
Ask HN: Cities underserved by tech jobs? - ChuckMcM
This question came up in a meeting today and I thought I would ask the HN community for their insights. The company (could be any company but happens to be the one I&#x27;m currently working for) is in a position to open an office &quot;anywhere&quot; in the continental US. The projects this company takes on happen to involve embedded Linux systems and software defined radio systems, but lets not focus too much on the flavor of tech.<p>What cities in the US could be helped by having a company that was employing 30 - 50 technical workers (engineers) locate there? Are the cities already attractive to technical talent (already living out there) or willing to relocate there?<p>Everyone knows &quot;Austin&quot; or &quot;Denver&quot; or &quot;Research Triangle Park&quot; but how about other heartland cities?
======
echelon
Atlanta has a budding tech scene. Georgia Tech is a great research institution
and it happens to produce a bunch of radio engineers. I know several that work
in the field of SDR / FPGA.

Atlanta is a great place to live. Super affordable cost of living, great food
and music scenes, and offers a ton of things to do. It's a city in a forest --
there are so many trees it's unbelievable. There's lots of hiking, kayaking,
climbing, and boating within an hour's reach of the city.

Atlanta has so much room for growth, too. People won't get priced out anytime
soon.

There's a lot of diversity here, too! Ethnic, career, interest, lifestyle. You
name it. Atlanta has the least amount of monoculture I've seen. There are so
many different types of people here.

And I've already said it's cheap, but anecdotally: I own a 2bd/2ba 2,000 sqft
condo in the city with 25' ceilings and floor to roof windows with city views.
My mortgage is only $2,000/mo. It's directly on the Beltline, a mixed use
running/biking trail that surrounds the city and is one of the best things
about Atlanta. I run to work everyday.

I love the life here.

Come to Atlanta! We'd love to have y'all! I'd be happy to give you a tour if
you come out this way.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Atlanta was pretty hot and humid when I visited. I could see it being OK to
live in, but I wouldn't spend as much time outside as I could on the west
coast.

Also, if I was going to live in a southern city with the heat and humidity, I
think New Orleans would be way more exciting. I haven't been there since
Katrina, but the cafes in the French quarter (and even outside of it) are
almost other worldly.

~~~
jogjayr
Having lived in Atlanta and visited New Orleans 2 years ago, I'm more in
agreement with GP. New Orleans seems interesting for a vacation but I can't
imagine actually living anywhere near the French Quarter. This article about
Amsterdam[1] sums up what I think it might be like.

Not to mention Georgia Tech and Emory are world-class institutions. Atlanta
and the surrounding suburbs are home to many Fortune 500 company headquarters
(Coca-Cola, UPS). New Orleans, and Louisiana doesn't really have anything like
that to compare, AFAIK.

1\. [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/04/amsterdam-
brit...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/04/amsterdam-british-
tourists-overwhelmed-bad-behaviour)

------
mchannon
ABQ.

It's Denver with better weather and far lower levels of congestion and cost of
living.

Someone was crowing about a mortgage of $2000/mo. for a 2000sf condo. That'd
be about $1200/mo. here, plus it would be freestanding and come with a yard.

Airport is surprisingly versatile, with daily nonstops to all your favorites.

The mountains are every bit as impressive as Denver's, but half as far away a
drive, half as crowded, and we have great river trails too. You will not find
a more impressive array of history, culture, and food in this country.

You can _breathe_ here, with zero mold allergens, and thin dry air that takes
a weight off your spirit. Since the cost of living here is so low, you can be
poor here and feel rich. In Silicon Valley, you have to be very rich to not
feel very poor. Even then, I'm not convinced even a multibillionaire out there
feels as rich as I do here.

There's a reason they call it a sunny disposition, and while other areas in
the mountain west tie ABQ for sunny days, nobody really beats it.

We have two Intel fabs, AFRL, two other national labs, plus a number of
smaller commercial companies, but our industrial base is stagnating and
slightly shrinking. Some talent is here, they work for peanuts, and ready to
come on board without breaking six figures.

To an extent beyond most of the others on this list, NM is willing to shell
out in terms of leases, build-to-suit, training, and tax incentives,
especially for good-quality high-paying jobs. And 30-50 new jobs is not too
small for us to notice or care.

~~~
partisan
For the rest of us not versed in city acronyms, ABQ is Albuquerque, New
Mexico.

