
Places in America that pay people to move there - tiredwired
http://www.sfgate.com/living/article/9-places-America-pay-you-to-move-12342873.php
======
voltagex_
Tribune, Kansas - seems to be DSL or cable, <=50 megabit (why does no one
mention upstream speed?)

Marne, Iowa - Marne Elk Horne does fibre, up to 200/5 (hope you never want to
upload a YouTube video!), but it'll cost you.

Curtis, Nebraska - DSL? Because of regulation:
[https://www.fiberconnect.org/page/nebraska-137](https://www.fiberconnect.org/page/nebraska-137)

Harmony, Minnesota -
[http://www.broadbandsearch.net/service/minnesota/harmony](http://www.broadbandsearch.net/service/minnesota/harmony)
says Centurylink has fibre, but the main game in town appears to be fixed
wireless.

Baltimore, Maryland - Xfinity in some areas, but seems like it's pretty bad?
2015 - [http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/technology/bs-md-ci-
bro...](http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/technology/bs-md-ci-broadband-
expansion-20151013-story.html)

New Haven, Connecticut - [https://broadbandnow.com/Connecticut/New-
Haven](https://broadbandnow.com/Connecticut/New-Haven) says they've got fibre,
but another source says it's not in many places at all. Also, how do you get
115 megabit downstream on DSL?

Alaska - Initially I laughed, but it's okay.
[https://broadbandnow.com/Alaska](https://broadbandnow.com/Alaska)

Colorado - apparently you want to be in either Denver or Phillips:
[https://broadbandnow.com/Colorado](https://broadbandnow.com/Colorado)

Wyoming -
[https://broadbandnow.com/Wyoming](https://broadbandnow.com/Wyoming). Teton,
maybe?

I'm not from the US, please correct me.

~~~
olalonde
> I'm not from the US, please correct me.

Surprisingly, San Francisco has pretty shitty Internet too and it's one of the
most expensive place to live in the US.

~~~
gleenn
I know someone who gets 800Mb/s with Sonic fiber now for less $$ than Comcast.
So happy for them to be off Comcast too. Can't wait for Sonic to cover me and
I think they were only a few blocks away last I checked.

------
pnathan
Interesting.

The thing that is most toxic about long-term survival in small towns is the
lack of many jobs. No jobs, no mortgage payment, no point.

Although if I was up for relocation right now, I'd look at Colorado
(Denver/Boulder) or Baltimore...

~~~
hirsin
I think this is a case of standing on the mountain (SF) and everything else
looking like a molehill. Yes, there are a thousand jobs opening a day in SF,
but there are tens of thousands of applicants.

I was recently in Oklahoma City for a JS conference (ThunderPlains), and there
was no shortage of jobs. There was a shortage of devs though - the folks there
felt very comfortable moving or losing jobs because there might only be a
dozen jobs opening a day, but there were almost zero people applying.

~~~
oh-kumudo
Jobs people compete to get are good jobs. The opposite is probably true as
well.

For those many years, one valuable lesson I learnt is, being a sheep and
following other people, in a lot of cases, aren't optimal, but ROI is not bad.
Being cynical might make oneself seem smart and level headed, but you can also
miss valuable opportunity. Don't assume the crowd know the best, but when
there are a lot of people, that often indicates it is where the money is at.

~~~
pnathan
I've learned that too. A careful examination might reveal other opportunities,
but the swarm of people trying to optimize and coming to similar conclusions
suggests that it's at _least_ a local maxima within a fairly decently sized
problem space.

------
dagw
Norway does something similar. If you're willing to move to the northern parts
of northern Norway they will write off a chunk of your student loan each year
plus give you pretty decent tax reduction on your income tax.

~~~
arethuza
You could argue that the UK does something similar - if you are from Scotland
and go to a Scottish university then no fees (~£9K a year).

~~~
dagw
The difference is that this doesn't cause any incentive to stay in Scotland
after your education nor for anybody from the rest of the UK to move to
Scotland after their education.

~~~
arethuza
That is true - although being of an age where I have kids a university I do
know people who have stayed in Scotland because they have multiple kids
wanting to go to university.

