Living near Si Valley but with lower living expenses? | Hacker News Reader

Living near Si Valley but with lower living expenses?

2 pointsgregwebs9 comments

I have been thinking about trying to locate to Sacremento in the hopes of being close to Silicon Valley but being able to afford to live. Are there good startup opportunities in places like these?

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The Fresno Bee had an article about this recently, suggesting Clovis: http://www.fresnobee.com/263/story/99048.html

It gets a little hot, and it's about 3 hours from Silicon Valley.

If you just want to live in a cool place that's startup-friendly, Portland rocks. It's also much less expensive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Forest

Open Source Development Labs/The Linux Foundation is here, too, and so is Linus.

There's free wireless all over the place, and Portland was the "Most Unwired City in America" in 2003.

http://map.personaltelco.net/

Oh yeah, and there's no sales tax. A lot of people move just over the border to Vancouver, Washington (which has no state income tax) and shop in Portland.

You may want to consider finding a location near public transportation; e.g. Pittburg near the BART. That way you can live outside SF affordably but BART into events; http://bart.gov/stations/map/systemMap.asp

Sacramento is relatively close, but if you really want to be involved in the startup community, San Francisco is a much better choice.

Sacramento is far enough away to make you think twice about attending all the cool events that happen in San Francisco and Palo Alto and Mountain View.

There are a lot of neighborhoods in the Bay Area. They are not all expensive.

The only one I can think of is Oakland, and the parts of Oakland that are not expensive are not places I'd recommend to a Bay Area newbie. If you can think of others, please list them, and I'll politely let you know why you wouldn't want to live there.

This is exactly what I've seen so far. I've lived in enough "bad areas" in my life that my quota is all used up. I want to live somewhere relatively safe. I also want to keep my "personal burn rate" low. Oakland is totally out. I'm not sure anywhere in the city qualifies. My current plan is to either commute a long way or give in and pay a lot in rent.

Anyone have suggestions of safe areas that aren't overly expensive or too far away?

Santa Clara is relatively cheap, safe and pretty central. Take a look at

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sby/roo/401753275.html

for example (800/mo for a 2bd/1ba). But there's no 'atmosphere' compared to Palo Alto, or Berkeley.

If I wanted to try to live cheaply in the Bay Area, I'd probably start with wherever Berkeley grad students live. Then you wouldn't need a car.

Why do you think that Berkeley grad students live cheaply? They live in the same expensive places everyone else in Berkeley and San Francisco live, they just pay for it with student loans.

What everyone does is share a place. Usually you will pay $750-$1000 per room, depending on location.

Commuting a long way to save on rent doesn't make sense. Gas is expensive, car maintenance is expensive, parking is expensive, time is expensive.

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