contractors, some who have made it pretty far up at bigger companies.)

One important note for US citizens, you still owe federal income tax even when permanently living abroad unless you renounce your citizenship. So while the taxes might be reasonable there, you still may owe the US too for the difference between what you pay there and what you would’ve paid here. It’s even more complicated if you are self-employed in another country. There’s a lot of nuances that I’m not qualified to cover, so I highly recommend talking to an accountant before taking the plunge.

Some light reading:

https://www.expatinfodesk.com/expat-guide/nationality-specif...

My understanding is if you are able to claim the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion then you wouldn't owe any US Taxes (unless over the $103,900 for 2018), but haven't done this myself and agree that an accountant would need to be in the mix for US Citizens living overseas.

Here is another link if anyone is interested: https://www.greenbacktaxservices.com/blog/foreign-earned-inc...

It gets trickier with investments and retirement funds (“foreign trusts”).

E.g. selling your own home in Canada doesn’t trigger capital gains, but it can on your US tax return.

Yep! That’s one of the nuances I was referring too.

You are correct. It's also quite easy to claim.

As a recent immigrant (~6 weeks), with my family, I whole wholeheartedly agree to everything. IND is by far the most efficient and friendly government agency I've ever interacted with. They even have a small kids play area! This city is a shining example of what one can achieve if a city is built by keeping humans at the centre. More walking/cycling space, more greenery, etc.,

I've tried to describe it as a city that happens when you:

- Have an expectation that government is efficient and good at it's job and a strong push on cities to meet those goals - A focus on maximizing happiness/human instead of gdp/human.

The Dutch could definitely increase GDP 25% next year by requiring a 50 hour work week, but why would they when everyone's pretty happy at 38 hours/week? They're at #6 on the world happiness report (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report#2018_Wo...) and it makes sense.

I'm an American who moved to Amsterdam three years ago, with that DAFT visa. This is a fantastic society that's figured out so much — I love it.

Happy to answer questions and/or meet up with fellow HN readers here in town.

What was the DAFT process like? What type of business did you start? How often do you need to do reporting to maintain the DAFT visa?

An immigration attorney handled it for me, so it was relatively stress-free. Hardest part was getting the various documents (birth certificates apostiled). The reporting is just the annual accounting/taxes.

Thanks, can I ask how long the whole process took? It's also my understanding that you actually have a certain amount of money in a Dutch banking account as well correct?

Is language a barrier in both personal and professional life ?

Do they smoke as much as the Germans?

1400 cigarettes/year on average.

Germany is 1599.5/year, US is ~1016.6.

I wonder where those numbers come from.

I just spend 2 weeks in southern Germany, and it seems about 80% of the men there smoke, and at least 25% of the women. I couldn't go anywhere without running into clouds of smoke. Smokers were all over the place on city sidewalks, they blocked entrances to restaurants, they were everywhere. I was just glad they didn't seem to have any indoor smoking. It really sucks that Germany doesn't have the 50-foot rule we have in America (no smoking within a certain distance of the entrance to a public building), so non-smokers don't have to walk through clouds of smoke or right by smokers as they enter or exit public establishments.

By contrast, here in the US, I rarely see smokers. Of course, I'm a city dweller and live in a liberal city, but smokers are relatively rare here. I don't constantly get choked by smoke as I walk for miles around the streets of DC, the way I did in Munich. Also, I don't even see cigarettes for sale in the US anywhere except shitty gas stations and the like, whereas normal grocery stores in Germany had them for sale near the checkout, plus they even have outdoor vending machines where anyone (including children) can buy them! We banned those things ages ago in America to keep kids from getting hooked on them.

I suspect that in the US, the vast majority of those cigarettes are being smoked by poor people in more rural areas, especially in the South, and that's why I don't see it much. There's a huge and growing division in US society between the rural/conservative and urban/liberal people, and we're evolving into almost two different nations.

I sent you an email!

Are the Dutch pretty open to hiring foreigners (Americans)? Other than Booking.com?

I visited a few years back, originally scheduled for Barcelona, and was completely blown away by Amsterdam. I fell in love.

I run an engineering team in Amsterdam and we mostly hire foreigners. The reason is simple, there are way more jobs than qualified people here.

How is life in Amsterdam for non-white engineers ? I am genuinely curious as I am considering a move from the US, but Europe has some history with brown folks. Is it possible to be fully integrated into the society and not stick out like a sore thumb ?

Within the big cities (Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague) people are very tolerant and life is good. No matter your skin color, to fully integrate you do need to learn some Dutch. That being said, there are lots of expats living here and many welcoming communities to be a part of (without learning Dutch). I can only speak for my personal experiences of course.

Let me know if you ever want to grab a beer in Oost. :)

What stack/ roles?

Sr Software Eng, react + node, some legacy php.

I think companies are generally. If you're in the > 65k euros salary bracket a blue card can be had for not too much trouble. We're open to doing it for exceptional people and we did it for 3 existing employees when we consolidated to Amsterdam.

Serious question ... can anyone explain to me why tech needs to be squeezed together in these hyper-expensive cities in the US?

I don't buy the argument about needing to be close to others ... we are in a connected, high-speed world where anyone can have a "face to face" with anyone else at a moment's notice.

I have been a software engineer for 25+ years and have avoided SV/SA like the plague due to what is mentioned in this article. When I need to visit a company in SF or NYC, I get on a plane.

Remote work gets the job done, and if you are making US software engineer salary but choose to live in a low-cost-of-living area, you are essentially rich. You can buy as many dishwashers as you want.

I want money to be able to live in a nice city where I can walk to things, parks and arts are well funded, where the food is great, and where there are nearby cafes and bars. I could own a large McMansion in the burbs instead of my small brownstone in the city, but I prefer the urban living. I just don’t care about having any more bedrooms, and from my perspective the less yard I have to maintain, the less room I have to clean, the better.

On the face-to-face comment: until my local cafe and bar operate a constant zoom meeting and my cycling club sets up rides inside of my home office, I don’t see internet connectivity as a replacement for real contact.

I will say this though — there is a big part of me that wants to live in a mountain town in Colorado or Vermont. Convenient nature and having places to walk to — Problem is from my experience the residents are almost entirely people twice my age with a lot of old money.

On the topic of Nashville, my buddy moved there from Boston. I honestly thought the city was quite fun (minus the humidity and the neighbors of the Airbnb blasting hellfire evangelical sermons on the radio for their morning lawn-mowing routine), but they’ve come to regret the decision because the running isn’t as good and socially right-wing politics still forces itself upon every space. Political compatibility, even for people who prefer to leave those conversations alone, is important.

Have you considered moving to the town where State U is located? Plentiful access to nature, well-educated community, Pho and independent coffee shops, affordable cost of living. This is the case in many states, since the State U was traditionally sited in a big tract of farmland.

You didn't answer the question though: Why SV? Why wouldn't Jackson, Mississippi work - I've never been there, but I can still guarantee that you will find good parks, arts, food, and you can walk downtown. The exact parks, arts, and foods will be different, but they will be good. (Note that I picked Jackson because it is the first city google maps I saw when I zoomed on the american south region - I picked the American south because of the "red-neck" association)

> but they’ve come to regret the decision because the running isn’t as good and socially right-wing politics still forces itself upon every space.

I'm skeptical of this. I've not lived in Nashville, but I've lived in a whole lot of cities across the South: Charlotte, Atlanta, New Orleans. What almost all Southern cities have in common is that conservatives are a minority within the city limits. And indeed, when I check the 2016 election results for Nashville, I see that Clinton won against Trump 59 to 34% -- almost double! And also not surprisingly, Nashville has a Democratic mayor.

Does that sound like a city with right-wing politics forcing itself on every space?

The fact is, unlike Southern small towns and rural areas, Southern cities are in general fairly moderate to liberal, with a significant conservative minority (say 25-30%). Now, given our current political situation, that minority may be at present more vocal than usual, but that doesn't mean that the city is beset by "right-wing politics" occupying every sphere of life.

Also, I've lived in working class neighborhoods in Southern cities for most of my life and have never heard anyone blasting evangelical sermons, around my house or around friends. That's 20+ years as an adult. So you picked an extraordinarily unlucky Airbnb.