And here is a discussion about someone considering moving to Scotland because
of the fees situation:

[https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/1698260...](https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/1698260-to-
move-to-Scotland-for-the-free-University-places)

~~~
dagw
The 'problem' with this policy is that it cannot be used to direct people to
the parts of Scotland where they 'need' people the most. In the Norwegian
approach the government draws up a list of counties and says you have to move
to one of the counties to get the benefits, and they can update that list as
the situation changes.

Of course, reasonable people can certainly disagree on whether or not this is
something the government should be involved in at all.

~~~
pjc50
More specifically, there's a problem with recruitment of GPs and other public
service professionals to remote communities in Scotland.

Mind you, there's a general GP and NHS recruitment crisis already which has
been compounded by Brexit uncertainty.

~~~
dagw
Indeed and that is that rationale used by the Norwegian government. The
counter argument is that if the only way to have a viable remote community
somewhere is for the government to heavily subsides people to live there then
perhaps you shouldn't have a remote community there.

Personally I'm rather conflicted about which side of the debate I come down
on.

------
rpastuszak
Does anyone know about a similar list for Europe?

~~~
pjc50
Stoke-on-Trent will sell you a house for £1 _and_ lend you the money to fix
it: [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/council-
plan...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/council-plans-to-
sell-empty-homes-for-1-to-kickstart-local-economy-a6778411.html)

The globalisation history there is that the pottery industry went away, to
China. But that's an industry that the UK and the Netherlands took away from
China in the first place in the 1700s.

------
sdrothrock
Japan does this as well, with some places even going so far as to offer
stipends for children and free rent.

~~~
csdreamer7
Would these areas welcome Americans?

~~~
stevenwoo
I thought Japan doesn't really want immigrants. This is an opinion piece but
it jives with other things I've read over the years
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2010/03...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2010/03/12/AR2010031201790.html) Isn't this part of the
reason they are trying to make robots that can take care of their aging
population - they don't want to have immigrants come in and do it.

~~~
mattm
Agree with all the points sdrothrock made. I lived in Japan for 5 years first
via working holiday visa and then through a spousal visa after marrying my
wife who is Japanese. After getting married, all I needed to do was take the
marriage certificate to the immigration office and was pretty much instantly
approved for a 3 year visa. I guess the train of thought is "Well, if one of
our own approves of you, that's good enough for us."

Getting PR in Japan is pretty much just a matter of having lived there for 5
years and not have broken any laws.

Compare that to when my wife immigrated to Canada. Despite her speaking
English, coming from an economically developed country, having a University
degree and years of professional work experience we still needed to wait for
over a year and it cost $2000 for everything involved.

If you want to work and live in Japan, legally speaking, it's incredibly easy.
The difficulty of integrating into society is the tough part. Even with a
fluent grasp of the language, you'll always be an outsider.

To say "Japan doesn't really want immigrants" is kind of accurate though.
Japan relies on its closer culture to keep immigration low even though it may
be more subconsciously and not a formal government policy.

~~~
sdrothrock
> After getting married, all I needed to do was take the marriage certificate
> to the immigration office and was pretty much instantly approved for a 3
> year visa.

Yeah, this is the part I always think of when I hear people here grousing
about standing in line to submit visa paperwork or whatever. It's annoying to
waste a day at immigration, but I know people in America where one partner is
an American citizen and the other is an immigrant, but they've been watched
and scrutinized and interviewed for years and years before the immigrant
partner could get a green card. It's pretty ridiculous.

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ketsa
Would they welcome Europeans?

~~~
lithos
If you have rarer skills maybe. Often times you won't have competition for
positions, and often times the parent company will be a multinational so you
will have some support to get paperwork through (maybe with some delay at the
lower levels). Some of the immigration systems are literally set up to make
rural areas have some extra leeway or less competition for foreign workers.

For IT administering old, rare, industrial, and strange technology.

For mechanical skillS heavy equipment repair, tool and die cast, quarry and
lumber work, or similar.

------
susane123
It is true that San Francisco is becoming more expensive day to day.