------
closeparen
Chicago is a real city with skyscrapers and trains and everything. Any
experience you want - whether white-picket-fence suburbia, downtown glass-and-
steel high rise, or trendy urban neighborhood with street life - is available
at within a reasonable housing and commute time budget. The tech opportunities
there are concentrated in Office Space-type cost center IT on one hand, and
commodities trading on the other, so an engineering-first company would be
highly attractive. You might get some domain-specific talent re: radios from
the ghost of Motorola.

Chicago belongs in the same breath as NY/SF/LA, so wouldn't be seen as a huge
step down for someone relocating, but is drastically cheaper.

~~~
doggydogs94
Hot and miserable in the summer and cold and miserable in the winter.

~~~
closeparen
Heating and air conditioning are solved problems, unlike NIMBYism.

~~~
cimmanom
Only if you’re spending all your time indoors.

------
thatcat
Oak Ridge, TN has a national lab campus with the fastest super computer in the
world which is close to one of the only nuclear power plants planned to be
constructed in the near future. There is relatively little VC funded tech
compared to the huge amount of government funding. Low taxes, cheap power,
plenty of water, and a high density of researchers make it seem like fertile
ground to me.

------
throwaway45423
Madison, WI might not be as well known as it should. Big engineering, math,
and CS programs at the university, but still limited tech-job listings. The
state is only just beginning to come around to supporting startup businesses,
so there is some buzz. Recently got a non-stop route to SFO.

Really great location, between a group of lakes, and some really great
cultural options for a small city.

Epic is here. Some other names too but I thought someone should add it to the
responses.

------
gitinstinct
Phoenix. Tons of transplants from SF have moved here already, ASU is nearby,
Sky Harbor has tons of flights going to all of the tech hubs in the US, cost
of living is affordable and there's a decent amount to do here as well.

We have a tech scene, but I wouldn't consider us a big hub at the moment. Most
companies just have support or administrative staff here.

~~~
jtreminio
I was just in Phoenix last week after visiting the Grand Canyon.

I can't imagine _why_ someone would move from the 70 _F of SF to the 115_ F of
Phoenix. Even at midnight it's still over 90*F.

This coming from someone who lives in DFW.

~~~
hello_newman
Why someone would move from SF to PHX area? ummm considering the average rent
in SF is $3340[0] and the average rent in PHX is $955[1], I cant possibly
imagine why someone would want to do that.

Plus PHX is really only that hot May to September. PHX is like other deserts
and generally very pleasant outside of the summer with lots of sun, which
isn’t something you can always say about SF.

0: [https://www.rentcafe.com/average-rent-market-
trends/us/ca/sa...](https://www.rentcafe.com/average-rent-market-
trends/us/ca/san-francisco/) 1: [https://www.rentcafe.com/average-rent-market-
trends/us/az/ph...](https://www.rentcafe.com/average-rent-market-
trends/us/az/phoenix/)

~~~
jtreminio
I'm sorry, I must not have been clear enough. I meant, why someone from SF,
with perfect weather, would decide to move to Phoenix of all places.

Cheap land can be found in the vast majority of this country, Phoenix just
seems like the polar opposite of climate from SF.

~~~
conception
Wait... SF has perfect weather? I think you are excluding several months of
rain and the surprising cold of the bay.

~~~
askafriend
What rain are you talking about? In fact, we could use _more_ rain if
anything. I can't even remember the last time it rained.

------
BoysenberryPi
Tucson. We have the University of Arizona here but most of the city is plagued
with terrible sales positions and very few tech jobs. Tech jobs here are
limited to Raytheon, the university itself and the small IBM office out here.

~~~
axaxs
I agree. I think the entire southwest in general from El Paso to Tuscon to ABQ
is lacking in this area. It's what kept me from moving to an otherwise
beautiful area.

------
MPSimmons
Columbus, Ohio has the best quality of life I've ever experienced. I've lived
in NJ/NYC, Boston, and now SoCal. If I could work for my company while living
in Columbus, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

It actually reminds me a lot of Austin before people figured out that Austin
was cool.

~~~
plinkplink
I can second this, having worked in tech in Columbus for a number of years.