Yes, you run into occasional racists or homophobic assholes, but I occasionally ran into the same kinds of people when I lived in NJ for 2 years. There are assholes everywhere.

But by far most of my co-workers working in universities and small companies have been either moderate or liberal, with an occasional conservative thrown in. Which isn't surprising, since that reflects the city's political breakdown. But (at least until recently) we all tend to get along.

Now wrt to the running, I have no idea, you may be right there (although I know that the Chattanooga area has some great running).

But wrt to politics, I'm fairly convinced that your friend's experience in Nashville is either a misinterpretation or they've met with an outlier company and friends (eg, did they work for a defense-related company? if so, those are conservative everywhere, and has nothing to do with Nashville).

> but they’ve come to regret the decision because the running isn’t as good and socially right-wing politics still forces itself upon every space.

Not true at all. I have lived in Nashville (10+ years), Houston, and Bay Area. There might be some area like Franklin or Belle Meade that is more conservative. But overall Nashville is like most big cities in the south which is liberal.

It's really, really hard to manage people remotely. It might be viable in technology only organizations where most of the product deliverables come in the format of pull requests, but if you're an organization with warehouses, field agents, sales people etc., it can get really hard.

I think it's super easy to forget how much we're all just animals trying to do things that are way more complex than we're designed for. We have really great neural pathways for group management in person, from tone of voice, to posture to eye contact and other signalling. Everytime a manager says "Can you get this done sometime soon?" where they mean "sometime this week?" and an employee interprets it as "right now, please stress about this" you burn some political capital. When you're in the same room, it often comes across in tone and nonverbal queues and follow ups are way lower friction.

It really isn't that hard to manage distributed teams at all. I would say it is easier, because it forces you to be more systematic about how you measure productivity and hold your team accountable to commitments. It makes collaborative work (anything that would involve a whiteboard) a bit harder.

However, as a manager, it is very hard to advance to director or higher levels. Having the full day of face time with mid/executive level is a big advantage. And it is hard to hire and introduces some difficult comp/HR challenges.

Bringing it back to this topic, I think it makes a lot of sense as an IC or line manager to move to a 2nd or 3rd tier tech community for the quality of life balance.

Tech is squeezed into hyper-expensive cities because, as illogical as it may seem, it's where a lot of workers want to live.

As an industry, tech skews young. And a lot of young people want to live in urban environments full of culture and entertainment, and have a job that has a social dimension to it.

Now that I'm older (thirties, married, kids) remote work from somewhere other than NYC seems appealing. But it didn't a few years ago.

> Tech is squeezed into hyper-expensive cities because, as illogical as it may seem, it's where a lot of workers want to live.

That's a factor, but I think an even bigger set of factors is:

(1) industry-focussed venture capital and related support infrastructure (particularly for startups) prefers proximity,

(2) there are benefits to proximity to other firms in the industry other than capital and support structures, e.g., it's easier to pick up experienced workers as you expand if you don't have to get them to relocate,

(3) With the money flowing into the industry, wherever it is concentrated is going to become expensive, because the number of dollars chasing housing and other goods is going to be high compared to places it isn't concentrated.

It's not just young people. I'm in my forties, but divorced, and no kids, and the last thing I want is a big house in the suburbs. I want to live in a walkable urban environment full of culture, though also within convenient distance of outdoor hiking and cycling trails.

That's true to a point. Still doesn't explain Palo Alto, Mountain View, Cupertino etc.

Those cities are in the heart of Silicon Valley. They have been good places for engineers to raise families for several generations since their companies were headquartered nearby. The migration of tech headquarters to SF is relatively new.

In these discussions, I think a lot of people forget (or don't know) that most of these cities with rapidly increasing rents were losing population just 20 years ago and certainly 30 years ago. It's easy to be critical of infrastructure investment and zoning policies in some places but a lot of the demand is quite recent on the time scale that cities develop.

just an endless pursuit of materialism. you want something so you gravitate towards it. hence a lot of regular people are destroying their financial futures by staying in these super expensive areas.

Destroying their financial future? None of my friends living in SF or NYC make less than $160k a year working as engineers. In fact, they make that nearly right out of college. The more senior engineers (5+ yrs exp) bring in $300k-500k a year.

They save a significant amount of it, more than they would have saved in any other place. And they can leave at anytime to a low-COL place and buy a house in cash.

This is so silly. Denver, Austin, San Diego, Atlanta etc. are fine cities with vibrant urban cores full of culture and entertainment yet none of them require you to pay 3000$/mo for a decent apartment or pay millions to buy a low tier home. There is a mass delusion that SF/SV and NYC residents seem to have that it is impossible to match their lifestyles without paying astronomical numbers for housing and its just absurd.

> There is a mass delusion that SF/SV and NYC residents seem to have that it is impossible to match their lifestyles without paying astronomical numbers for housing and its just absurd.

It's not a delusion. Sure, if you find the culture, entertainment, and other lifestyle features of Denver, Austin, San Diego, or Atlanta an acceptable substitute for NYC or SF Bay Area lifestyle, you can get that substitute a bit cheaper. Not everyone does (if they did, Bay Area and NYC prices would drop and those other places would climb.)

The culture and entertainment of the Bay Area is overrated compared to other metros. Everything closes early for some unfathomable reason. I'd say most transplants are there for the tech money. Good food scene, though.

As someone who lives in the SV suburbs, life is freaking AWESOME. My wife and I both work and we have a small kid. We make a lot of money so that I never have to check my bank account. And we are just mid level managers. We own two houses that have appreciated beyond our wildest dreams. I basically have my retirement savings after working here for only 7 years. Monetary benefits aside: - Both of us work in exciting mega unicorns in growth mode and with amazing benefits and work culture - The weather in SV is awesome year round - We can be outdoors 11 of 12 months - great for my daughter - SV is majority minority - so you can imagine the diversity along with all the food options - We love nature and it is virtually unlimited - SF has the best food scene in the US now (check latest Michelin reports) - I like the tech monoculture - Career choices are unlimited - CA government is very inclusive and responds to voter needs - I like the Ocean and also like Mountains - can be off to Tahoe every weekend in the winters - Amazing small towns in short distances - Napa, Sonoma, Healdsberg, Carmel, Big Sur etc. - Los Angeles is only 6 hrs away - Virtually unlimited things to do for kids - Many more

Wow ok good for you.

> We own two houses that have appreciated beyond our wildest dreams.

Sure it's great for you, but your luck and timing isn't realistically attainable for a significant portion of the population.

It doesn't! There are a ton of people doing tech outside of these locales. I agree with you, I have no interest in living in either of those places and I'm building a VC-backed startup not in those places and it's working.

Those of us opting out are going to be part of a revolution, and you just have to be okay with the sense that not everyone is going to understand it or have the same vision until it's all proven out. It's just like starting a company in that way (who are the real contrarians again?)

Because we would rather live in NYC than Nashville. It's true NYC can be brutal if you don't make enough, but once you get over a certain threshold, there is no other place like it.

Can the money you earn as an employee make the streets quieter or the pavements less packed or the air less polluted?

Yes?

Most of the air in NYC is reasonably clean, and there are lots of quiet streets and less packed pavements. And you can always pay for special double insulated windows, or for a higher floor. My PM 2.5 readings in my Manhattan apartment are usually under 5, and better if I open my windows.

And it’s hard to beat the health benefits of waking every day vs driving like you do in almost every other American city.

walking isn't anywhere near as exertive as cycling/running.

i like walking & cycle pretty much everywhere i can. i've never found walking amongst/against throngs of people to be relaxing or enjoyable - quite the opposite so i'm sure the stress of walking in NYC negates much of the health benefits of walking in general.

Commuting to work via something other than a car is attainable nearly anywhere though. I've been doing it for a decade in central Georgia/Raleigh/Durham/Seattle/Denver. The other side of the coin is that if you do need to drive in (for whatever reason...carrying something large, need to do errands...) it's actually possible.

Queens and Brooklyn away from the waterfront are basically suburbs except that in a 30-40 minute subway commute for $130/month you get a city with 26642 eateries (8/23/2018 based on the health department ), hundreds if not thousands of points of interest and the kind of melting pot that simply does not exist anywhere else in the US.

