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Comment by harimau777 | Hacker News Reader

I think that the problem is that people don't want to live in many of America's cities and I'm not sure that there's much the cities can do to change that.

- 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.

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I would literally move to nearly anywhere in the midwest, in a heartbeat if they paid real salaries. I see it now, the hundreds of HN comments from years past talking about COL differences.The salaries I've seen in the midwest are what would have been reasonable in 2006, even adjusting for CoL differences. These companies are just not keeping pace with the market. This "oh the CoL differences" line was valid in the past, and still is valid in the few tech cities that have kept pace properly like Austin, but for most places it is a excuse to trick people into accepting lower salaries than people are worth regardless of what local rent costs.

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.

It's pretty disingenuous to call Austin a "flyover small town".

> 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...

That’s all true. I’m not from the midwest, nor do I have a big allegiance to it, but the places I’ve visited, explored extensively, and have friends living in (Indy, Minneapolis, St. Louis) I find would be a very pleasant place to live and work. I can imagine that several other mid west cities also have much to offer as well. Perhaps not all at Austin’s “weird” level, but I’ve found plenty of culture (and counter culture), interesting food, and decent housing, in any big mid west city I’ve been around enough.

that's a small fly over town in my book. You can walk from one side to the other in an hour. first time I went to Austin I was shocked at how small it is. Drove in , 14 blocks and a few minutes later drove out. It might be #11 in the USA but it's still small compared Tokyo, Shanghai, Paris, London, New York, Los Angeles, Istanbul, Hong Kong, Nanjing, Hanzhou, Bejing etc...

> It might be #11 in the USA but it's still small compared Tokyo, Shanghai, Paris, London, New York, Los Angeles, Istanbul, Hong Kong, Nanjing, Hanzhou, Bejing etc...

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

The list doesn't change a lot when you measure by metropolitan area.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cities breaks down the list across several measurement methods.

Temperate climate is a bit of a stretch. Maybe “not as bad as Houston.” But, yeah, Austin has a lot going for it relative to a lot of other cities in that general area of the country.

Austin's weather is just fantastic. Not as bad as Houston, or NYC, or DC, or anywhere on the eastern seabord in the summer -- it's hot, yes, but dry-ish (not dry like Phoenix), and unlike the eastern cities, there's A/C aplenty. In the winter it doesn't get very cold, there's no snow, occasionally some ice, and some times it gets very warm in the winter. The summer heat you get used to, unlike Houston or NYC.

To each their own I guess. I've been in Austin for a fairly typical weekend during the summer and found it pretty awful. But, then, I don't deal with heat very well generally. and I don't like being confined to A/C. That's one of the things I like about living in the North. Outside of the cities you don't even really need to have A/C.

Of course, there's snow in the winter.

As someone who moved out of the Midwest for higher-paying work, this comment is 100.01% accurate. I had to move to Chicago for my first real job--one which went away a little bit after after the early 2000s dot-com crash--and then eventually moved out of Madison, Wisconsin, when an east coast company bought my employer out and fired nearly everyone. That last time around, I was apparently making way more than the local median salary, and really needed to replace all of it and then some.

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.

Agreed. I also moved from Chicago to the West coast for similar reasons. Doubled my salary overnight and have since more than doubled that again when counting my total income. The other thing is that the tech jobs in Chicago were all pretty bland enterprise jobs which didn't interest me. I moved away from family and friends (although many of my friends were headed out here anyway), and while it was a difficult decision, it was by far the best one I could have made. I might move back after retirement when I'm more cost-conscious and less active.

Not disagreeing with you, but outside of enterprise there seems to be a pretty good amount of finance jobs in Chicago. Some of the quant firms pay competitively with the bay area for software engineers / "quant devs"

This doesn't seem to make sense. I worked at a company with a Minneapolis office once and everyone there made $150-200k+

I know an intermediate-senior level guy who's entertaining a few $120k+ offers in Minneapolis as well. Blows my mind, I never thought of Minneapolis offering that much.

> one which went away a little bit after after the early 2000s dot-com crash

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.

I haven't looked in Chicago since 2004, and I'm unlikely to try again until 2024. There's more to moving than just the job.

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 think the difference is that, despite its size, Austin has a culture that leads to people wanting to live there. In particular if one is a fan of live music.