------
tomkinstinch
Rochester, NY. Very affordable real estate, many of the prime areas of the
city and suburbs are served by gigabit fiber, and between local universities
and industry a surprising amound of technical talent is present in the area:
some recently graduated, some the legacy of Kodak, Xerox, and other older
companies, and some from defense firms like Harris, ITT, etc. The quality of
life is very high with good restaurants, many local parks, festivals, and
strong cultural institutions (great indie cinema, and a world-class
orchestra). The costs are low, and it's still reasonably close to NYC and
Boston in distance and culture. Sure it has winter, but it also has <$200k
Victorian homes and tree-lined streets.

~~~
i_r7al
Oh god no. Rochester is not a good place to move to if you have no one. Social
life is very minimal and people are not that friendly.

------
haney
Chattanooga, city government and non profits are itching to be supportive,
small but enthusiastic engineers community, super high quality of life.

~~~
scarface74
The issue I have with TN is that it is still the Deep South. So is GA, but
Atlanta provides a refuge.

~~~
haney
Also, I was curious, and by the Wikipedia definition[1] TN doesn't qualify as
"deep south". We definitely still have our share of problems and there are
"southern" things that drive me crazy but it's not _quite_ as back woods as
many people believe.

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_South](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_South)

~~~
scarface74
I worked for a company based out of a TN so I was there a lot. I was the only
Black person who worked at the entire company of 200+ people. When another
Black guy I recommended was hired they always called me by his name. Someone
asked were we related.

It wasn’t bad, but I was there during the Presidential Election, it
was....interesting.

~~~
thatcat
There is a definite ultra conservative "culture fit" that is common in the
business culture of the region. Newer companies don't seem to be effected.

------
amongwhales
It seems like a mid sized Midwestern city could fit the bill. Grand Rapids, MI
or Des Moines, IA both seem like good fits to me. (Colleges, low unemployment,
spacious to support growth, ripe for more tech companies) I base this off the
thought to "help the city". So a large Midwestern city
(Chicago/Indianapolis/St Louis/Kansas City) would see little impact from as
few as 50 workers. Likewise in a West Coast city with Bay Area expats. And
East Coast with abundance of Gov't Contractor tech jobs. I don't know the
South as well so can't speak to any good candidates there. Also am biased
towards the Midwest.

~~~
nthot
I'd throw Omaha in that list as well. Three large to midsize universities
within 1 hour, and there are few options outside of banks or insurance
companies. The very few tech companies that I can think of in the area
basically have their pick of graduates from the three universities. Anyone
else has to look towards relocating if they don't want to work for one of the
aforementioned banks or insurance companies.

------
mindcrime
Wilmington, NC[1].

Wilmington is a smaller city (population around 112,000) and doesn't have a
great tech scene today - although it is growing. UNC-W has been doing a lot to
support the local entrepreneurial scene and a thriving startup scene is
emerging there. Even better, in Wilmington you have beaches all around:
Wrightsville Beach, Carolina Beach, and Kure Beach right next door, and then
you have Topsail Island to the north, and the Brunswick County Beaches (Long
Beach, Yaupon Beach, Holden Beach, Ocean Isle Beach, Sunset Beach) just to the
south. Calabash is 45 minutes away if you want real, honest-to-god, genuine
Calabash style seafood.

Anyway, back to Wilmington itself... it has the "college town" atmosphere
since UNC-W is right smack in the heart of town, so there's a thriving
nightlife, especially downtown around Front Street and the river area.

And if you do need to pop up to RTP for something, you're only ~2 hours away
via direct shot up I-40. Likewise, if you need to go to Barstow, CA for some
reason, you just jump on I-40 and drive 2,554 miles and you're there!

Disclaimer: I'm a little biased, as I was born in Wilmington, grew up near
Holden Beach, about 30 miles from Wilmington, and attended UNC-W. So
Wilmington is "home" to me in a sense. Yes, I left for the greener pastures of
RTP, but that was almost 20 years ago. If I were that age again, living in
Wilmington now, I might just stay.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilmington,_North_Carolina](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilmington,_North_Carolina)

------
callahanrts
Reno, NV is growing a lot. Primarily engineers go to IGT or Bally’s and work
with slot machines, but the tech scene overall is growing. We have a great CS
department at UNR and school is fairly cheap here. Taxes are low, but cost of
housing is rising. Some of that is because of Tesla and Google. I think a lot
of people are moving here from the bay because of housing costs.

Other nice aspects:

\- There are tons of breweries, restaurants, and bars littered through
downtown/midtown.