A rhetorical question used to disguise your distaste for specific attributes of NYC, how clever. Consider, however, that those things are not important to the parent commenter, at least not as important as other attributes.

> A rhetorical question used to disguise your distaste for specific attributes of NYC

A rhetorical question

> of NYC

of any crowded city.

> Consider, however, that those things are not important to the parent commenter, at least not as important as other attributes.

I hope the irony of you making this statement isn't lost.

> how clever.

Bite your tongue and be civil.

Can the money you save make up for reduced opportunities to hobnob with millionaires and weaving yourself into a network of the upperclass and therefore increasing your chances of hitting it big (or fantasizing about it)?

Sure it can, ass-kissing the wealthy isn't everyone's hobby

> or fantasizing about it

2 bucks on a lotto ticket achieves the same result for me.

Yeah, move to the Upper East Side.

I'm thinking of moving to NYC from San Francisco, while I bootstrap a new venture. It seems it should be cheaper but still have access to peer networks/potential hires and investors for when the time comes. Do you think that's right?

What's the threshold you think you need to earn for it not to be brutal?

NYC area isn't like SF. You can go 40 minutes outside of SF and it's still expensive.

It all depends where you want to live in NYC. Manhattan you'll want to make at least 150k to live alone. If you move outside then you have a lot more options but still be able to commute into the city easily.

I lived in Manhattan for 7 years and SF area for 6. I now live outside of Denver and its by far the best move of my life.

I hear nothing but complaints from people who have to commute into NYC. If you're not in Manhattan or the nicer parts of Brooklyn, you're easily adding 30 min to your door to door commute, plus the variance is huge due to the ever decreasing quality of the public transit.

If you're living in SF you already know what the thresholds are like, mostly. It heavily depends on your life situation. If you're willing to live with roommates and don't have much in the way of expenses, the threshold is significantly lower. The threshold is also significantly different if you're willing to live in one of the outer boroughs.

It's a vague answer but honestly, those factors can swing the threshold almost $100K in either direction.

min 100k if single but don't expect to save anything

+1. Looking around, most of my NYC peers are 25-35 with no kids, and a typical monthly spend is $6-7k. It's a good life, but not glamorous. Some months are substantially more expensive, almost no months are substantially cheaper.

I’ve been beating this drum for a while. It doesn’t make any logical sense why knowledge/tech workers have to live close to these expensive cities or find affordability by becoming a super commuter from an hour or more away. Sure younger people want to live in those cities but I would think it’d be a good retention policy to allow people to transition to a remote work option.

Being able to live in a LCOL area means your tech salary actually counts for something. Not just paying rent on a overpriced apartment.

Personality types. Over the past 25 years since you started, more people with higher social needs have entered the tech workforce and they desire highly dense places to live.

That might explain Manhattan and downtown Seattle, but Silicon Valley is... some sort of suburban hell hole that I can't picture any young person being head-over-heals about.

I know plenty of folks who commute 2 hours each way from SF to the Valley, just so that they can live in a "real city".

People go to where they want to be.

As an employee, I'd rather work in a place where I can get a relevant job from dozens of different employers, made easier by overlapping networks, versus a city where I could only really work at 1 or 2 places.

You can definitely have fun visiting Nashville, but if I moved there I'd quickly run out of new places to discover; nightlife and entertainment are concentrated in a few places and activities.

There is more to Nashville than Broadway mon ami.

Where is it? There are areas of NYC and Los Angeles where you will find new cafes/restaurants/bars/clubs/shops on every block. You can set out walking a direction into the unknown and have a pretty decent night, knowing you will run into these attractions in every nook, not just the main drags, and despite living there for years you can discover new places every single day. In Nashville, would I have to uber around to disconnected, well known hotspots? How long until I know of every bar in Nashville that has people in it on a Friday night? I want to be able to constantly discover in my own city, not just when I go on trips out of town.

Remote communication simply isn't as good as in-person. There's a surprisingly large bandwidth communication channel in tone/body language that is easily lost, and quite small audio delays can throw off the rhythm of a conversation. It's no surprise that most of the best paying tech employers avoid remote work.

Finally, a "leaving NYC for the South" post I can relate to! Every leaving NYC post I've read is so whiny and negative. I look forward to leaving NYC someday and going back to the South but I'm not going to pretend like NYC is a hellscape.

I left NYC (as a native) for the South. Did it for almost 5 years and came back because it tripled my earnings. My quality of life is still better up here, but I really would like to get out again.

The author refers to himself as a member of the underclass and that's a bit over dramatic, but I do get where he's coming from.

When I moved to NY, a friend told me that to live an approximately middle class lifestyle in Manhattan, you needed to have two earners each pulling in $100k/year.

My significant other and I are now well past that ($400k+ combined albeit with ~$1500/mo student loans) but we still don't feel well off in Manhattan. There's another set of obstacles once you're making money:

- We pay ~$3000/mo for a one bedroom apartment (in a fairly convenient area, but with the amenities OP was missing). We could mathematically afford more but we were both raised middle class and have recoiled at anything above that $3k line. We're paying her parents' mortgage + my parents' mortgage nearly twice over.

- We've been talking seriously about kids but even at 5-10x median American family income we're not sure we can afford to have kids in Manhattan. It's absurd. At $400k+ we cannot afford to both have a kid, maintain our not extravagent lifestyle, stay in our neighborhood and save well for retirement.

- There's a sense that we need to make hay while the sun shines. We're not living in NY forever, so we try to save as much money as we can while we're earning money we won't earn outside NY.

Same, but in the slightly cheaper city of Boston. While I do well as a developer (140k+), my partner is an artist and more often makes 10-20k a year. We're still very well off income-wise compared to the average in America, and yet my relatives and friends living in smaller cities, suburbs or rural areas seem to have far easier access to basic amenities.

They probably view me as rich (and to a degree they aren't wrong), but my apartment is smaller than their 2 car garage, costs more than their mortgage (my rent is 3x my mother's mortgage, and double my sister's in NC), and has fewer basic amenities. I don't have a car, and the costs of having a reasonably reliable one overall are just too high. The idea of us affording two of them is a joke. I'm saving for retirement, but my partner isn't able to - she can barely afford health insurance.

The thought of having kids in this place is laughable. I could rant about all of this for a bit. We're looking at moving to Salem, MA, Berlin, or maybe somewhere else entirely. I lived in Ohio for a few years and it drove me up a wall - so I am hesitant to just go "anywhere cheaper" though.

Something doesn't add up here :)

$400k gross is roughly $20k / month take-home. So $17k after rent, and $15.5k after student loans.

I live in a nice 2-bed on the UWS and have a kid in private school. I'm confused as to how your extravagant lifestyle is eating up $15k / month?

EDIT: meant to say "not-extravagant"

The fact that you say this, even though I already know it to be the case will never stop being crazy to me. I grew up in Greenwich Village, with parents who made just under half what you do now in todays dollars. Growing up I had a private baby sitter for my brother and I, lived in a building with a doorman, the apartment was okay (faced the back on a lower floor, and only had washing in the buildings basement). Apartment was 2 bed/2 bath with an additional loft. My family could afford to go out and do all sorts of things, in addition to still save aggressively. I did go to public school.

The fact that a couple in a much better financial position can't even come close to having the above today is insane.

Do you find that you're saving a lot more than if you just moved to a cheaper place and took the lower salary to begin with? Why not just make the move now?

I've met people that do the "we just wanted to experience living in New York, but we know we'll leave soon" and I've never totally understood it. I moved to New York because I can't imagine living anywhere else in this country. I've been here for more than 10 years and sure, sometimes you get fed up with the city, but that generally just means I need a vacation and should jump on a plane to Latin America.

How much of that 400K do you have left after tax?

Seems crazy to me that you don't think you can afford kids.

I'm going to check it out myself next week, got family there who are in a similar position.

400k is a little high, but not out of the question, I'd say you're a bit above the threshold for "can't" raise kids (but I'm basing this on SF, not NY, so might not fully apply here). I'll run the numbers for SF. Kids in cities are brutally expensive now, but I do think $400k would work.

A remodeled 3br/2ba house in a safe but unfashionable part of SF (which is where I live) south of 280 near bart will run you about 1.5 mil. You could go a bit lower if you got something more worn, but it would only save you 200-300k.

