Glad to see two great Texas cities in the top ten for the 35+ cohort. Both SA and Houston have been great cities for me, and the other tech workers I know. SA is a beautiful city with lots of great jobs in the security and networking industries, and the economy in Houston continues to rage on, with low cost of living. (It's also worth noting, that most people would find the big population centers in TX a lot more liberal and diverse than they think they are.)
Houston's a great buy compared to Silicon Valley, but I wouldn't say its cost of living is low on a national scale at all. It's still drastically more expensive than most American cities (it's the 4th largest, after all). Most inner-loop neighborhoods are filled with million dollar homes, most of which are not mansions.
Don't get me wrong, I love Houston. But it's not just a sea of cheap McMansions. There are a lot of very highly paid oil executives, corporate attorneys, and physicians (Texas Medical Center) who can easily afford a $1M+ home so the urban core of the city is really transforming into a much more expensive and exclusive area.
I see the same thing happening in Dallas, albeit with healthcare professionals, lawyers, and executives. The urban core is still prohibitively expensive for many, especially those with families.
You really have to get out into the suburbs before housing becomes more approachable. But then you have to add commutes into the city to find interesting work with little to no public transit options.
All the cities in Texas have terrible public transportation with little to no plans to improve it. We're basically headed down the same road as California in this respect which is sad because our regulatory environment is supposedly much better.
Yeah, I guess I'm not counting the "buying" of a house as much towards CoL, renting is still fairly inexpensive, assuming you don't want a "luxury apartment," but gas prices (still paying less than $3/gal in my neighborhood), food prices, utilities (let's not talk about the water bill!) & etc. "as compared to other major cities."
That last part is important =) You'll live a lot cheaper in Luling than Houston, but outside of great barbecue, there isn't much going on there.
The inner loop is really expensive for housing stock, definitely, and even it has nothing on the memorial villages! That being said, the whole east side is still pretty cheap. The same house that would cost you $500k in the Heights can be bought for $250k in Eastwood/Idylwood.
Well, isn't that kind-of sad. Basically what I read into this is that when you need to provide for more than yourself, good luck being able to afford space in a desirable location. Off to riverside or sacramento for you.
Exactly. Once you have kids, "Having a cool bar with craft brews nearby" and "Fun concerts" pale in comparison to "Having a public school nearby that actually educates kids."
I think this is much more important than rental prices.
Proper planning and policy would mean that people wouldn't have to make this decision.
Funding schools based off of local property values creates a rich-get-richer scheme for school quality. It also encourages people to sprawl, which is what we don't want to encourage if we want vibrant, walkable environments. If every student in America had the same funding (cost of living adjusted) we wouldn't have as many failing schools or encourage people to flee the city when they have a kid.
School funding is a red herring. In the Washington Metro area, D.C. and Baltimore spend $19k/year and $15k/year per pupil, versus $13k/year for Fairfax County. Yet, any parent would rather send their kids to Fairfax County public schools rather than D.C. or Baltimore public schools.
What encourages people to flee the city when they have a kid is that urban liberals are incredibly hostile to the idea of allowing school boundaries to be drawn along socioeconomic lines. Middle class parents don't just want to send their kids to schools that are adequately funded (as schools in most major cities certainly are), but to schools where the other kids are from families like themselves. They don't want their kids being influenced by kids whose dads are in jail for drug dealing. That's the politically-incorrect reality of parenthood. They can get this in the suburbs, but cities make it extremely difficult and expensive to do this.
For example, until recently San Francisco had this wonderful (from a social progress point of view), but terrible (from a parenting and urbanism point of view), policy of not having "home" schools based on geographic location, but incorporating some element of lottery selection. The net result was that middle and upper class people couldn't pick their schools by moving to a particular neighborhood. Of course, this created a tremendous incentive to just leave the city, and even ultra-liberal san francisco was recently forced to end the policy.
