

If Silicon Valley Moved to New York - thesyndicate
http://bhargreaves.com/2010/04/silicon-valley-moves-york/

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grellas
The dicey assumption made in this piece is that most of the people who work in
major Silicon Valley companies actually live in San Francisco.

I wouldn't know any statistics but, in general, Silicon Valley is much more
centered in the South Bay and than it is in San Francisco and those who work
at Adobe, Sun, Apple, Oracle, etc. would normally live either on the Peninsula
or in the San Jose area.

Just to take Apple as an example, in general, it is pretty crazy for the
thousands of people who work in Cupertino (which is immediately adjacent to
San Jose and is some 50 miles from most points in San Francisco) to live
somewhere other than the South Bay or at least the Peninsula - from which
locations the commutes would be pretty modest (still likely 20 minutes or more
for most people but not the hour-plus it would be from the City).

Some people undoubtedly live in San Francisco while working at Apple simply
because they like the City so much and prefer to live there in spite of the
long commute. But these would likely be unusual exceptions and not the rule.

~~~
kneath
I think you'd be wise to talk to a lot of people that work at these companies.
A _huge_ portion of Apple/Yahoo/Google employees live in the city or some
equally far-away place in the East Bay. Each of these companies (and others)
send in free buses with Wi-Fi to various parts of the city several times a
day.

So sure, they're "commuting" — but really they just walk a couple of blocks,
hop on board a free bus and start working during their commute.

~~~
babycakes
Among my team within Google, the people with kids live in the South or East
Bay. Those without live in San Francisco. The only ones I know living on the
peninsula just moved to the area and haven't migrated to the extremes, yet.

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carterac
Great post. I'm reprinting this from my comment on the blog because I hope
more HN peeps who are making the NYC/SV choice read this:

Having recently moved from SV to NYC, I love how much more quickly I can get
to startup offices and events. Even better, when I do travel, I do it by
train. This means I don't need to pay for a car or car insurance, and it means
that I can read my book while on the subway. In Silicon Valley, I couldn't
afford a car and had to bike everywhere or be at the mercy of the Caltrain...
a _very_ bad thing at 2:30am in San Francisco, I can tell you.

Also, Manhattan rent can be expensive (although the LES is not much worse than
Palo Alto btw), but living in Harlem, Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx, or even NJ
and Connecticut is much cheaper and, as the map above shows, adds only minutes
to your commute time.

Also, after working hard on a startup, sometimes it's nice to play hard too.
Bars and clubs that close at 4am, and being able to get home by cab, can make
that part of your lifestyle a lot easier.

~~~
usaar333
There are definitely a lot of upsides to NYC living, especially if nightlife
is your favorite thing (and you have the cash for it).

I personally have spent a lot of time in NY (my gf lives there), but I
definitely prefer SF (or anywhere in the bay area):

-NYC rents are pricier. SF is at least $300/month cheaper for a similar distance from downtown, which easily covers the price of a car (I'm one of those who really values the convenience one gives)

-SF has much better weather. I find NYC way too cold in the winter and way too hot in the summer

-SF wins on the outdoors - hiking and mountain biking are <15 minute drive away, but very hard to access in NYC (esp. without a car).

-NYC wins on mass transit, though often, I found it difficult to say, work on a laptop there due to overcrowding - BART/Caltrain typically have more seats available.

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natrius
In Austin, I can affordably live in the middle of the city and bike to work,
and the specter of having to move to the suburbs to afford hypothetical
children isn't there since the public schools are decent. The far fewer
walkable neighborhoods make me sad and the summers are probably trying for
non-native Texans, but considering the things most people optimize for when
choosing a city, it isn't surprising that so many people are moving here.

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jrockway
That's why I've never understood the whole Silicon Valley thing. Who wants to
go to the suburbs!?

~~~
babycakes
> Who wants to go to the suburbs!?

People who like space between them and their sociopathic neighbors?

I had a passive-aggressive downstairs neighbor who would never tell me if I
was disturbing her; she went straight to the apartment office every time. When
I tried to ask what was disturbing her, she wouldn't answer the door. For the
life of me, I never figured out what she was complaining about. I played my
guitar amp with headphones and never turned the TV beyond a reasonable volume,
but nobody ever listens to the person who is accused of being loud, especially
when the person complaining is a single mom with baby in tow. After suffering
the tyranny of my downstairs neighbor and threats of fines or eviction for
noise violations, I decided to move into a house in west San Jose.

I've lived in large cities and generally enjoyed the convenience, but that
apartment was my last. Here, I don't need to wear headphones to play my
guitar. I can actually use my stereo speakers when watching movies. When
friends come over to play board games on a Saturday afternoon, I don't have to
quiet them down when something exciting happens. I can barbecue in my back
yard during the summer, and if I feel like hanging picture frames at 2:30 AM,
nobody else cares.

The suburbs obviously aren't for everybody, but they work for me.

~~~
jrockway
Insulation has dramatically improved since you lived in the city. I live in a
building with ~300 units, and when I am in my unit I am under the impression
that I have the building to myself. I have never heard anything.

Glad to know I'm not the only one who wants to hang pictures at 2:30. I just
do it, and if someone asks me to stop, I will. But nobody has ever asked.

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hristov
New York is great, and the high density is very invigorating, but there are
problems. Number one among them is that NY is just too expensive. It is
impossible to bootstrap anything there. There are just too many greedy
landlords.

Even when the banking industry collapsed rents did not go down significantly.

~~~
werk
The kinds of people who work in startups are probably living in cheaper
neighborhoods and finding creative ways to make their dollars go further. As
pg has commented, nerds tend to be rather frugal. Also, salaries are high
equivalent to the higher rents, so it all evens out in the end. Calling NY
expensive is misleading. It _can_ be expensive. But it can also be inexpensive
if that's your goal.

~~~
_delirium
Are salaries actually commensurately higher? As far as I can tell, typical
engineering pay in NYC is about the same as typical engineering pay in
California.

~~~
kmak
Depends on what you do. Finance jobs (they hire people with engineering
degrees) will typically pay better than an engineering job.

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tristan_juricek
One thing to keep in mind when doing these sorts of comparisons as well are
the small lifestyle changes that kick in when you live in a really urban
place. Before, I usually bought about a weeks worth of groceries - go to the
market, load up the trunk. Now, I only buy for dinner or maybe the next couple
of meals.

The whole infrastructure of CA still seems suburban, more driven by mindset
and culture.

Comparing the convenience of the day-to-day things would be very interesting,
but I'm not entirely sure how one would do this outside of just "cost
analysis", which seems pretty shallow.

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techiferous
Nice post! But if you want to play the startup city commute game, Cambridge,
MA wins. I'm working on-site with two clients right now, both in my
neighborhood (I walk).

(Note: Boston, MA loses, though. Commuting from the 'burbs sucks.)

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PG-13
This reads like yet another post demonstrating the NYC tech crowd's massive
inferiority complex.

~~~
mturmon
Or alternatively, the reflexive need of some to transpose everything into NY
terms to "understand" it.

[http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2007/02/07/72-the-world-
as-...](http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2007/02/07/72-the-world-as-seen-from-
new-yorks-9th-avenue/)

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gxs
Now that New Yorkers have fucked themselves with their bread and butter (i.e.
finance), they are looking at the next best thing: technology startups. I
can't say I blame them, but I find it quite annoying.