Monthly mortgage and taxes on that will be about $8500 a month. Then you have daycare expenses for kids, which is high, if you want the kind that allows you to work from 8:30 to 5:30 year round (that's the best you'll do, you might be able to stretch it 30 min on one direction or the other, but not by much), budget $30k each kid. so that'll be 60k, or another 5k a month (the numbers are bad here, but this isn't way off, and I'm erring on the side of expensive).

So we're at $8500 + $5000 = $13.5k a month, for $162k a year. Some of this is deductible, not all.

Yeah, you should be able to swing this on $400k a year, though taxes will take a bite, and I'm not saying it's easy. Often, one spouse will sacrifice (generally her) career progress to remove the non-deductible 30k per kid, since multiply that by two and it eliminates the first hundred thousand in salary. So $300K with one parent working is far more valuable than $400k with two parents. That's how it goes out here.

It's horrendous, but still, you should be able to swing it on $400k.

I have noticed some people in the $400k range claim they can't stay with kids in SF but do look down their noses at our south of 280 address... I will agree it's pretty shocking what you get at that income range, but they could stay if they were willing to live where I live, which really is fine.

There's a better life out there, though. I have lots and lots of family in SF proper, grew up here, so it's a different equation for me. I want to be sure I'm not coming off as a PNW "you wouldn't like it here, don't move here" type, really, SF's percentage of families with kids is collapsing and we tend to be very welcoming (we get clingy, honestly, and we don't mind when families from outside SF move here, we hate it when they move out!)

I just can't say that living in SF with a family is an easy option relative to the other options out there with a straight face, that's all. I mean, you'd be more than welcome here, but I'm not going to act like there's some problem with you if you say "not for me".

I totally understand this move, but I would rather find a way to subsidize open source development that at least comes close to being able to pay FANG level salaries. It sucks to put a decision in front of someone that they can work on open source, but they'll have to take a massive pay cut and be more selective about where they live.

I love NYC. I want to do open source and I want to live in comfort in this city.

The FANGs employ a lot of engineers to work on open source — and so do many other companies, from IBM to Walmart.

That's enormous corporate subsidy of open source development. The opportunities today to get paid for writing free software are amazing compared to twenty years ago.

Corporate open source is often an attempt to take or crush competition rather than give.

When's the last time you've heard anything credible about Linux on the Desktop? IBM doesn't care about it. Google doesn't care about it.

Android is a zombie operating system that keeps Apple from having a viable competitor. Companies will block bot access via http and then hire a PR agency to congratulate them for providing an API that lets you access 10% of what you can do with the web site with much more complex code. (eg. this is the authentication process)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2ObCoCm61s

Read between the lines and you'll see that Google is pushing Tensorflow because they'd rather you upload your data to their cloud to run on their processors and they'd rather you not take advantage of the latest NVIDIA drivers because they hate the idea that you'd buy NVIDIA chips or own your own computer for that matter.

It also is not fair to say that open source development is "subsidized", if anything it is the exact opposite. Open source software creates billions and billions of dollars of value that is not being captured by the people who create it. Open source software subsidizes IBM, Google, ...

Why do people do it?

It might seem irrational, it certainly is from a dollar and cents perspective, but I think a lot of people reach the point where they realize that working at a place like Jane Street makes you a Negative Net Productivity Programmer no matter how hard or how smart you work and that if you want to be anything more than an 0.1x developer you have to get out from under the thumb of the "cult of product" and the scum-sucking lying rat bastards who sell enterprise software.

Thus you have people like Wes who should be billionaires (or at least tenured) in terms of the value they give to society, and then you have "useful idiots" like Sheryl Steinberg who are allegedly intelligent, but would have run the first moment they heard anything about George Soros but no... She should have been fired for that, but no, we'll just have to wait another 10 years for Facebook to become the next Yahoo and get bought by some phone company like Frontier.

Of course, but those opportunities within those companies are few and far between comparatively. Engineers that get to work on OSS full time probably represent less than a fraction of a percent of their engineering workforce. I think Wes was talking more about places where more/most developers work on OSS full time, which was what I was talking about. The vast majority of code produced by FANG is closed and proprietary.

And the actual output is pretty embarrassing compared to true open source.

It's either churning around an existing code base or some strategic lock-in scheme.

Many people at large employers do work on open source. Including some with large Manhattan offices. But living in comfort in NYC is a high bar and your options are fairly limited to work in open source, especially if you want to do so exclusively.

In most cases, choosing to do creative or socially worthwhile work will result in lower pay. Corporate jobs pay a premium to get employees because the work they offer is boring, harmful to others, or otherwise unpleasant.

I would not expect writing open source software to be an exception to this general rule.

There are a lot of open source projects that are boring and harmful to others but that doesn’t mean that they pay well

> I love NYC. I want to do open source and I want to live in comfort in this city.

Godspeed. I'm all for subsidizing open source development, at a level that can probably only come from taxes. One _tiny_ step in this direction was recently proposed by https://twitter.com/paulmromer/status/1065278677649432576 (let federal research grants fund open source).

Still the above quote really exemplifies for me what the last several years have struck me as the artist-ification of a segment of developers: expectation of creative control and compensation, at once, with very low barriers to entry.

At the same time we seem to have a bifurcation of developer compensation, not as extreme as with artists (though maybe even more extreme if FANG founders counted as developers), perhaps more like lawyers, though the evidence I guess is unclear https://danluu.com/bimodal-compensation/

I doubt subsidy of open source development is going to produce a large number of FANG level compensated positions, unless that is an explicit policy choice, with high barriers to entry for such funding. But it could produce a large number of "living wage" positions.

Also have to look at the living cost side, which in elite cities is exacerbated by subsidies to property owners and elite industries such as finance. For "living wage" positions occupied by subsidized artists, developers, or a host of less desirable jobs, to be comfortable in elite cities, subsidies to elites have to be cut and/or elites have to be taxed so that their demand goes down. Also of course allow cheap housing.

We’re full now. Wes was the last person we let in. ;)

Seriously though, Nashville is a great place. Unfortunately, folks like the Koch brothers and their local buddy Lee Beaman, throw large sums of money at any progressive initiative the city tries to take. We won’t be able support the 100s of people moving here every day soon.

> like the Koch brothers and their local buddy Lee Beaman

Or, perhaps it's just that moderates that prefer smaller government with less taxes live in Nashville. I moved from SF to Nashville and was not convinced the transportation plan would be utilized and with the increase in already high sales tax (which by the way is a tax on the poorest) firmly voted against it.

The sales tax in Tennessee is high because there isn't an income tax. You need to fix that, as that's the real root problem there.

I don't think we are going to agree on this, but no state income tax is one of the reasons I decided on Tennessee. I suspect we have vastly different political views in terms of taxation.

>Unfortunately, folks like the Koch brothers and their local buddy Lee Beaman, throw large sums of money at any progressive initiative the city tries to take.

Well that's nice of them to put a lot of money into progressive initiatives... You might want to reword that sentence. :)

Maybe they're sacks of nickels!

whoops!

No worries. Soon the city will gentrify half of the lower-class housing that skirts the city. You'll have beautiful districts like SoDoSoPa and CtPaTown containing the best cold-brew coffees and most exotic toasts. Portland is doing well with that, right?

This might sound like piling on a specific class of people but from my observation (I lived in the valley for 5 years all the way from San Francisco to San Jose), young white people crave for a lifestyle that is completely urban and do not want to make a commute sacrifice. Several of my ex coworkers would see it beneath themselves to get on public transportation. The demographics of people in an office changes significantly as you travel south from San Francisco to San Jose. The healthy balance in terms of demographics seems to exist at places like Mountain View/Palo Alto. During my five years, I set my rent cost goal to be 2500$ per month (and I didn't want roommates). I moved to keep the rent a constant while my salary was increasing marginally year over year. I ended up at Milpitas after 5 years but it wasn't bad at all :). I did miss drinking with coworkers and socializing but instead I could focus on health (both physical and mental). Now I moved to east coast and could afford a nice home etc and my mortgage is still close to 2500$ mark in DC suburbs. My large point is - Nashville will become San Francisco because it will be filled with young people congregating in some spots whereas some neighborhood 20 mins from Nashville downtown will have no takers. In several ways, the problem is self inflicted.