The problem is that school policy has been hijacked by teachers, so the debate always revolves around "more money." But throwing lots of money at a school where 75% of kids don't have a father in their lives isn't going to help those kids learn. Throwing money at things like Section 8, which might let those families move to suburbs where they can go to a school where they aren't surrounded by that culture, that could really push forward the cause of social progress.
> urban liberals are incredibly hostile to the idea of allowing school boundaries to be drawn along socioeconomic lines.
In cased you missed it, segregation is bad. It was bad 50 years ago and it is bad now. Parents that are trying to bring it back under they guise of 'think of the children' absolutely should be smacked down.
Our "integrationist" school policies don't remedy segregation, they create more of it. When you tell middle class parents that their only public school options in the city involve schools where 90% of kids are low-income, they just opt out of the public school system, send their kids to private schools, or move to the suburbs. That's the story of the last 30-40 years in American cities.
One way or the other, middle class people will send their kids to schools with the kids of other middle class people. The question is whether those schools will be in suburbia, or will be allowed to exist in the cities. It's almost certainly better for everyone involved if they're allowed to exist in the cities.
You're describing what you think should be; rayiner is describing what is. The two often have rather less correlation or causation than you might like. Sarcasm certainly has very little power to change what is.
Personally, call me an engineer, but step one is always identify the problem. If you think this is a modern-day form of segregation, you need to let yourself admit it is happening, and thereby identify the problem. Getting angry at people pointing it out and refusing to believe it is merely a way of guaranteeing you'll have no impact. Skipping over step one does not make problems go away.
(Or you could prove rayiner wrong. I suspect that's not really a feasible road here. Social policies are inevitably clumsy things aimed at thousands or millions; motivated individuals can often dodge around them quite well, and in this case, they are quite motivated.)
It's cutting off your nose to spite your face. You're saying it's better for middle class families to just head out to the suburbs, where their kids will really be assured of never having to interact with poor people as human beings, than for them to live in the same city and pay into the same tax base while allowing wealthier neighborhoods to have their own local schools.
At least if middle class families live in the city, there is some hope of gradual integration. Through measures like Section 8, which often pays for low-income families to live in nicer neighborhoods, urban schools in wealthier areas can be 10-20% low-income. Parents will tolerate that. It's the 80-90% low-income schools, which make up the vast majority of urban schools, that they won't tolerate.
> You're saying it's better for middle class families to just head out to the suburbs
No I'm not. People will move (if they can or want to) for many reasons. That is not a reason to make sure you never deal with 'the undesirables' just because one of those reasons is the parents bigotry.
> At least if middle class families live in the city, there is some hope of gradual integration.
"Bigotry" is not sending your kids to a school because it has some low income students.
Not sending your kids to a school that's 80-90% low-income is a rational choice. See: http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/cps-alternatives-suburb... ("On the Program for International Student Assessment in 2009, U.S. schools with small proportions of low-income students did as well as schools anywhere in the world—while American schools whose enrollments were more than 75 percent low-income scored like schools in developing countries.", "Most important, many studies have also highlighted the importance of 'peer effects' in schools. They've shown that kids benefit from classmates whose parents have stimulated them cognitively from an early age, and who have helped them develop self-control and other social skills—the kind of parenting more common in middle-class homes than in poor homes.").
But you're totally right. Parental education, parental economic circumstances, the prevalence of two-parent households, etc, those aren't the important things when it comes to education. What really matters is that "every student in America ha[s] the same funding." That's why Chicago Public Schools and Fairfax County Public Schools both spend about $13,000/year per pupil, and have almost identical results to show for it...
My mom grew up in Silicon Valley before it was Silicon Valley, in the days of "bussing". Surprise surprise, dumping a bunch of kids of different backgrounds, classes, and races together in the same school doesn't magically make them friends. They segregated themselves.
It's largely a failure of American urban planning combined with the implications of American welfare policy.
