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Comment by shrubble | Hacker News Reader

>But many startups are now choosing to leave the capital city they once flocked to because of the rising cost of living, low funding, and lack of diversity, according to TechCrunch.

No one leaves because of "lack of diversity": look at how Bellingham WA exploded in the last few years. Further, the VMware layoffs and Meta/Facebook and Google retrenchment are country-wide and not confined to only Austin.

What is more likely is that Austin, which saw a huge run-up in home prices, is just not as affordable as before. Add in quality of life things like longer commute times, and the end of ZIRP draining available funding...

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Have you considered two other factors?

1) It's hot for any skin color, compared to most anywhere else in the country. Not everyone enjoys staying indoors for half the year (I have lived in TX.) Folks might move from coastal California and then learn that lesson the hard way.

2) If you are a woman, or woman adjacent, then the fact that religious extremists now set reproductive law might affect the desire to live in the state, if one has a choice.

TX is really only hot in.... mid-late summer. Even then, everyone just uses A/C and alters their patterns for that time. Just like up north, where it can be quite cold in the mid-winter, and people alter their patterns for 60 days.

I can put on warm clothes, and enjoy the outdoors in the cold. What is the equivalent in the heat? I have lived in both, and if you have a secret I would love to learn it.

People still mountain bike in Vegas, Arizona, TX etc during the summer - you might just go at night (for a night ride).

I personally just drank a lot of water for lunch rides (I'd take a gallon for a ride) and electrolytes. Favorite time to ride, trails were empty.

Sounds like a good time, kinda. But, if you are a young tech working family, I am not sure if this would make for a great family outing.

You are basically agreeing that you are stuck indoors for many months of the year, during day time.

Also, this last year, which was many people's introduction to the heat, it was much worse than just a couple months.

https://www.kxan.com/weather/weather-blog/austin-records-hot...

I too have lived in both, and there is none, as I remind my friends from hot as fuck climates whenever they complain about cooler weather. You can't go below "naked."

I just checked and Austin is over 90F for a full third of the year. Hard pass.

https://www.extremeweatherwatch.com/cities/austin/yearly-day...

I really dont see how these hot climates are any worse than corresponding northern cities. I live in Chicago and we dont leave our house for 5 straight months in the winter and then there are 2 more months where the weather is consistently shit. Is a summer where its consistently over 100 for 3 months worse than the 6 ish months of not going outside that northern cities see?

Yeah, that felt entirely shoe-horned into this article. I couldn't find any further explanation within the article, or the parent article it references. Just pure assertion on the author's part.

If true, we'd also expect to see mass closures of eng offices in places like Tokyo, Shanghai or Mumbai due to their "lack of diversity."

Tech companies were too myopic only trying Austin. The DFW Metroplex area of Texas has much more room and scale, and is more business-friendly, lower cost, and has a much larger professional class population.

John Carmack is a famous transplant here who has never wanted to move since. It's also a few degrees cooler than Austin - though with all the new pavement the urban heat island effect might even that out.

Lack of diversity in the sense of living under a state government aiming for 17th century christian theocracy as a role model of governance as opposed to more liberal states.

The model of governance may not be too your liking, and also be a bit heavy handed in some areas for my personal Christian beliefs - it is ok to have different belief systems... and let the states and citizens of the states decide where to live.

Something seems to be working well enough for most TXn's though.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating, right? Texas has been that way for decades, and yet it’s a major destination for people leaving “more liberal states.” California was never as Christian, but it was solidly red through the 1980s, and was a major destination at that time as well. Same thing for Virginia, through the 1990s.

When my parents came to this country, they chose to live in a Virginia county that was so red a Democrat wouldn’t even run for the Congressional seat in some cycles. They could’ve moved next door to liberal Maryland, but they didn’t. I’ve never gotten a satisfactory explanation for that.

Virginia was a destination because the FedGov was spending boucoup money since the Reagan Era, and VA has a ton of Gov and Military presence. The inside of the state may be literally Liberty University level conservative, but the defense contractors moving there were generally well educated and voted blue -- and moved there to do lucrative contracting work.