The live music is in danger. There's lots of tall condos downtown now, filled with people who moved there for the vibe, yet file complaints about the noise from the bars & clubs on Sixth & Rainey Streets. So there's a sound level ordinance now.

https://library.municode.com/tx/austin/codes/code_of_ordinan...

I find it sad that people move to a location because of nightlife and then proceed to drive that nightlife out of business.

The "weird" is almost gone. All the downtown bars and clubs are gone or almost gone. All the new construction got rid of those spaces and provided no replacements. Austin's on the verge of being boring.

Couldn't agree more. I moved to a small city from NYC and what they're paying here for a senior developer is about what I made when I was 19. Why even bother? I rather just live cheap, not work at all and enjoy my life to the fullest. Then they have the nerve to complain that they can't hire anyone, lol.

Then explain San Diego. Salaries here are notoriously low, even in the tech industry. I know nurses in the Bay Area that pull down 2x what an experienced tech worker makes here. And while housing is cheaper, you still can't get anything reasonable for under 600k.

I'm baffled that SD made it on the list.

You can thank the military-industrial complex for that. Ditto for LA.

Big tech has arrived to SD with close to Bay Area salaries. DoD contractors is not where the money’s at.

I'd argue that SF falls down on a couple of those points. It has pretty mediocre public transit and I'd argue is not especially culturally important. Certainly not to the degree that NYC and LA are. (But then I don't think any other city in the US is at that level.)

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.]

> But then I don't think any other city in the US is at that level.

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.

I'd argue SF is more culturally important than New York City. New York is important economically and politically and historically, but culturally speaking, today it's a bit of a drag. Other than broadway (which is really a minority of culture anyway), I'm not sure what important thing happens there. LA is probably the most culturally important city in the US, followed by San Francisco. Nashville or New Orleans is probably a more important city culturally than New York. This is in terms of production of culture, rather a place where one may consume it, for which New York would win easily.

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.

> SF is more culturally important than New York City

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?

> 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.

That culture war nonsense is projected by media onto SF (or CA). It isn’t SF defining American culture. Again, SF may have had some cultural leadership back in the 60s but no one walks around in bell bottoms anymore. SF isn’t that different from other major cities. It has the same problems. Maybe I’m missing something but this place is way too busy to care about culture.

I disagree... Things don't get projected by the media arbitrarily.

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.

The three most important cultural cities on the planet at the moment are NYC, Tokyo, and Paris. Those are followed by London and L.A. After that there's probably a good fight among a dozen other places (Rome, Shanghai, Seoul, etc.). San Francisco probably arrives in the tier after that one. It's influential, and arguably #1 for tech, but it's on nobody's list as a top tier producer of cultural output.

Lived in SF for a decade. Beautiful city, and I loved it (before tech), but it’s not even close.

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.

Any other cities besides NYC and LA that aren't "cultural backwaters"? Or just 2?

Impacts: American standup culture, the Apollo, Madison Square Garden, major sports town, U.S. Open, haute cuisine, hipster cuisine, disproportionately popular setting for American stories, Sesame Street, fashion, Brooklyn, hip hop, punk, architecture, historical sites, world class museums, ballet, opera, film festivals, The New York Times, the New Yorker, etc.

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.

curious to why you state SF is culturally important?

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.

SF has produced important musicians (Janis Joplin, Train, Journey, Jon Fogerty) and authors (Jack London, Kerouac, Steinbeck arguably, if you consider Salinas part of the bay area). While not as populated as NYC, the effect of SF is disproportionately large. Whether you agree or disagree with its morals, the summer of love, the hippie movement, the LGBT activism, the tech scene, etc has disproportionately affected not only America, but the entire world.

> 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.

Lucasfilm? Pixar? EA? It's not exactly hard to spot the impact on pop culture.

Not everyone has your local knowledge. Thanks for sharing information in a non condescending way.

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)

For what it's worth, I'm including Oakland and San Jose as part of SF, because they are part of the Bay Area. This is fair. People include NYC as one city, even though Manhattan is arguable the center of NYC and NYC spans five counties. Same with LA -- people include cultural centers in LA that are not in LA city proper. Greater LA is absolutely huge compared to the bay.

Suggesting there is more culture in Los Angeles is enough to cause a heart attack amongst the San Francisco gentry.

It really comes down to the money.

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.

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