On the urban planning side, American cities spend huge amounts of time and effort preventing the demolition of old housing and the construction of housing. This drives up the price of housing.
On the welfare policy side, American states corral all their poor people into their large cities. In Manhattan, riverfront property might be dedicated either to expensive condos (upper west side), or public housing (lower east side). The suburbs, for their part, go to great lengths to prevent the introduction of services for lower-income people.
In most cities, #2 is a bigger problem than #1. If you're willing to compromise on space, living in the suburbs often isn't dramatically cheaper. In theory, getting a 1,500 square foot house would be cheaper in the suburbs versus the city, but suburban municipalities tend to discourage the construction of smaller houses, so often the choice is between 1,500 square feet in the city, or 3,000 square feet in the suburbs, at not altogether dissimilar prices factoring in the cost of commuting and cars.
The biggest problem is schools. In most places, you have to pay for public schools even if you send your kid to private school. And public schools in cities are almost uniformly terrible, not because public schools in cities must intrinsically be terrible, but because as a result of #2, urban school districts are 90%+ low-income. Putting a bunch of poor kids all together in the same school is not a recipe for success. People like to paint it as a funding problem, but its a socioeconomic demographics problem. In Illinois, schools inside Chicago spend almost 40% more per student than schools outside Chicago, but perform far below those outside the city.
Now of course, even the most progressive parents aren't willing to send their children to schools where 90% of the kids come from welfare homes, disproportionately don't have fathers, etc. And they don't want to pay $10,000 per year (for parochial schools), or $20,000+ (for non-religious schools) to send their kids to private schools. So they move to the suburbs, where they can send their kids to socioeconomically homogenous public schools, and take advantage of the services for which they're paying for anyway.
I think the confluence of these factors is really unfortunate, and has an unfortunate impact on American families. First, I think it discourages people who might want kids from having kids. Second, it robs kids of the wonderfully enriching experience of living in cities, in close proximity to other people.
There is a confluence of factors, I think: rigid zoning laws that prevent mixed-use neighbourhoods, the car-orientedness of recent construction (think cul-de-sac-neighbourhoods with one single outlet to a major highway), and of course the fact that once you have kids you are not supposed to have a social life any longer.
American town planning has been a disaster since time immemorial.
Not of nature, but of economics. For instance, you can absolutely have both if you are wealthy enough to afford private school or the rent / price premiums in neighborhoods with both good schools and trendy bars.
Trade-offs. You have limited $$; would you rather live in the neighborhood with excellent schools and no bar scene, or the neighborhood with good schools and a good bar scene?
The neighborhoods with excellent schools and excellent bar scenes exist, but you and I mere mortals are priced out of them.
A person's priorities in life just change. I in no way ascribe to the "helicopter parent" approach to raising kids, but having kids changed me in fundamental ways that cause my outlook on life to change in a manner that often surprises me. Case in point: I used to be a movie buff. I loved watching movies. Now, I have the ultimate setup for watching movies and it doesn't even interest me. I have other things (not even necessarily always spending time with my toddlers) that I would rather spend 2.5+ hours doing (getting sleep being a prime contender).
Oh, I kind of agree; but I also think that there's value in remaining yourself too, and not giving up everything for your kids. Not least because I think it can help your relationship with the person with whom you started the family in the first place.
I just wish it was possible to live in a neighborhood which has good schools, nice neighborhood kids who you can trust to babysit, combined with somewhere within walking distance that's worth going to when you've got a sitter.
You can remain yourself, but your priorities shift. Even with restaurants, you look for those that are stroller friendly and have enough other kids that you don't feel bad when lunch winds up on the floor.
The problem with schools is that it is a very large entrenched organization, with lots of special interests (politicians, teachers, administration, etc) who don't want to give up monopoly power. The central organizations suck in a lot of money, and don't improve quality. There are ways to fight this (more charters, close bad schools, etc) but it's very hard and requires a lot of different folks in government willing to fight special interests.
