
Three cities in Colorado in top ten leading destinations for U.S. brightest - SQL2219
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-10/the-smartest-americans-are-heading-west-as-computer-chips-replace-cow-chips
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sixbrx
Meh - Where I'm employed, in my "flyover state", I get to use the technologies
that I like, some of which aren't very mainstream, and also I really like the
developers I work with.

Not arguing the money aspect, but there are other priorities as well, and I'm
a bit tired of the assumption that money trumps all, always. So go ahead and
think your smarter based on where you move, and I'll just keep enjoying where
I'm at...

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hn_user2
I think you just argued against a straw man. The article didn't even really
talk about salaries. This is about where people are moving from and to.

This is about tracking "business formation as well as employment and education
in the sciences, technology, engineering and mathematics"

There was no call to move there, or statement that they are better places. But
surely there is something interesting and possibly something to learn about by
looking at migrations of people, especially STEM companies and employees.

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blackguardx
Most people don't realize that Boulder is as small as it is. It has a
population of 100k that is growing at 1% per year. 60k people commute into
Boulder everyday (many from other cities in the county) and this number is
growing much more rapidly.

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bproven
Yeah - They really need to get that rail built along 36. I hate to say it but
I hope CO isn't making the same short sighted mistake that CA made. The
traffic hell and housing hell is on the horizon :(

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oh_sigh
They'll need to strongarm BNSF, which is trying to charge egregious fees for
passage rights on their railways. It really gets my goat that the government
is the one that gave the railways to BNSF for basically free in the first
place.

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AnimalMuppet
Gave the railways to BNSF for basically free? I presume you're talking about
the land grants back in the 19th Century; nothing else I can think of counts
as "giving for free". Even then, though, the (Federal) government gave the
railroads land for the track, plus blocks of land on the side. They _didn 't_
give them rail, much less an already-built railroad. True, the railroads were
able to sell the land off to the side for money. But the government also
required the railroads to carry the US Mail for less than cost. That continued
until World War II, when the Federal government, desperate for additional
money to fight the war, allowed the railroads to buy their way out of the
obligation. That's hardly "for basically free" \- it's an expense for the next
70 years, with a balloon payment at the end.

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geoffreyhale
There's lots of discussion of salary vs cost of living. Is there an economics
term for this ratio?

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tabeth
Purchasing power, more or less.

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driverdan
Besides snow (assuming you don't like it), what are Colorado's negatives? Both
the state in general and the cities mentioned.

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pweissbrod
Coming from a small town in northeast I found lots of 'keeping up with the
joneses' experiences. Important to display your wealth/fitness but in a way
that youre not trying to display it. I found the subtleties exhausting. It was
refreshing to return to a small town. Your experience may vary.

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tspike
Yep. Growing up in an unremarkable Denver suburb, it was amusing moving to
Boulder for college to see newcomers try to out-Colorado each other.

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crazy1van
This entire article hinges on the "Bloomberg Brain Concentration Index", which
does not seem to be defined.

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SQL2219
How smart are they if they trade a 20% increase in pay for a 100% increase in
cost of living?

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adventured
Your setup premise is false. The pay increase is far beyond 20%.

1) The median household income in Denver CO is $64,000. That's around 77%
higher than in Altoona PA. Two locations specifically referenced in the
article.

2) The opportunities that pay a lot more than that gap, do not exist to begin
with in Altoona. Software, Internet, misc engineer jobs - the locations that
people are fleeing from are death zones economically. Denver and Boulder are
quasi boom cities; the Altoona's are the exact opposite; that means, over the
next ten years your income will very likely expand nicely in those CO
locations, whereas you're very unlikely to see meaningful improvement in
Altoona.

3) Lifestyle is important for most people and likely that much more so for
people willing to move across the country for better opportunities. Boulder
and Denver are both incredible by comparison to Altoona PA, when it comes to
lifestyle upgrade.

To answer your question, the people desperately fleeing from all those dying
economic zones, seeking a vastly superior future, are extremely smart indeed.

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bluejellybean
Number 3 is really massive and a large reason I picked Denver over the valley.
I can wake up everyday, hike a 14er for the sunrise, and be back in the city
for work. If you're into mountaineering or an outdoor lifestyle, the cost of
living is easily worth it.. The great thing is what you bring up though, the
cost of living isn't actually that large when wages are sky-high for techies.
I live 3 blocks from my office and I don't have to spend thousands a month for
some shitty studio 30 minutes away.

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tspike
> hike a 14er for the sunrise and be back in the city for work

Definitely not Longs. I guess you could drive to the top of Evans or Pikes
Peak :)

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bluejellybean
Definitely Longs! It's only an hour and a half out.. Getting back though...
the traffic just gets brutal.

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tspike
It's a 10+ hour climb though? I'm good with a quick jaunt up Sanitas before
work haha- you're (respectfully) nuts!