Until recently, affluent, educated voters leaned Republican. That was certainly true of where I grew up in the 1990s in Northern VA.

> is just not as affordable as before. Add in quality of life things like longer commute times,

Home prices are dropping like a rock. And commute times were hell a decade ago.

I think the bigger issue is that these firms bet big on real estate and then the pandemic suddenly clued people in that remote work was possible and now instead of admitting they made a mistake are blaming the issue “on Austin.”

Also: to speak to the diversity part. Read up on Austin’s 1928 plan to intentionally segregate the city. Austin is still one of the most racially segregated. In an interesting turn of events Houston (due to its lack of zoning laws making redlining hard to impossible) is the most racially diverse city in the nation. Amazing what impact a bunch of people a hundred years ago can have on a place even after they are dead and their laws changed.

> In an interesting turn of events Houston (due to its lack of zoning laws making redlining hard to impossible) is the most racially diverse city in the nation.

In a nation that includes, amongst other cities, New York City, this is extremely unlikely.

https://abc13.com/houston-diversity-wallethub-most-diverse-c...

New York was famously segregated by Robert Moses. It’s up there on the list due to being a welcoming and diverse destination today, but those policies of the past can be felt today, long after they are gone.

You can click through to the actual list here: https://wallethub.com/edu/most-diverse-cities/12690

It's worth taking a look at their methodology and how they're measuring diversity. Notably, NYC ranks much higher than Houston for cultural diversity (#5 vs #28 for Houston).

If you slice the numbers differently you get a different result.

But the fact that Houston is even in the list in the first place is the interesting part. Whether it beats NYC or not is sorta not the most important part of my comment.

It seems the Forrest might have been missed for the trees. (I don’t feel like you understood or validated what I said, whether you disagree with the precise methodology or not)

Yeah kinda salty about northern WA has exploded. I'm nominally from there and think about moving back... but then a house costs just as much as much of the rest of the US so might as well stay where it's warm.

WA is full of Asians. You claim it’s not diverse?

I've heard Asians are 'white adjacent' so maybe they don't count?

I've heard there are more than one type of Asian - more even than two types.

More even than just the Sama-Bajau and Minangkabau.

Who'd have thought, hey?

Does "diverse" just mean "not white"? If WA mostly "whites & Asian" then no - it is not diverse.

> Does "diverse" just mean "not white"?

In many cases, yes, it basically just means this. That's even a reasonable de facto definition for that term as it's used today, in any appearance without further qualification ("diversity of thought" e.g.)

Generally diversity means multi racial, ethnic, cultural not just “more than white”.

Bellingham is not particularly diverse, no. Bellevue on the other hand is incredible.

Mostly Gringos and a few Natives, predominantly Lummi Nation

Washington is not diverse. The state's Asian population does not rank in the top 5 in the nation.

I stated Bellingham, you may not have ever spent time there, but certainly it has grown as former Amazon people decide it is a nice place to be (it wasn't diverse when I was there).

All great points. I don't recall the valley being that diverse, nor is ... for example, Boulder, CO and they're still hot spots.

If tech is mostly "bro dudes", they're definitely not moving away from Austin due to "diversity or abortion rights". They moved to escape the CA state taxes & the politics of the area they left.

The article is trying to support an economic thesis with social / identity politic reasoning.

Dude if the valley is not diverse then I’m excited to see what diverse looks like! :)

Silicon Valley is only diverse if you count Asians as diverse. It’s also extremely segregated: my recollection from all the times I’ve been there was that it was only whites/Asians in tech and VC and other groups in service jobs. East Texas is better in that regard (quite integrated, I suspect because the oil industry is a source of good jobs for both whites and Hispanics). So is Atlanta, with its large affluent black population.

> No one leaves because of "lack of diversity"

Also known as "journalists just making shit up and passing their agenda off as facts."

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