Boulder and Austin fit the bill for having both. DC, not so much (in the education realm, but with new charter schools popping up in DC, the situation is getting better).
The article is looking at the cohort data assuming that the leading edge of the Millennial cohort (at least, according to this way of divvying up the generations; I've heard of others) who are currently at the oldest in the early 30s will act like the people who are in the mid-30s: looking to settle down, raise families, find some place cheaper to live, etc.
Is that assumption actually true? What do you guys think?
If millenials go child-free in large numbers, they would be the first American generation to do so. There may be precedents in places like modern Japan, but the culture in Japan is so different that I am hesitant to extrapolate from that data point.
Young people, it should be expected, tend to be less sensitive to ultra-high rents
Is this really true? I was hyper-sensitive to rent just out of school. Every $100/month difference meant something I would have to write out of my life. Perhaps it's more true that very young people don't mind cramming 6 people in a house or apartment meant for 3.
This doesn't discount the conclusion, though of older people leaving cities like NY, but I think that's more about poor educational options for kids, rather than higher sensitivity to rent.
I think it has more to do with the fact that if you're young, unmarried, with no dependents, you don't need much more than a studio or 1br apartment. You don't need to be zoned to decent schools or pay for private school and day care. You don't need a vehicle suitable for family trips (or, in some cases, you may not need a vehicle at all). Consequently, if you have a high-paying job, you have a lot more breathing room to pay more on rent.
Also important, when you are young and unencumbered, there's not much stopping you from moving every year. So what if rent is going to be a little high this year? Just move somewhere cheaper next year if it becomes a problem.
I suspect there are some confounding factors here. Most people I know would rather rent for $1000/month and have a good job in the city than rent for $300/month in a small town where nobody's hiring.
You left out the option where the person has a good job yet still lives in the small town.
I'm not sure why, but some companies are willing to waste a lot of their revenues fighting an increased cost of living in some places, just for the prestige of the address.
Apple has enough money in the bank to make their own Celebration, Florida, like Disney did. Why buy expensive space in someone else's crummy old city, when you can buy land cheaply, build your own town, and sell off the pieces at much higher prices?
We can't really measure how important something is in absolute terms, only the decisions people make. There's usually a trade-off between rent and the catch-all 'amenities', and most would agree that young people are much more sensitive to these amenities.
Also, young people are much more open to not having cars.
When you realize that, in walking cities with "ultra-high" rents, you can subtract the cost of car+gas+insurance+parking (and just tack back on the cost of your MetroCard), it's a different way of thinking about it.
It is true for me. I got out of school (where I had to work my way through, no loans from the Gov due to my parent's income level) and I was finished scrimping and scraping. $55k a year back then was a dream and where I lived was the most important thing to me.
I grew up there, and while I haven't lived there for some time:
* Eugene is a smallish city with a the University of Oregon. If it played its cards right, it could be something like Boulder. But it doesn't seem like a lot is going on there, and the weather... well, it's pretty grim, like all of western Oregon. In my opinion, 5C and rain is worse than some snow from time to time in terms of 'bad weather'.
* Bend is kind of on the small side to have much going on, but maybe has more than Eugene for its size?
* Southern Oregon - Ashland in particular, is a nice place to live as it's a bit drier than further north, but it's still on the smallish side, and I don't know that there's really much of an 'ecosystem' there. I could see living there if I had a bootstrapped thing going and wanted somewhere cheaper to live that's still nice in some ways.
* Portland is big enough to have a real community, and is a good city for the right kind of person. I can't stand the weather myself.
I've given a serious look at moving from Seattle/Redmond to somewhere in Oregon outside of Portland. I'd love to live in Eugene. As a runner, that place seems like Disneyland. But as you say, the town doesn't seem to have made much effort to be even a very good college town, let alone have much else going on. I could still live there, but tech jobs are a bit slim.
