Battle of the Tech Ecosystems: Boston vs. New York | Hacker News Reader

Battle of the Tech Ecosystems: Boston vs. New York

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24 pointswmougayar44 comments

Somerville (bordering Boston and Cambridge) is home to one of the world's largest makerspaces: http://artisansasylum.com and a big cleantech incubator: http://greentownlabs.com/

The area between Kendall and Davis Squares must be on some list of most bookstores, coffeeshops, etc. with so many amazing people to bump into.

I live in SF, but I have a special place in my heart for this area because the density and diversity of thought that you just don't get in SF/SV.

Hey, that's where you bumped into me.

Yeah, the Cambridge/Somerville nexus is pretty amazing.

http://www.paulgraham.com/cities.html

Silicon Valley.

If you're moving somewhere, why waste time on a city that is distant second, in terms of startup ecosystems? It's not like Boston or NYC are significantly cheaper than the valley.

My short list of pro-NYC (and thereby anti-SF) points:

There's plenty of tech stuff and tech people in NYC. That little kickstarter site isn't in san mateo after all. Your new best friend digital ocean isn't making white house rooms across from twitter. etsy is allowed to be as dumb as it wants.

In NYC you have non-scary transit running 24 hours that'll take you home because everybody is within walking distance of a metro station (and not just to a parking lot where you pick up your car then drive another 30 minutes home while tired at 2am).

Population. SF: 800k (bay area entire: 7 million, but over 40+ miles) NYC: 8 million. In NYC you have lots more people within transit range making people-involved things like meetings, dating, and varied social contexts immensely easier (and more interesting, exciting, unexpected, varied, ...).

NYC has its street people population under control so it's less scary walking around fighting off beggars are street pooers.

NYC's parks are kinda great.

and best of all, no Karl.

Your practical, working knowledge of the NYC subway system is way off the mark. If I had to make an estimate, I'd say you've never been required to depend on the subway beyond the splendid realms of Wall Street and Midtown. Maybe a small tidbit of Williamsburg too. Even in those parts Taxi cabs and car service reign supreme, especially when drunk at 2AM (the social context of dating).

That said, I'd like to point out that every city has it's own learning curve, and there's no real way to be honest, and make promises to transplants that any given city's streets will be paved with gold. (...unless, of course, you literally pave them with gold yourself)

Well, living near transit can be a goal or not. If one decides to not live near a station, that's one's own predicament.

(as for my living credentials go, I've lived in Astoria, Harlem, Jersey City, Long Island City, UWS, ... it's not a park place penthouse, but it is a non-bank-breaking life.)

NYC lets you live near a station much easier than in SF with its linear (in-city) one-line system with a total of seven entire usable city stops.

I think I can destroy your argument with: how many daily private bus services do companies run in NYC vs SF for employees to get from Where They Want To Live to their prescribed daytime slavery zones?

Hey wait, what're you on about? I'm Karl, and I AM in New York City. Am I being voted out?

Karl is the best part!

I agree with most of your other pro-NYC points though (and I live in SF).

OT: "Adrift" - a love letter to Karl the Fog

http://vimeo.com/69445362

It's possible to, you know, not actually like Silicon Valley. That seems like a pretty good reason to live elsewhere.

Personally, I don't care for SF and it's surrounding cities. They feel small to me (they are, compared to NYC), I haven't been nearly as intrigued by the culture as I am in NYC or in Boston, I hate cars, I need the seasons, it's far from the rest of my family, etc.. This makes me very interested in ecosystems outside of Silicon Valley.

> It's possible to, you know, not actually like Silicon Valley.

Well sure, but the goals of the article were in terms of startup ecosystems. I don't think anyone says it's impossible to dislike the bay area (so much to love, so much to hate). The whole article had nothing to do with "liking" a city.

Sure, but it also explicitly compared two cities, Boston and New York. Parent threw in a new area, Silicon Valley, which indisputably has a stronger tech ecosystem. My point is that, comparing 2nd and 3rd place in tech ecosystem is still interesting if other aspects of cities are important to you, and they are in my case. A similar article comparing Silicon Valley to New York wouldn't be as interesting to me because I refuse to move to Silicon Valley.

I thought #2 was Tel Aviv.

Housing in Boston is substantially cheaper than Silicon Valley.

Anecdotally, when I moved from Silicon Valley to Boston, my rent stayed the same price and but I got to live in twice as big a house.

Non-anecdotally, look at these real estate price maps.

Boston (Middlesex County, north side of the city): http://www.trulia.com/home_prices/Massachusetts/Middlesex_Co...

SF (San Mateo County, south of SF): http://www.trulia.com/home_prices/California/San_Mateo_Count...

You can buy a relatively large house within a few miles of downtown Boston for around $400k. I don't think that's possible in SF.

Hey! Hey you! Do you have a family, care about home ownership, need good healthcare, want a stable fallback economy, and want reasonable taxes? Want to not have to choose?

Come to Texas!

What about the fact that the weather in Texas is too hot and that, from what I read online at least, public transportation stinks? It'd be nice to live in a city where a car isn't required for every trip. Maybe there are places in Texas like that. I currently live in a hot and humid part of the country with no public transportation. It would be nice to get away from that.

Shh! Stop telling people about Texas!

Gentrification in Houston screwed my buddy out of a house...it's getting hard to find a 2,000 sq. ft. two story for less than two hundred thousand near the city center. ;)

I'm considering moving to Houston early next year. Are there any resources I can use to educate myself about the different parts of the city in terms of quality and cost of living?