Nashville has a long ways to go before it becomes SF. Maybe in 5 decades?

Why expect any city to become another?

Agreed. There will only ever be one SF. And Nashville has it's own character I hope it maintains as it grows. But I also hope they're not so anti-growth that they choke off development. At any rate, nimbyism seems to be less prominent in the South, in my experience, so I bet they'll embrace the growth.

> To add insult to injury, in addition to the grotesquely high rents, New Yorkers and Californians are subjected to some of the highest overall income tax rates in the country.

Surely the rents would be even higher without those high income taxes. Though I'm in favor of increasing the supply of cheap housing and taxing property rather than income, I'm surprised that increasing income taxes isn't a go-to intervention for people who decry demand from relatively high income knowledge workers.

I like Nashville and have been thinking about doing just that move: http://seliger.com/2017/10/23/nashville-seen-unseen. It's part of the “The new boomtowns: Why more people are relocating to ‘secondary’ cities,” https://www.washingtonpost.com/realestate/the-new-boomtowns-..., as zoning madness keeps driving the costs of cities like NYC and LA up and up and up.

Still, it's notable to me that Nashville has committed to long-term traffic: https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/05/what-went-wro... in way that other cities have not. Denver, for example, keeps building out new rail lines: http://www.rtd-denver.com/Fastracks.shtml.

As for the traffic, you can thank the Koch brothers. Sigh. https://usa.streetsblog.org/2018/04/26/koch-brothers-and-dar...

To be fair, the proposal would have raised our already high sales taxes, and those pushing for the proposal didn't do a good job convincing us that it would actually solve our traffic issues.

Don't get me wrong, the Koch brother influence is frustrating, but I didn't get the sense that the Nashville people are really all that interested in public transit.

The light rail proposal was shockingly expensive relative the the number of riders it would handle, even by North American cost standards, which are already significantly higher than those in the rest of the world.

A plan with a more reasonable cost/rider probably would have had a much better chance.

If you love NYC, but are troubled by the issues described here, consider Stamford, CT or Fairfield County.

We have much lower income and property taxes than NYC/Westchester. Stamford is really growing and has fun things to do. There's tons of hiking, biking, and coastal activities.

According to [1], Stamford is 37% cheaper cost of living than NYC and housing is half as much.

NYC can't be replaced at many levels, but it is only 50 minutes away on Metro North, putting you right in Grand Central. Many people live here and commute there. But, you don't have to -- Fairfield has many tech companies and regular companies that need tech people.

Super family friendly -- I never considered up here until I had 2 kids and now wish I moved here a decade earlier. My neighborhood is filled with people who left Manhattan after having kids and commute to NYC daily.

We have White Plains airport (HPN) nearby which is super easy to access and can get you to Chicago or Florida and in-between super-quick. And for bigger flights, JFK or LGA aren't too far away.

Only real drawback for some is the car culture -- you pretty much need one, whereas in NYC it's a hassle to have one.

[1] https://www.bestplaces.net/cost-of-living/new-york-ny/stamfo...

I've spent the majority of the past decade in Nashville, first for university and the past four years working in tech here after a short stint in California.

In that time, the tech community here has expanded dramatically. Even when I graduated from school, very few people from the CS program stayed in town. There weren't that many decent companies to work for then. Now you have many more options and you're starting to see larger, recognizable names in town (Eventbrite, Lyft). At one point the Nashville dev community slack was the second largest in the country, and there's a vibrant culture of meet-ups.

One other great thing about Nashville is that there a large number of neighborhoods that each have their own character and have walkable sections. Depending on what's important to you and the sort of food/attractions/entertainment you enjoy, you can probably find somewhere to live and be reasonably close to things (at least in Nashville proper, I don't make it out to the suburbs much).

As much as locals love to complain about traffic, it's still miles better than most large cities and I think anyone who's spent time in NYC, LA, SF, or even Atlanta will see that. Housing is definitely far more expensive than it used to be, and also still very affordable compared to many other places.

I share a lot of the concern that other posters have mentioned about traffic moving forward, but hopefully if more people move here that are deeply invested in public transit and avoiding the fates of other cities the electorate will shift enough to see some real change.

>As much as locals love to complain about traffic, it's still miles better than most large cities and I think anyone who's spent time in NYC, LA, SF, or even Atlanta will see that.

The complaints stem from a dramatic change, over the past 10 years it went from 15-20 minutes to get anywhere to at least 40. Comparing to cities at least 4-5 times the size of Nashville isn't valid.

Similar with housing, which the oddest thing, to me at least, is the valuation of certain areas over others.

>As much as locals love to complain about traffic, it's still miles better than most large cities and I think anyone who's spent time in NYC, LA, SF, or even Atlanta will see that. Housing is definitely far more expensive than it used to be, and also still very affordable compared to many other places.

It's always worse somewhere. Someone from SV saying crime is low, traffic is bearable and housing is affordable is some dude from North Korea calling Russia a liberal utopia. Sure, you might be from somewhere that's got it worse but that doesn't mean the place you are now isn't moving rapidly in that direction.

What about salary comparison? Houses might be cheaper, but could still put pressure on the household budget.

As with any article here about someone choosing to uproot their life to move from a city in a blue state to a city in a red state. All I ask is to keep an open mind and talk to people in the state. Find out what their concerns are and why they have the belief system that they have. You will be surprised to hear the depth to someone's point of view if you take the time to listen.

And you'd be surprised at how much comes from fear vs. data and reason.

fast-growing city, tech community, hipster coffee shops restaurants and bars... posts like this one... I wouldn't expect it to remain affordable for long.

I wouldn't expect it to remain affordable for long.

It really depends on how the city chooses to restrict housing supply; we have the technology to ensure that housing is affordable, but most American cities make deploying said technology illegal: https://www.amazon.com/Rent-Too-Damn-High-Matters-ebook/dp/B....

This is a fact of policy, not nature: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-03-14/californi...

Austin isn't exactly pulling a SF with it's housing and the cost of living is rising rapidly.

There is an undeniable correlation between more people with more money to spend and increased cost. Go look at tourism economies for an example.

Well Austin has a major transit problem. The traffic is unsustainable and there's no good plan to rectify it. So there is affordable housing near Austin (in Round Rock and San Marcos) but due to traffic you can lose a lot of time to commuting.

it has decades to grow before that becomes an issue

Looking forward to the follow up post to this one. Cheap rent/mortgage, short commutes to the exit/airport and Samsung appliances while nice, don't solve problems they weren't designed to solve.

In Canada, at least, happiness surveys tend to find the cheaper, smaller, more rural areas to be the happiest. Theory for this is less stress due to finances, shorter commute times, and less people to deal with overall (foot traffic, road traffic, lineups, etc). So, maybe cheap rent and short commutes are some of the elements of a happy life.

Or maybe people in rural areas are more likely to be financially secure and own their property. There are many more impoverished people in cities who would skew a 'happiness' survey for a city. It would be interesting to compare people with similar takehome pay rural to urban.

That kind of sounds like "rural people are better with money than the city slickers." But, when I look at places like Ohio, Michigan, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri there seem be a fair number of bankruptcies. I imagine we can look this up if we're so inclined. Is there a correlation between level of education and number of bankruptcy filings?

"Theory for this is less stress due to finances"

Believe I included this in my original comment. It's likely a big contributor in these types of survey. It's a little easier on your health to not be living paycheck to paycheck.

Lately I've felt like New York is turning into a bit of a theme park. Everything is turning into a popup experience/temporary museum, a speakeasy, an overpriced fast-casual restaurant, a Wework or a luxury apartment building. The people around me used to sound like characters from "Seinfeld" now all I see are instagram influencers and couples who "oh my god, we love the city!".

Miss those days when you could get a $8 Bulleit Rye with a splash of club soda at bar that didn't have a 100 tv screens. I think I've become a tired old hipster.

If you're looking at Nashville, make sure you demand more money in your paycheck. Housing costs are rising fast, especially on the south side, Brentwood, and Franklin.

People are moving in faster than new homes are being built.

I keep looking at Nashville for a possible move, and the numbers never work out, because I'm already in a cheaper city that pays more money on average.