If anyplace in Oregon were to be Boulder, I'd say Bend has the best shot. Granted, it's an outsider's point of view, but I think it's closer to mountains and at a bit of elevation. Seems like more athletic stuff going on, bigger cycling community and the like. On the downside, it seems as if that main road through town becomes more and more of one giant strip mall. Job-wise, seems like there a few more opportunities than Eugene.
Portland? Plenty going on there, and between Seattle and Portland I'd choose Portland. Seattle wants to be quirky and hip, but doesn't pull it off as well as Portland, IMO. Portland's smaller, too, but seems to have enough going on to satisfy my tastes.
In the end, though, I could find a new job next week in the Seattle area. I lose a job in Eugene or Bend, I'm screwed. That's okay, the Seattle area is nice, too.
It seems to me that one of Boulder's big advantages/draws is that it's a college town close to a big city (Denver). There's no arrangement quite like that in Oregon. Bend is hours away from Eugene or Portland.
Having lived in Eugene for a while, I'd say it's pretty nice, but you might get bored pretty quickly, even as a runner. It's just to small (for me).
I think Portland is better for outdoorsy stuff in general. There's Forest Park, Mt Tabor, etc in the city and lots of camping, hiking, snowboarding nearby.
I'm not entirely sure if it's size related or... just lack of energy/ambition. Padova, where I live now, is a similar order of magnitude (214,000 vs 150,000 in Eugene), but there seems to be more going on here.
Yeah, that all sounds about right. The reason I don't see Bend as a future Boulder is that it doesn't have much in the way of higher education. The big universities in Oregon are in Eugene, Corvallis, with some other stuff here and there. Corvallis might not actually be bad in some ways, although it's pretty small. Might not be a bad place to bootstrap a company.
Shh! don't tell anyone how awesome Portland and Bend are ;-) Lots of good things happening in both places. You are right, in Seattle you can have a new gig an hour from now if you want it, but it is expensive and pretentious. I grew up there, love it, but left three years ago...sure it isn't SV, but still too expensive and terrible commutes.
I lived in Bend from '07 to '10. It's a great city and I miss it but I don't think it has any shot at being the next Boulder. The weather is better than Eugene but there's no university, its a fairly isolated city, and there's not much of a local startup/tech scene. I could never find a local developer to hire.
I'm in San Luis Obispo CA now and, while the 2 cities are pretty similar in size and other aspects, SLO has a much better tech/startup scene.
As a data point, I recently switched jobs to a 100%-remote-working arrangement with a company based in Oregon (Portland). My plans for the next year involve a move from Boston to Flint, MI (family-related reasons), then a direct bounce to the Oregon/Washington area 'just to check it out'. Depending if the job holds, I'll probably stick around there for the change-of-scenery aspect for a few years, then perhaps start considering moving internationally. If it matters, I'm smack dab at the beginning of the article's "30-45" age cohort, no kids, no plans for kids, no desire for kids. I do have a dog and a penchant for playing music with other people though, so that's kind of the same thing, right?
Apropos of nothing, and deeply OT, don't suppose any HNers could recommend a moving company or three that are good at cross-country moves?
No direct experience with Oregon, but a casual search on indeed.com revealed a bunch of Insurance/Healthcare related tech work. It looks like it has a healthy sector there, but the volumes of open jobs don't seem to compare well to Seattle and definitely not SF. Could be wrong though... this is a very qualitative observation.
I don't live there, but I live in the general area and try to follow the tech scene there. I think your observations are partially right - there are the usual suspects: Nike, Mentor Graphics, Columbia Sportswear, Intel, etc... BUT, there is a vibrant open source and small software company scene that is partially under the radar - they don't post on the "name brand" job search sites, but if you get hooked into the local tech network, there are lots of great opportunities.
I think it is growing slowly, partly as a spinoff from SF. If you want a lifestyle, it is a great place, but if you want a career I would suggest paying the rents and going to Seattle/ SF/ wherever.
