I think it's time to create incentives for companies to move to cities that actually want to grow. where jobs go, people WILL follow.
Talk about locking the door behind you on the way in.
Nothing is stopping other cities from creating incentives. Some cities have even tried. Of course, some cities have certain undesirable features that make in infeasible to attract companies without going to ridiculous lengths which local voters would not approve of.
Everything else in the area is of the highest quality. SF bay area scores high on weather, food, pollution, average quality of schools, average quality of people, crimelessness, lively cities, international educated people, jobs, vibrant societies, vibrant economies etc.
Housing is a major cause of all remaining evils there. Besides that, life is pretty good tbh.
- They cannot force their population to have more progressive attitudes towards different types of people.
- There's not much they can do to make themselves culturally important in the way that cities like SF, LA, and New York are.
- It's unlikely that they will be willing to spend what it would cost to build public transportation.
The only way I could see cities getting tech workers to want to live there is if they did something that resulted in the workers having significantly higher salaries. Something like having no state or local income tax and paying part of their federal income tax.
Ever notice how everybody here knows Austin even though it is flyover small town? I feel like I repeat myself a hundred thousand times. Almost EVERY city in the midwest, every city, would be as viable a location as Austin is, if the companies there weren't cheapskates and paid people what they were worth.
Every time I think about going back, I say "minimum $120k," and they say "ope, that's a bit much for us, dere" and never call me again. It saves time, I'm sure, but very disappointing nonetheless.
From Minneapolis-St.Paul to Pittsburgh is the Midwestern megacity, with zero serious geographical limits on densifying, or adding to suburban sprawl. And every company in it would happily offer $70k/year to someone with 20 years of experience, and still believe it to be "extremely generous".
At first, I thought they were all lowballing for the purposes of negotiation, but it turns out that they're all uniformly miserly.
You have at least 15 years of experience and can't get an offer of 120K in Chicago? I don't believe that it’s plausible. Well, unless it's not a "high-tech" job you are talking about, meaning that your comment is not relevant to the article or discussion at all?
If you are a software developer (or data-scientist, or anything that qualifies as "high-tech"), it is very strange that after 15 years your skills did not appreciate or improved enough to qualify for a 120K offer.
Your post came across as vaguely insulting. A company that maxes out under my minimum isn't looking for someone with a higher level of skill--or even a median level of skill. A lot of these companies ask for the Moon, and want to pay for river rocks, then don't list salary range in their advertisements. If I can't weed them out quickly, they will waste more of my time than I care to give up.
It's not about securing an offer, it's about finding a company that isn't both tight-fisted and greedy. Now that I have left already, why would I expend the extra effort to find a Midwestern-based job that pays well, when other regions are falling over themselves to make even new graduates rich?
Midwestern companies can only attract local talent, and that talent is fleeing to cities that don't pay peanuts. I would move back, if companies there could raise the average pay of their tech employees, and maybe also get a bit more sun during the winter.
I'm baffled that SD made it on the list.
https://library.municode.com/tx/austin/codes/code_of_ordinan...
> Austin is the capital of Texas and the 11th largest city in the United States, and the 3rd largest state capital. The population of Austin is estimated at 964,254, which is an increase of more than 3% over the last census in 2010. [1]
Midwest cities are not viable Austin replacements. One of the many reasons for it's success is the University of Texas. It's a research university and one of the largest in the world. Add to that the fact that Austin has a pretty rich culture, temperate climate, and plenty to do; and now you have a place that people want to relocate to.
[1]: http://worldpopulationreview.com/us-cities/austin-population...
Of course, there's snow in the winter.
I wonder if that's because American cities tend to have much of the population in surrounding suburbs and towns that are often separate municipalities. For example the city of Atlanta is pretty small, with a population of under 500,000, but the metropolitan area has about 6 million in total spanning a number of counties
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cities breaks down the list across several measurement methods.
But I don't really disagree with the broader point. In addition to being the center for at least a certain segment of the tech industry, it has progressive attitudes that are important for many, has what perhaps most would consider one of the best climates in the country, and has easy access to some of the best recreational opportunities in the country.
Detroit may have significantly cheaper housing but it's going to be a tough sell for a lot of Californians--and therefore for companies that want at least a local core of tech talent--i.e. not 100% distributed. [ADDED: Although as the other comment says, very generous salaries relative to the local norms may not convince everyone to move, but they'll sure convince some.]
Nashville is more important than HN readers probably appreciate. Dunno how to rank cultural impact, but it's culturally strong enough to be well into the plus column.
New York has a lot of culture, diversity, and history, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't really define American culture in the way Californian cities do.