I don't know what Nashville's public transportation infrastructure is like, but a major benefit to living in NYC or SF is a "good enough" public metro system that means you can comfortably live in the city without needing a car. When you add a car to a + $1300 1bed/1bath you get to be pretty close to the $2k figure either way.

It costs $700 per month to own a car?

yes https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/loans/total-cost-owning-car/

I bought my car 8 years ago for $5000. To date, it cost me around $2000 in maintenance, and I give it $30 a month in gas. Car insurance and registration are roughly $500 a year. Add up all these costs, and on average I pay ~$150 a month to own and operate my car, and that's ignoring the fact I can probably still sell this car for $3000-5000.

Either the math on that website is way off, or a new car is truly the worst investment you can make in your life.

Aren't they ignoring the fact that you will eventually own your car? Isn't a $100 a month for maintenance rather expensive?

With any Japanese car you should be able to hit 150k miles without too many issues nowadays.

So OP should have said new car. You don't need a new car.

Forgot to mention the country (and everything else) music scene. You can go out every night of the week and be entertained with varying hybrids of sub-genres. Usually under $10 or no cover at all. In certain ways it possibly resembles the energy around the New Wave / Danceteria / HipHop / Art / DIY culture in NYC in the 1980s ;)

How's the non-country music scene for those of us who hate country?

Don't move to Nashville.

It's not a music city, it's a COUNTRY music city.

I liked it when I visited, it's a good tourist spot for that reason. But for living, I prefer other places. Houston in the Museum district is light years better. So were Minneapolis, the Triangle in NC, Chicago was much better. I think even NYC was better frankly. But Nashville was good for what it is, just go in with realistic expectations.

There's a few good bands from Nashville. Diarrhea Planet, JEFF the brotherhood.

But yeah. It's not that great of a music town to be honest. Unless, you like the corporate stuff.

There's plenty going on. Check out http://nocountryfornewnashville.com/ for a window into it.

I live 90 minutes south of Nashville, near Huntsville AL. We love Nashville and travel to the general area frequently.

And he's right -- cost of living matters. For less than a condo in other places, we have a 4000 sf home and an acre in a walkable neighborhood with pleasant schools. Not a bad way to go.

The only bad thing about Huntsville (grew up in Enterprise) is it's almost 100% military, state work. Is that still the case?

It's still mostly defense/space contracting, but it is slowly diversifying.

There's a pretty good telecom sector. Digium, the sponsor of Asterisk, was headquartered here before Sangoma bought them earlier this year and I understand Sangoma is keeping the Huntsville operation. Adtran is also here. Bioengineering is also an up-and-coming thing with HudsonAlpha.

There's a small but growing startup scene and a few established tech companies (I work for one of them [0]). Tech256 [1] is where most of the local tech workers hang out.

Outside of engineering work, there was been a lot of growth in manufacturing. Polaris, Remington, Toyota, Mazda soon, Blue Origin soon, etc. Seems like every other week a new factory is being announced.

[0] https://www.dealnews.com/

[1] http://tech256.com/

Yes, it is. Although Facebook is opening a data center here, so things may change in the future.

Hello fellow Huntsvillian! Don't let the secret out! :P

I also live in Huntsville and I live very, very well here. A 50+% pay raise to move to a "tech center" (SF, SV, NYC, etc.) looks nice on paper until you really start to work the numbers and realize that you would actually come out worse off in many ways.

* A mortgage on a 3,500 square foot house, on a 1/3 acre lot in a very nice neighborhood runs me a hair over $1,200 a month. Including taxes and insurance. Everything except the HOA, and that's an extra $30 or so a month.

* I live in a nice family-oriented area with great schools (my kid's school even has an app, and I get daily progress reports!). Don't have to worry about violent crime. My biggest annoyance is the teen with the loud scooter.

* Utilities are dirt cheap thanks to TVA.

* Property taxes are dirt cheap. Income taxes are on the low side. Sales tax is a tad on the high side, but it's not bad.

* I have a 20 minute commute to and from the office every day, maybe 30 on a bad day. I'm home every night for dinner with my family.

And while Huntsville won't win any awards for high culture (although there is actually a surprisingly vibrant arts scene here considering its size, not really what I was expecting to find), Nashville and Birmingham are only 90 minutes away in either direction - great for a day trip (we do Nashville day trips fairly frequently). Atlanta or Memphis are weekend trips of a few hours away. And I can be on great beaches in a few hours as well.

With my extra income, I can afford to save and do fun things. After our daughter was born, we needed a larger car, so we bought one and paid cash for it. We go skiing in West Virginia during the holidays. We did two weeks in Hawaii for our honeymoon, a week in London a few years, a week in Jamaica, a week in Costa Rica, 10 days at Disney World, etc. A lot of this is possible because my cost of living here is so low that it allows me a large amount of discretionary income.

We have our problems, sure. No place is perfect, but every time I go to look at the trade offs, the math always works for me to stay put here. Even if I were to change jobs, it would probably be something remote unless it was to a city of not-crazy cost of living. No one has yet shown me that I can live the equivalent lifestyle in SF or SV that I live here on an average developer's salary.

equivalent lifestyle in SF or SV

That's exactly the point. Living the equivalent lifestyle of Huntsville in SF or SV is astronomically expensive. But living the SF or SV lifestyle in Huntsville is impossible.

To each their own!

Chattanooga is also a reasonable day trip. Panama City Beach or Pensacola Beach is 7 hours away--good for a long weekend trip. Plenty of freshwater recreation thanks to the aforementioned TVA's hydropower/flood-control dams. Karst, if you like spelunking.

The cost of the ticket is basically one's ability to acquire and retain at least a "Secret" federal security clearance.

The political scene sucks. The corruption is as bad as Illinois, except red instead of blue. As the tech community tends to lean liberal vs. libertarian, by my assessment, no matter which side of that you think you're on, you will be frustrated and dismayed by overwhelmingly (religious) conservative politics in Alabama. The federal districts are gerrymandered to pack one district and crack everywhere else, and the state and local lines are drawn almost as badly. Be prepared to work with smug Trump supporters, and to hide your political beliefs from your workplace. That "blue wave" from the midterms didn't even wash over anyone's toenails. Every ballot is at least 40% uncontested races.

But the money is good, and it spends easily. If I went to SF or NYC, I'm sure I'd be just as frustrated by the dirty hippies, scarf-and-peacoat hipsters, and money-grubbers as I currently am by the Bible-thumpers and armchair quarterbacks. There may not be anywhere in the US that I wouldn't be surrounded by howling yard-apes--of one tribe, or another--that always seem to pontificate more often than they ponder.

"The cost of the ticket is basically one's ability to acquire and retain at least a "Secret" federal security clearance."

Keep in mind there's also a giant stack of NASA goobers here. There's quite a few of us with nothing but a public trust background check.

The politics have their upsides: where else do you get to laugh at people who voted for a fellow for senator who had been removed from his position as a state court judge. Twice. And when asked what church you go to, you can have endless fun saying, "Starry Wisdom."

Honestly, I lived in Austin for 20 years, and the only thing I really miss is Half Price Books. (And possibly the PCL.)

I grew up in Huntsville before moving to NYC 15 years ago, and the change in the "creature comforts" he describes is drastic. Back then downtown was desolate, nothing but lawyer offices and bail bonds. Now it's full of restaurants, hipster coffee shops, and spin classes. I don't know how much of it is due to a concerted push and how much is just a trend of gradual re-urbanization after decades of suburban sprawl, but it's a welcome change.

It's a little of both but it has really taken off over the last about five years. Downtown Huntsville, Inc has done a really good job of promoting downtown.

Lots of new apartment buildings have gone up downtown, and some more are planned (there's a whole new area opening up soon on the other side of Big Spring Park where the old Holiday Inn used to be). There's also a new trend of turning parking garages into ground-floor retail. Happened with the Clinton St. garage, and the new garage they're planning on Greene St. will have ground-floor retail.

The area right around the courthouse is still mostly law offices, but a few restaurants have started moving in there and I hope that trend will continue. My company relocated from Research Park to a historic building downtown a couple years go. We're two blocks off from the courthouse. It's been fun to watch this happen day-to-day.