So, Padmapper is a useful tool, but you'll get the most mileage out of HAR (http://www.har.com/) for finding a place to live. Generally, Midtown and the Heights are nice places to move to, although the southwest area near the 610 loop is somewhat undervalued and pretty decent to live at.

Optimize for living near easy access to either the light-rail, bus-stops, or the highways--59 and 45 are the big ones, the 610 loop is as well. Don't live in the Galleria area--too expensive and the traffic is shitty.

Basically, living nearish to downtown or the universities is a good idea. You can get very cheap places if you move outside Beltway 8, but the commute time sucks rocks. Inside 610 is the best if you can swing it.

If you find yourself in town, drop me a line, and we can grab beers--I'll link you in with some of my startup folks here.

Thanks a lot for the info. And yeah I'll definitely contact you if I do end up moving there!

Biotech ecosystem is better in BOS and maybe finance-related stuff in NYC, but otherwise I agree with you.

BOS has certainly made huge gains in biotech. BOS has more mid-size biotechs than SFO, but SFO has an edge in tiny, less than 10 person start-ups (but not by much).

The biggest difference between BOS and SFO are the big biotechs. SFO has one (GNE), while BOS many.

> Biotech ecosystem is better in BOS

That's debatable. I think Boston and the Valley are about the same (with the Valley maybe a little ahead) for biotech. Either way, Boston (as a city) is depressing as fuck, so I would avoid it like the plague.

Why is Boston depressing?

Very true as this research suggests. "The Next Silicon Valley is Probably Silicon Valley"

http://www.cbinsights.com/blog/trends/silicon-valley-financi...

Interestingly, NY is the one market taking some share from SV but the gap remains massive.

I'm in Silicon Valley, but really dislike Silicon Valley, and looking at how to be in Seattle (or maybe Austin, or non-USA). (Silicon Valley still makes sense for the earliest stages, but I don't think I'd recommend people move here if they already have a going business, unlike 5 years ago.)

I think in the past couple years, things like funding have become more global, and there's a strong case for having a small presence in SFBA and a larger presence in a place like Seattle, Austin, Boulder, or really anywhere with a concentration of talent for hiring. I'm hoping to check out some Asia/Pacific places in October/November, and Central/Eastern Europe around xmas.

One of the big ones is availability and cost of labor, and how much your neighbors are competing for that same labor pool.

>> It's not like Boston or NYC are significantly cheaper than the valley.

Yes they are plus some of us really don't want to live in a place with a 3:1 gender ratio.

Where is this mythical place with a 3:1 gender ratio?

http://www.maletofemaleratio.com/wiki/California-CA/San_Fran...

not even close to accurate and I was talking about silicon valley in general.

Census data isn't accurate? If you want to make ridiculous claims, you're going to get called out. Cite a source.

I don't believe that site is even using census data or at least not in the correct way. Ratio should be separated by age groups. Counting > 60 yr olds is a mistake because at that point women outnumber men 3:1 at least.

San Jose has been forever in the headlines as one of the worst cities for men to date, how is this news to you just now? http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/weird/San-Jose-Looking-More-L...

San Jose

>> The U.S. Department of the Obvious finds that there are 117 men for every 100 women in the age range of 20 to 44 years old.

>> Mountain View has a ratio of 125 to 100.

When we discuss "Tech Ecosystem" - why does it always have to be about funding? There are so many different factors that can make a certain area better or worse: real estate prices, salaries (esp. for engineers), access to colleges, etc. Besides, not every tech company is VC-backed.

I recently moved to NYC to join a startup and I must say the community is thriving here. You can find a lot of like-minded people at local Meetups.

This was on the front page a couple of days ago - should give you a good idea of ecosystem here: http://www.cbinsights.com/new-york-venture-capital

Personally I'm a big fan of the NYC startup scene. First of all if you are creating a B2B that isn't selling to tech companies then NYC is ideal. Many times we've been able to take a quick subway ride across town to pitch our product at the NYC headquarters of some large company that is interested in our product. And that's helped us sell our product to businesses like Hugo Boss and Ralph Lauren.

Second of all I like the community. There are lots of interesting meetups and hackathons going on, and while I'm sure SF has more I feel that NYC has more than enough to satisfy me.

And third I like the energy of NYC. It is a great city to accomplish things in because it really has an infective spirit of getting things done. It's hard for me to explain, but the city is always busy and there are always people around you working and getting things done.

Anyway I don't know much about the Boston scene so I can't properly compare the two, but I can say that I like NYC a lot.

I spent 6 years in the boston tech startup scene (2004-2010) and have spent 2010-2013 here in the NY tech startup scene.

My quick observations:

- Better engineers in Boston - Larger thinking business ideas in NYC

Fusing the business ambition of NYC with the technical acumen of Boston would be an amazing ecosystem.

This site is purposely made hard to read if you do not have javascript enabled. The creator should be ashamed of himself.

Boston has such a lead in the biotech ecosystem compared to anywhere else that I wonder if they could establish a tech niche of bio/pharma-related tech. Chasing traditional consumer mobile/web-tech seems like swimming upstream in Boston.

We are closer to NYC (Stamford CT) - but as far as startups are concerned, I like Boston ecosystem more. More vision.

Boston Strong.

Good momentum in Boston startup tech, for sure.

When I was living there, it was encouraging interacting with people at various hubs of activity around town such as the Cambridge Innovation Center and Dogpatch Labs.

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