It's not hard to make a top twenty ranking of films set in NYC, regardless of what you pick in what order. Same for TV shows. How many cities get to say that?
But, yeah, other than that there is not much of a cultural impact.
I'm not making the case that it had the biggest or best cultural impact, but it's definitely important, even if you think it is a drag, which I guess you're allowed to think that, but it's subjective at best.
NYC has half of the US TV and film industry. Pick a random movie or TV show, and it’s probably set in New York, if not filmed there. Turn on a talking head on cable TV...it’s probably coming from a studio in Manhattan. I encounter film productions literally every day while walking around the city.
The global finance industry. The global fashion industry. Essentially all theater. Art production and sales. Sothebys and Christie’s. The Tony awards and The Thanksgiving day parade. The Yankees, Mets, Rangers, etc. The Met, MOMA, Whitney, Guggenheim and about a dozen others. All of these are either based in NYC, or split the honor with LA.
Like I said, I love SF, but culturally, outside of tech it’s a backwater.
I lived in SF for 25 years and this isn't remotely true. Indeed, it might have been remotely true 20 years ago when artists could afford to live there. There used to be dance studios everywhere. SF Carnival was huge. Burning Man got its start at Baker Beach. No more. Anything cultural in SF now is store bought.
Anyways, that's what I think. How do you think SF defines American culture now in 2019? What is it that we export more web presences?
Almost every American 'culture war' issue has been centered in SF. This is incredibly important, more so than movies, plays, or art. It's one thing to produce a popular play. It is something completely different to be so influential that you manage to convince an entire nation to give up on their tens of thousands of years old definition of marriage. And yes, SF was the center of that. It was the center of the 'sexual revolution', arguably the kick off to all the culture war issues we see today. Regardless of how you feel about them, it is incredibly difficult to argue that the values often espoused in and around SF are not winning.
The issue is that you are assuming culture means cultural products -- movies, songs, books, etc. I'm talking about culture as fundamental values. In my opinion, the cultural products are a product of culture. In the grand arc of history, cultural artifacts are influenced in design by the culture that made them, not vice versa.
> no one walks around in bell bottoms anymore
Right, that's because the bell bottom wearers all became really rich selling you the phone you're always on. The idea that this is not also part of culture is some kind of weird double think.
It doesn't seem to have a lot of production of note in the arts or media (TV, movies, games, music, books, etc).
It also doesn't seem culturally aligned with the rest of the USA, so I think that would be evidence to point to it not having a big influence or impact on US culture.
I always thought Pixar was close to Oakland, not SF. Lucasfilm is a pretty good pick. But there are a lot of other higher impact studios in SoCal.
EA's talent is spread all over the globe. What games are developed in SF? I don't see how a corp HQ that mostly buys studios after they make a breakout game as a center of culture (center of power, yes. culture, no)
> It also doesn't seem culturally aligned with the rest of the USA, so I think that would be evidence to point to it not having a big influence or impact on US culture.
I'm not sure what you mean by this, can you explain? I would actually argue the opposite. Almost all modern American culture wars have been centered around San Francisco in some way, shape, or form.
Speaking as someone who has spent their entire life on the West Coast, I almost never even think about New York or the East Coast. To me, it's the east coast that seems disconnected from reality.
I don't want to live in the Bay Area, I find almost nothing I like about it--with one exception: 2-5x what you are going to make in most other cities for work that is often easier.
Almost any city in the Northeast and large parts of the Midwest have better transportation and housing.
I would add those are some areas where the cost of living is insanely high. Getting a "hi-tech" job in any of those metro areas is one thing, figuring how to live with in your budget is something completely different.
I've had a myriad of friends who've gone out west and moved back after a few years because the cost of living is so high, even when they're clearing well over 100K in salary, its not enough.
I don't get why people throw around the word "capitalism" like that. The U.S. legal system isn't organized around "capitalism" in any real way.
The U.S. historically was a liberal republic, though lately the republicanism had given way to a stronger administrative state on all levels.
And it's that that really influences how things are influenced with respect to urban development: regulators, HUD, local zoning boards, transportation planning, transportation energy regulations, etc. Not much of that screams "private control of the means of production" or even "free market".
Free market has, in my opinion, very little to do with capitalism; contrary to popular belief.
Make Existence Less Expensive. Or, keep paying exorbitant real estate rents and mortgage payments while complaining, and being permanently behind financially unless you strike it rich with RSUs or some sort of liquidity event.
The former don't want growth in the form of more housing (It devalues theirs), and the latter don't want growth in the form of more jobs (Because that just means more rich people to bid up the cost of their housing.)