We always go to Nashville for air travel, because it's not just that I'm not made of money, but also the money I'm not made out of isn't exclusively $100 bills and gold coins.

It seems like the Huntsville airport is geared mainly towards business travel, for contracting companies that can turn around and charge the travel expenses to the federal government somehow. It's ridiculous.

Interesting post. I have two friends/ex-colleagues who made the move to Nashville. They both lean conservative, enjoyed the urban environment, but didn't quite feel at home in a super urban setting. One has dreams of buying a Ford Truck. (which I never really get)

You don't understand the appeal of trucks or you don't understand the appeal of Ford branded trucks?

I got tired of renting a uhaul and 'trip vans' to haul home wood and simple project stuff.

Most people don't buy trucks because they "need" them or because of all the home projects they're doing with supplies too large to fit in their car or SUV.

Unlike what the TV commercials for trucks would have you believe (which are seriously a parody of themselves at this point), that's not really the appeal of trucks for the vast majority of their owners. Just like most SUV owners aren't tearing it up in the mountain high country like the commercials show, most trucks aren't actually used to haul things very often that couldn't be handled with another vehicle.

The F150 has been the best selling vehicle in America for 40 years. Yes, a lot of people use them for work. But most people use them quite sporadically for actually hauling things, and much more as a lifestyle signaling device. Nothing wrong with that, we all do it.

EDIT: example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fURcgb1BGmA

You use your truck for utility, many people use them for vanity.

I made this exact move in 2015, moving from the Upper West Side to the Belmont-Hillsboro neighborhood in Nashville. Our first kid was 3 months old, we had spent a decade in SF and NYC, and I was ready for lower cost-of-living, lower taxes, and a slower pace of life.

Or so I thought.

We made it a little shy of 3 years before moving back to NYC in the early part of 2018. We're back on the Upper West Side again and I couldn't be happier. Unless it's to move internationally, I doubt we'll leave NYC again.

Don't get me wrong, Nashville is a great city. One of the better up-and-coming cities in America, I'd wager. The people are nice and the food is awesome.

But there were some things that just made it untenable for us long-term:

1. The cost of living isn't as low as you'd think, and it's constantly getting worse. We almost bought a house several times while we were living there, some of the smallest in our neighborhood, and they were still more space than we wanted or needed, and cost $500k to $700k. Two fell through randomly and we were outbid on the other. Our budget now is higher, but it's like 20% higher, not 100% higher.

2. You have to drive everywhere. The little walkable strips like 12 South in Nashville are a complete joke if you come from SF or NYC or Chicago. And they're completely slammed with people all the time now, despite the fact that there's only about 10-20 combined coffee shops, restaurants, and retail shops in a quarter-mile strip. And a very large portion of the city doesn't even have sidewalks if you wanted to walk, not to mention the huge cars whizzing by at 40mph a few feet from you. Very unpleasant.

3. Nashville is not ready for their growth. The traffic is horrible, everything is getting way too crowded, there's no public transportation (and they voted down even doing a rapid bus transit plan, so I don't see it happening anytime soon). Housing isn't being built fast enough and so prices are shooting up. Amazon is going to make it all much worse.

4. This might seem dumb, but the airport is a mixed bag, especially if you travel internationally. It was amazing to be able to leave our house and get to the gate in 25 minutes (seriously), but there are basically zero international flights and a lot fewer options to many parts of the country than I'd like. I love living next to three airports with tons of flights, even if the airports are some of the worst in the US and hard to get to. I hate connections. That's just me though.

5. Being land-locked annoyed me more than I realized it would. I love the ocean.

6. There's not a ton to do in Nashville actually. I don't like live music, craft beer, or anything "country" so that's 90% of the activities out the window for me.

7. There's basically nothing within a 2 hour radius of Nashville, so day trips or weekend trips are either a lot of car time to get to Louisville, Memphis, Knoxville, or Huntsville (none of which have that much to offer that Nashville doesn't, imo), or getting on a plane.

8. The people are nice...but there's something else there. It feels polite but not genuinely warm or something. I always felt like an outsider. Maybe because I wasn't from the south? Could have been my imagination, but what definitely isn't my imagination is that "southern charm" is generally reserved for straight white christians. Not always, but more than I'd like.

9. Speaking of which, it's uber-christian, in a way that's hard to understand unless you've been there. It just permeates the ground you walk on somehow. Not that everyone is christian, but a lot of people are, and people will ask you if / where you go to church, and my daughter's non-religious preschool taught her a bunch of christian songs, etc. And it's ironic because I was christian (my wife is even a minister), but I don't love living around it like that. Especially since my views on the intersection of faith and politics have radically evolved over the last few years.

10. This might be controversial: Nashville is fairly progressive for the south...but it's still very much the south. And the 2016 election really brought this home for me. Nashville is a little blueish purple dot in a deep, deep red state. If you drive 30 mins in any direction you'll see plenty of confederate flags, nasty bumper stickers, etc. And just like with christianity in nashville, not everyone is racist...but there's just a level of comfort and shrugging about the deep roots of racism in the south that I find disturbing.

Random example: there's a huge mansion there called Belle Meade...and it was formerly a plantation. They have weddings and other events there. At a plantation in the south where people were bought and sold and raped and murdered for decades. And no one thinks anything of it. It's just a nice building. There are also a bunch of streets and other things named after the big slave-holding families from Nashville's history.

To each their own, but ultimately, I don't think the south has ever really reckoned with its past, and there's just something a little off about the culture there that we ultimately decided wasn't the best place for us.

Hope I didn't offend anyone from Nashville or the south...just my own impressions from a few years living there.

EDIT: can't believe I forgot this: it's a hellscape during the summer. The heat and humidity in the south is not my idea of a good time. Although NYC's summers and winters aren't perfect either, but I actually like having 4 proper seasons.

A lot of that is actually why I would recommend Knoxville over Nashvillle. It's smaller, but it has lower home prices, more access to nature (I went hiking in the Smokies or Cumberland plateau many weekends), less of the country kitsch, better weather since it's higher up (although still somewhat miserable in parts of the summer), but you still get an airport and the tax/income stuff if you care. Plus, Oak Ridge National Lab (why I was there), Y-12 and the University of Tennessee mean it can be a bit denser in terms of some tech stuff and the general mood (I very much feel you on the fake-friendly-christian-tied-weirdness, found it to be less so in Knox) if you know where and how to look. More of an old-hand career-oriented crowd than the younger Nashville scene, but still interesting people.

Although, ultimately, I reached the same conclusion. I'm from Chicago and now I live in Arlington right outside of DC. I got out as soon as my contract ended. Can't really imagine going back.

I moved from Knoxville to SF about half a year ago. Knoxville is definitely quirky in ways that I haven’t found in other cities, and I like the physical terrain (little rolling hills) better than Nashville. For some reason, I’m not a fan of flat cities.

Knoxville’s downtown area is very different (culturally and politically) than Knoxville’s suburban areas. I would never want to live somewhere like Farragut, but some of the older, more historic neighborhoods near downtown are becoming quite interesting. Still no tech, unfortunately, which is why I moved, but in terms of just generally nice places to live in the south, Knoxville and Asheville are probably my two favorite cities.

Thank you for the pretty detailed summary of your experiences.

Every once in a while I think about moving somewhere Nashville-esque, and it's nice to be reminded that all my problems associated with living in a large, developed city won't go away just by moving.

I grew up in a very Southern-esque area, and every time I go back to visit, I get reminded of the culture you describe, and it generally makes me uncomfortable. Everything is Christian, just about every car has some egregiously political bumper sticker. There's nothing to do unless you drive 30 minutes to the nearest strip mall.

I agree on a lot of your points. However, I would say Memphis does have a lot to do if you know where to look.

Nashville might be solid blue, but the politics of the state is ran by it's suburbs. The worst republicans imaginable live in Franklin and Murfreesboro. And you can not avoid them if you live and work in Nashville. To make matters worst, the corporate democrats in Nashville just rubber stamp everything the republican's do as long as it benefits Nashville. I managed to last two years in Nashville. The culture is sick.

I live in Nashville as well. All of this is true. Another point - If you have kids, most of the schools suck. Private school is very popular here for "traditionally southern" reasons.