\- We have a ton of festivals that shut down the streets downtown (Italian
festival, chicken wing festival, hot august nights, brews and blues, and the
rib cookoff).

\- The Truckee River runs right through downtown and makes for some very
pretty views.

\- There’s a huge art scene and a ton of blank walls on buildings are being
covered in murals.

\- The weather is great all year round. Usually we hit 100s only for a week or
so in the summer. It snows here but it melts in a day because we get so much
sun.

\- We’re within an hour’s drive of Tahoe, other lakes, and a dozen ski
resorts.

------
sidlls
I'd think just about anywhere in the Midwest with the possible exceptions of
Chicago, Minneapolis/St. Paul and Madison, though the last two could
potentially use a tad more diversity.

~~~
PenguinCoder
I was actually going to say Madison, WI. Its a great city, and leans heavy
liberal. It is undersrerved by tech, but there are a lot of very smart people
and a few amazing tech jobs. Diversity is huge, and a great local
beer/restaurant scene too. Of course it's a college town, so a few negatives
if you're a little past that demographic. However, very affordable living
especially in the outskirts, even so far as Sun Prarier, Middleton, etc.

~~~
sidlls
I love Madison. Visited a couple of times for interviews and I could easily
see myself there if the opportunities weren't so limited.

------
Spooky23
Albany, NY.

Lots of technical people from semiconductor, IBM refugees and the various
companies supporting state government. Possible destination to woo people sick
of NYC and Boston.

------
gremlinsinc
Southern Utah (Cedar City or St. George)... The area is growing, it's a skip
and a beat to 'Silicon slopes' up north in Provo, and has decent weather. St.
George you could save on utilities in the winter as you wouldn't need heat,
but it gets hot in the summer. It's also 2 hours from vegas.

Cost of living is decent 4-5 bed homes run 200-300k. Rent is roughly 1200-1500
for a 3-4 bedroom townhome.

------
canvasduck
Colorado Springs. There's a handful of tech companies but they're actively
trying to court more. We just got a Formstack office recently. There are a
handful of grants available at the state level as well. The community is one
of the most open and giving I have worked in. Let me know if you want an intro
to people at the Economic Development Office or otherwise.

------
thabing
Champaign-Urbana, IL:

Top-notch university

Vibrant technology scene

Convenient to Chicago, Indianapolis, and St. Louis

Excellent cost-of-living

[http://champaignil.gov/choose-champaign/](http://champaignil.gov/choose-
champaign/)

[http://researchpark.illinois.edu/about](http://researchpark.illinois.edu/about)

[http://researchpark.illinois.edu/news/champaign-named-
fastes...](http://researchpark.illinois.edu/news/champaign-named-fastest-
growing-city-illinois)

------
lgregg
Houston is going through big changes, the local economy is diversifying from
oil into renewables and other sectors. There are quite a few maker spaces and
meetups around here. There are lots of interesting startups, lots have to do
with space, DoD, and energy, but there are other flavors too.

~~~
lgregg
I also heard an interesting fact that per-capita there are more software
engineers along the space coast in Florida than in SF.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Lots of defense contractors on both coasts in Florida.

------
vlucas
Oklahoma City, OK / Tulsa, OK (yes it's a real city, no we don't all ride
horses)

Decidedly not a "tech center", but we do have a very solid and thriving local
tech community: [https://www.techlahoma.org](https://www.techlahoma.org)

------
burfog
For "embedded Linux systems and software defined radio systems", Florida's
Space Coast (Brevard county) makes sense. If you can be competitive, you might
be able to swipe lots of people from Harris. They are in Melbourne (Florida!)
and Palm Bay.

------
coollikefire
Bloomington, Ind., would be helped by having your company there. Smaller than
Indianapolis, but has a big upside: university, growing tech scene (co-work
spaces, homegrown startups, Combine tech conference...), culturally more
interesting as a whole than any other Indiana city.

And of course you're located not too far from major airports/large cities ...
Indianapolis, Louisville, Cincinnati, St Louis, Chicago

------
madengr
Kansas City.

Great place to live, but tech dominated by a few large employers. Hell, I have
+20 years RF hardware design experience (VLF - mmWave) and know some GNU
Radio.

[https://github.com/madengr](https://github.com/madengr)

~~~
cookiecaper
Yes! Kansas City is great. Friendly people, cheap housing, and centrally
located so it's not more than a 4 hour flight no matter where you're coming
from in the continental US.

