Ask HN: Do you live outside of a large city? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Do you live outside of a large city?

7 pointsjwwest3 comments

After 8 years of living in a large city, I'm ready to move back to a small town (nearest big city is 3 hours away). I'm not interested in working for the most glamorous or trying to make it rich playing the startup game.

Really I'm just trying to enjoy a better quality of life and a slower pace. The problem is that I'm a software developer, and I'm worried about my potential for finding remote work outside of a tech hub. I've asked around on the internet about this, but so far have gotten pretty negative feedback about it. Negative as in "why the hell do you even want to do this?" not as in "you're going to have a hard time".

I'm curious to see if anyone on HN lives outside of a large city (suburbs don't count) and has made it work. If so, how?

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The closest big city to me is Chicago, which is roughly 3.5 hours away, and I make do. It's the best thing about working on the internet for a living. You can live anywhere you want. Want to live in a big city? Do it. Want to live in small town Iowa? Do it (I do.)

Most of those people who say "why the hell do you even want to do this" are the people who were born and grew up in a big city and never lived outside of one. They don't see the pleasure in it, quiet nights. Seeing the stars. All that good stuff.

But in the end there are also negatives, like nothing open past 9PM and to do anything you've gotta sit in a car and take a boring drive through endless corn fields.

I'm in San Luis Obispo: 3 hours from LA, 3 hours from San Jose and 4 from San Francisco (6 if traffic is bad).

It's sunny, it's warm, we have nice beaches, good people, the pace is great. It is (literally) the happiest place in America (look it up). My only complaints are my allergies (really bad here compared to elsewhere) and it lacks in the culture/diversity departments.

I'm a bootstrapped founder so I can work from anywhere.

I think your fear is the opposite of reality. Medium sized cities need developers. I basically have to hire remote freelancers. We have tech companies here in SLO (Mind Body, Level, iFixit, etc) and many have standing open positions because we can't find local people (all the Cal Poly grads leave). Same goes for Santa Barbara.

You may not command an SV salary here but the cost of living is lower (not a lot) and freelancing on the side is always an option.

All that to say, you can definitely make it work.

You might like Durham, NC. Small town feel with a slower pace compared to the big cities, but a decent startup scene with a few local incubators and universities nearby. If you want to work for a big company, Lenovo and a couple other big companies have campuses nearby.

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