The religion comment is very accurate, and very annoying. Even if you are religious, you may find the culture here a bit cloying.

I've been planning my escape for over a year now. :)

I'm gonna go Dwight Shrute on ya here, False: I graduated here and never went to college, stick to Smyrna + Murfreesboro schools.

> There's basically nothing within a 2 hour radius of Nashville

That should maybe be rephrased as: "There's basically no large metropolitan areas withing a 2 hour radius of Nashville". There's a number of forests and state parks to explore around Nashville.

Eh, I found them all pretty much the same, and not all that interesting. YMMV.

Please tell all your friends in NYC this story. Everywhere that isn't already a major urban area is terrible, full of backwards hicks and not worth moving to, especially the ones in states with low taxes and few laws curtailing individual freedom. Those are the worst.

Edit: If it wasn't obvious, everything but the first sentence is sarcasm. I want nothing to do with living in or near a city and it follows that I don't want where I live becoming less rural.

You're preaching to the choir, my friend. Why do you think I moved there?

Ultimately it wasn't the right balance of priorities for me. No need to take offense though. I'm sure you're one of those people who either hates NYC or says "great place to visit, but I'd never want to live there". Doesn't bother me :)

And yeah, sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but rural Tennessee is full of "backwards hicks". Doesn't make them bad people but our views do not align and I don't want to live in that culture any more than they (you?) want to move the Upper West Side.

I don't think multigenerational poverty gives these "hicks" you speak of the choice to move the the Upper West Side even if they wanted. They don't choose their life anymore than the urban poor does

as someone who escaped the south 16 years ago a lot of these statements ring true although I would not put them so kindly. I think these are general problems with many southern urban centers.

> 8. The people are nice...but there's something else there. It feels polite but not genuinely warm or something. I always felt like an outsider. Maybe because I wasn't from the south? Could have been my imagination, but what definitely isn't my imagination is that "southern charm" is generally reserved for straight white christians. Not always, but more than I'd like.

Coming from the Midwest, this statement is almost exactly my impression. Everyone is wearing a mask made of their own skin. Seems like everyone is afraid of being judged and excommunicated for saying or doing the wrong thing. The famed "Southern charm" comes across as bad acting, after knowing people who are genuinely nice and unguarded in their behavior. It might work on other Southerners, but it's very unctuous and unpleasant to me, especially when there's contrived familiarity in it. The only people that seem actually friendly are the other transplants.

> 9. Speaking of which, it's uber-christian, in a way that's hard to understand unless you've been there. It just permeates the ground you walk on somehow. Not that everyone is christian, but a lot of people are, and people will ask you if / where you go to church, and my daughter's non-religious preschool taught her a bunch of christian songs, etc. And it's ironic because I was christian (my wife is even a minister), but I don't love living around it like that. Especially since my views on the intersection of faith and politics have radically evolved over the last few years.

As a non-religious person, this is the sand in my knickers. The spouse is "cafeteria" Catholic, so we don't really go to church that much. And I wouldn't call the atmosphere uber-Christian, either. It feels more like a ubiquitous cult that has appropriated and subverted Christian symbology to control people's relationships and behavior. Churches around here, or at least the white-people churches and black-people churches, are the social clubs and public meeting spaces. People don't just do the obligatory once-a-week church, but go back at additional times during the week, for extra credit, I guess. At first look, it seems like segregation is alive and well, by pushing civic life into private spaces that can legally exclude the xenos. In this sense, the Catholic churches are actually on the progressive side of the spectrum, because you can actually see people of different colors in the same room. But then they bore you to tears, and ask for money all the time.

The other annoying cultural browbeater is asking what football team you support. If I were to say that I'm boycotting the NFL because of concussions and Kaepernick, but also that I didn't watch before because football is a boring game to watch, anyway, I would become an untouchable pariah overnight.

The "Jesus is my quarterback" vibe around here is pervasive, and a constant irritant. It's like other religions and sports don't even exist, and it creates a kind of bland groupthink that makes everyone you meet seem like cloned pod people. I didn't even realize it explicitly until seeing a guy with piercings and tattoos, and feeling an invisible cloud of tension dissipate. I thought, "Finally! Someone who's different!" And it all fell into place. The society creates forced conformity, and the price for individuality is to be excluded from the dense core of society, banished to the periphery.

And I wouldn't call the atmosphere uber-Christian, either. It feels more like a ubiquitous cult that has appropriated and subverted Christian symbology to control people's relationships and behavior.

That sounds like a distinction without a difference to me these days.

> It was less than 500 square feet and had none of the above amenities [...]

500 square feet is already a luxury for most people living in Paris.

I bike everywhere and do not want to own a car ever again. How good is Nashville? Are there bike-friendlier versions of Nashville?

No. I mean, people bike there (I did) but it always felt fairly risky and hostile to me. YMMV.

Nashville is great, but its red.

If you want some other alternatives: Sacramento, Reno, Las Vegas, Minneapolis

The way you're saying "red" makes it sound like something bad.

In 10yr we'll be reading articles about how Nashville has all the problems SF and NYC have today (well, maybe not a corrupt and incompetent MTA, in my unscientific observation corruption and incompetence are usually mutually exclusive in landlocked states).

We're already seeing the occasional article about housing becoming affordable in Denver and Austin doing down the tubes.

The longer I live the more I am cemented in my belief that attracting a bunch of people with money is about the surest way to ruin a community. From resource extraction boom towns to gentrifying suburbs to midsize cities it holds true.

> The longer I live the more I am cemented in my belief that attracting a bunch of people with money is about the surest way to ruin a community.

year population 600 200,000,000 1500 450,000,000 1804 1,000,000,000 2000 6,145,006,989 2018 7,632,819,325 2050 ? 10,000,000,000

"Buy land, they're not making it anymore. Mark Twain"

They are in Hawaii

1 inch a year?

I'm adding a reminder here that Amazon selected Nashville for it's "Operations Center of Excellence." This will create 5,000 jobs with a median salary of $150,000.

https://blog.aboutamazon.com/company-news/amazon-selects-new...

Funny, a "conflict of values" precisely describes the reason I (along with lots of educated people) would never willingly move to a red state like Tennessee.

Its astounding to me that people will outright refuse to live somewhere where people have differing political opinions to them. I'm not sure there is any coming back from this level of tribalism, and if so, our society is fucked.

Those political opinions include racism, misogyny, xenophobia, science denialism, and more. And you expect me to respect them? Sorry, I don't think so. I don't want my and my family's reality to be shaped by ignorant morons.

You claim to be educated but I don't see one shred of evidence in your posts. Everything you claim to be against you have become.

You know how a red (or blue) state ceases to be? When enough people of the opposite party affiliation move into them.

You'll love it here, if you make 80k you're rich. honkey tonks and hacks.

If you're obsessed with keeping up with the Joneses, you won't like the price tag in a capitalistic economy.

What do you propose as an alternative?

Political makeup, racial diversity, gun laws/beliefs, views on immigration are vastly different between the two areas. Donald Trump won the election in Tennessee with 60.7% of the vote, the largest margin of victory for a presidential candidate for either party since 1972. At least Nashville is in one of the blue counties.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_ele...

Why are gun laws an issue to anyone that doesn't routinely find themselves getting in fights or entering other people's homes uninvited?

Edit: Also gun laws would be an issue legal firearms owners would be interested in as well.

Well I imagine it's the concern of the friends and family of those that get brutally slaughtered every time there's a shooting, or armed robbery gone wrong.

You've made your point known that you believe all republicans are traitors. Can I ask you if you have any Republican friends in your immediate friend circle? Have you asked them what their concerns are and why they feel the way they do?

I probably shouldn't have been biased towards my political preference.

I'm just saying there's other factors, not mentioned by Wes, that me and many others deem important when choosing a place to live. And taken as a whole, NYC and TN are polar opposites in that realm.

Every now and again I am struck by a dreadful thought: "I will die in New York". I sincerely hope that the rest of my earthly existence won't flash by in this cesspool of a city, but it isn't my choice. Oh well.

Glad to see another person managed to make it out with their sanity intact.

Sounds like you should leave New York maybe.

What's stopping you leaving? Not your choice? Of course it is.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com