Hardware engineers are not too hard to find out there, Garmin, Allied Signal
and Honeywell are among the substantial employers. It's also Sprint's HQ, not
that that's much to go on these days. And KU is less than an hour out so
you'll have a consistently refreshed talent pool to draw form.

KC could really use a stronger tech scene -- it's had a few false starts but
nothing that's really stuck so far.

------
rocheio
Philadelphia is a really great city to live and work in my opinion. Good city
density but not overcrowded, walkable, affordable, good public transit,
diverse. Public schools aren't the best currently so many families with young
children do end up moving to the immediate suburbs where schools are some of
the best. Lots of colleges (UPenn, Drexel, Temple) to recruit from as you
expand.

I'm not sure Philly would rank highest on the "could be helped" aspect since
it has a decent business sector already, but the tech (especially startup)
scene is just getting started compared to the tons of healthcare and finance
firms.

------
danjoc
Detroit is such a great city. Housing is insanely cheap. Great for sports.
Great lakes. Close to Canada so you can get cheap meds. You should consider
it. They're really hungry for tech talent, and it's a swing state.

------
brudgers
If I were to start a technical company, I'd strongly consider Huntsville,
Alabama. There's a large workforce of engineers due to NASA, Redstone Arsenal,
and even further back TVA. For something like SDR and embedded, its pluck full
of that kind of talent.

Within a thirty mile radius of Huntsville, you can find a small town that
would welcome such a firm. A lot of the Huntsville workforce already has
meaningful commutes. Some of it just because of congestion. Some because they
already live in the boondocks. That was always part of the attraction in the
early days of NASA.

------
cm2012
Queens, NYC, could use some love. Commutable from Manhattan and easily from
Long Island (much less traffic by both ways), and the most diverse place in
the world with great food.

~~~
humanrebar
Queens could also use better cross-town public transportation. It can take
hours just to get to the other side of queens if you're taking public
transportation. You _can_ drive in Queens, but parking will either be hundreds
of bucks a month or very time consuming.

------
imsofuture
The entire Mountain West. Bozeman has a pretty decent, and growing tech scene.
Missoula is okay (shoutout Submittable and a few others).

~~~
amongwhales
This is interesting. I feel like they could play a role like Boise with Micron
and the population boom. And support from the University as well.

~~~
imsofuture
Yeah, Boise is already exploding hence I didn't mention it (not familiar with
the tech scene there, but I think it's one of the fastest growing cities in
the country).

------
juli1pb
Pittsburgh, PA

~~~
clintonc
It would be hard to call Pittsburgh underserved -- Google, Amazon, and Uber
are all there.

------
leerob
Des Moines, IA: [https://www.fastcompany.com/3056081/why-i-based-my-tech-
comp...](https://www.fastcompany.com/3056081/why-i-based-my-tech-company-in-
the-middle-of-iowa)

------
ruffrey
Sacramento

~~~
godot
Extremely underrated answer, and city. Sacramento IMO has the perfect balance
of a nice summer (I love 80-90F temperature; yes I know it gets to 100+ on
many days too) with good sunshine and not miserable fog, a little bit cold
winter but not have to shovel snow (2 hours to Tahoe for snow), close enough
to the SF Bay if you ever need to go there (an hour drive), good engineering
talent (UC Davis graduates) and even a few existing tech/engineering companies
to poach talent from (Intel etc.). House market is just beginning to get crazy
but still very affordable especially if you compare it to SF Bay.

------
ggm
If you want to test SDR, you want to be within driving distance of somewhere
with low density of people to reduce background RF noise. I once visited a
very odd bespoke WiFi Antenna maker, he lived out the back of beyond so he
could do RF measurement on his wire thingummyjigs.

So I'd be chosing a mid-west population centre with good roads into the
cornfields

------
toomuchtodo
Tampa, FL

~~~
spaceandthyme
Agreed. Massive investment in the downtown area (there will be something like
15 cranes near downtown in the next year), great activities nearby, a low cost
of living, and a (small) but growing tech scene.

Also home to one of the best rated airports in the US.

------
kapauldo
Buffalo is a undergoing a downtown Renaissance and has cheap real estate and a
lot of technical talent being under utilized by banking Java applications.
Come here you'll get great talent, great food, great culture, nys tax breaks,
cheap real estate.

