
Ask HN: Would you live in a town built for remote workers? - neural_thing
Consider the following fictional town:
Located in Douglas County, Nevada (no state income taxes!), this town has a population of 1500 mostly young people. The town consists of modern houses and townhouses looking like this https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.redfin.com&#x2F;CA&#x2F;South-Lake-Tahoe&#x2F;628-Kiowa-Dr-96150&#x2F;home&#x2F;22355535 and this https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.redfin.com&#x2F;CA&#x2F;Oakland&#x2F;3235-Louise-St-94608&#x2F;home&#x2F;143116118 .<p>The town has gigabit fiber everywhere, 2-day Amazon Prime delivery, delivery from a Whole Foods store, a small grocery store, a large coffee shop, a coworking space, a large park&#x2F;pedestrian area and 2 restaurants. The minimum wage in the town is $15&#x2F;hour. The town is located 45 minutes away from a skiing resort, 30 minutes away from Lake Tahoe, 1 hour away from the Reno-Tahoe International Airport and 4 hours away from San Francisco. The average high is 76° in the summer and 38° in the winter.
Would you want to live there? Why&#x2F;why not? If yes, would you prefer living in a townhouse or a house and how much would you pay for one (either buying or renting)?
======
muzani
I think I do live in a remote working town. The downside is that it removes
the upside of remote working. There are traffic jams at 2 PM, long queues at
the supermarket every day. My wife often complains, "What's wrong with these
people? Doesn't anyone go to work?"

Food prices are above average. There's a lot of premium grocers with cheap
organic food. 2 restaurants are nowhere near enough; we have about 30, but
there's "nowhere to eat".

Ironically, the city has turned into one of Malaysia's two fashion capitals.
It started with Instagram sellers wanting a cheap place to use as a warehouse,
with easy access to deliveries, and yet something which wasn't ugly, so
customers could look through their goods.

One or two big name sellers settled on a cheap, abandoned row of shops. When
those two set up, it suddenly became popular to set up up shop next to the big
names on Instagram.

~~~
fookyong
Which city is this?

I thought you were describing Penang at first, but I don't think Penang is a
fashion capital.

~~~
muzani
Bandar Baru Bangi. Shah Alam is similar, but Shah Alam is home to small
conventional businesses, while Bangi has a more tech startup tilt.

------
DoreenMichele
Planned communities of this sort almost always fail. There's no there there.
No one has any reason whatsoever to move there.

People choose to work remotely to have portable income or to make their
current location work. Remote workers have absolutely zero reason to move to a
remote worker town. This is the exact opposite of why they work remotely.

I like the idea of no state taxes. For that reason, Nevada is a state I
considered moving to. Washington, Texas, Wyoming and Alaska all lack state
income tax as well. Nevada is the least appealing of the no income tax states.

I wanted to find it appealing. I was in Fresno. Reno was a short, cheap train
ride away. But I couldn't make it make sense. And I tried.

It has water problems and environmental problems. Much of the state is
badlands. There are two developed areas: Las Vegas and Reno and the
surrounding cities. The rest of the state is an unpopulated wasteland.

It's also not cheap, has lousy transit options and terrible weather. I have
been through Vegas once. It was not an attractive town and that was before
boatloads of new homes were built and then ended up financially under water,
creating extremely distressed communities that give a whole new meaning to my
standard contemptuous dismissal of _suburban hell._

I am currently in a small town with high unemployment. I would very much like
to promote remote work as a solution for people in this town.

I strongly suggest that you reconsider your plan here and contemplate this
concept through the lens of injecting life into existing flagging small
communities. Like a remote workers apartment complex in a walkable small town
center with low cost of living and excellent internet. Then maybe consider
training people or otherwise actively supporting the creation of remote
workers from the local population.

Instead of focusing exclusively on attracting remote workers, make this a
solution to the local unemployment problem of small town America while also
trying to entice well paid programmers and the like to move someplace cheap.

You will need more selling points than low cost of living. Your sales shtick
will need to be customized for every location, assuming you make this a chain.

I work remotely. I am not a programmer.

~~~
stevekemp
> Planned communities of this sort almost always fail. There's no there there.
> No one has any reason whatsoever to move there.

I'd agree with that. The reason I've worked remotely in the past is precisely
because I didn't want to move, but couldn't find anything interesting/suitable
locally.

Over time working remotely has become a (pleasant) habit, and during the
course of that time I've moved countries for personal-reasons - but I
certainly couldn't imagine moving for a job.

------
jamestimmins
Probably not. The benefits seem minor (fast internet, proximity to vacation
areas, limited taxes), and you're giving up the many benefits of living in a
city. Planned communities typically lack the diversity and vibrancy that make
city life appealing. For me, one of the perks of working remotely is the
ability to be _more_ integrated into a community, not isolated from it.

~~~
muzani
Sounds a lot like Malaysia's Cyberjaya. Good internet, cheap offices and
homes, no hustle and bustle of city life, lots of parks, no taxes.

But the city feels dead. The no tax initiatives pull in big corps setting up
call centers, rather than the startups.

------
contingencies
No due to US government and the high cost of flights to most of the world
where stuff actually happens. Also, 'remote worker' hangouts tend to attract
posers rather than doers.

~~~
muzani
Agreed, US is probably one of the worst places to work remotely. Even if you
want the region, Canada or Central/South Americas are probably better choices.
Maybe Chile.

~~~
akkat
That depends on your citizenship. If you are a US citizen be prepared to
report all you money and income tax them when you are abroad. Oh, and also you
may be denied a bank account by virtue of your US citizenship.

------
headsoup
What does 'built for remote workers' have to do with anything here other than
'gigabit fiber everywhere?' What other features are specific to a 'remote
worker town' that aren't available in 'conventional' towns, aside being newly
built?

You've perhaps described a University/College campus...

------
PaulHoule
Who is the target market?

Many remote workers work remote because they are already committed to
someplace.

I know somebody who works on IOKit for Apple who works remote; he started
working in Cupertino and then they let him relocate. I imagine that people
might want to leave places like Palo Alto and Boston when they start wanting
to have kids. They would have their own amenities that they'd want. If you are
young and single you might have an entirely different group of amenities you
would want.

Two day Prime is not so special. The food co-op in my nearest town puts Whole
Foods to shame. Gigabit fiber is nice, but 100 Mb/s cable is pretty good and
much more available. I live 20 minutes from a lake and 45 minutes from a ski
resort. If I did want to live in Nevada I'd probably end up near Las Vegas or
Henderson.

~~~
fillskills
Maybi Ask what is the town with such a good coop?

~~~
PaulHoule
Ithaca, NY

------
err4nt
I mean, it sounds nice, there's nothing wrong with the description, but as a
remote worker with a self-employed wife…why would I go there? I am living like
that already where I am.

------
joezydeco
What happens if you decide to have children? There's no mention of schools
(and probably no budget for one with only 1500 taxpayers that don't pay state
taxes)

Are you required to leave?

------
Piskvorrr
Sounds nice. What of non-happy-path: medical avalability? Where are the energy
dependencies (whence power)? No other amenities, i.e. singles only, kids
forbidden?

------
mtmail
Why is the "mostly young people" part important?

~~~
neural_thing
Most small towns in the Lake Tahoe region have a median age of 55 or higher. I
just meant that the town his built for working professionals rather than
retirees.

------
neural_thing
Any other thoughts/comments are welcome.

------
remotetown
Yes, as a software dev, this would be something that I am interested in.
Though as others have noted it might be better for existing remote friendly
towns to simply try catering to this group more. One example that comes to
mind is chattanooga and their gig municipal broadband.