This is an interesting article, taking on a complex subject. That said, I really do not see myself moving to the cities that showed the most growth of 35+ cohort...
Close suburbs of the CA cities are definitely an option, even Seattle is not out of the question (oddly, I love rainy weather...), but it seems like the cohorts need some sort of geographic slicing. Where are people moving from to increase the presence of a cohort? I have a hard time imagining that a lot of tech people from SV will pack up and go to New Orleans or Florida. If this is where you are from or have family at, it makes more sense, but I wouldn't expect a large number of people that never lived in those areas/cities, to suddenly want to move there just because they got older/settled down.
An interesting infographic would be to show migration patterns over time, from where you are born, to where you go to college, work, etc. and then retire. For me, I'm expecting a boomerang-looking flow to where I went to high school.
Speaking as an HN'er in one of the "traditional Rust Belt hard-luck cases:" Anyone reading this have any good ideas for ways that areas like mine can improve local economic conditions and better retain or even attract younger folks?
Area politicians are desperate to improve the economy; if you're looking for a new site for a medium-to-large business, especially if you're in a high-tech industry that's perceived as going up instead of going down, you'll likely find the Rust Belt's state and local governments to be quite accomodating.
It's a chicken/egg problem - the reason most businesses stay away is that folks aren't already moving there - and "required infrastructure" i.e., coffee shops, trader joes, etc isn't present.
Those buseinsss and shops don't open there because the demographics aren't there.
The only thing that changes this is when a large organization decides to make things happen and move a significant base of people to that locale. City governments are generally not big enough to convince enough employers to move, and large companies only do this if they get massive tax breaks which can be unpopular with citizens and local businesses (i.e., it's a risky investment - which investors don't like).
Another interesting metric would be to further define the age categories by income (which correlates to job type). I live in Manhattan and it is a very fun place for singles with lots to do (and if you're Jewish a lot of Jewish cultural and religious activities) and lots of fellow singles to meet for dating and to make friends.
Rent is ridiculously high because of zoning restrictions against construction or limiting building height (which increases housing costs).
After visiting SF / SV earlier this year, I think that a remarkable amount of productivity is gained solely based on the weather. You wake up, it's beautiful outside and you're ready to work. To me it's a major advantage over the Northeast (where I'm from).
I think Austin has to be my #1 city in America that I have left to visit.
I'm always caught off-guard when I hear people describe San Francisco's weather in positive terms. I can see how people might like it, but for me, it's dreadful.
The only people who do this are people who came from places with even worse weather (cf. references to the Northeast in your parent comment). People used to e.g. LA or South Bay have a different perspective.
Remote work is going to play a bigger part in where millenials live than it did for previous generations. Remote workers are a tiny fraction of the workforce but I think millenials are more comfortable with it both as employees and employers.
Current economics and regulations are encouraging part-time and contract work. If these trends start affecting office careers as much as they affect low-skill jobs, I can see remote work becoming extremely popular.
San Diego has a very special climate. It's basically a desert with moderate temperatures due to being on the coast. Despite its latitude, it doesn't get tropical storms very often due to the ocean currents surrounding it.
I guess that's a long way of saying you're not going to find another Southern California in the continental United States, let alone a cheaper one.
EDIT: The reason Brick from Anchorman is dumb is because he's the weatherman. The subtle joke (maybe the only one in the film) is that the weather in San Diego is so consistently nice that you can be as dumb as a brick and still be a weatherman in San Diego.
You want a place with characteristics in high demand with the costs of something that is lower demand? Economics says 'good luck', unless you can essentially arbitrage it by finding something that most people don't know about!
It's actually hard to beat San Diego in a few respects:
1) The weather is just perfect all year long.
2) The cost of living, while high, isn't insane compared to places like the Bay Area or NYC.
3) The public schools are actually quite good in many of the areas without being far flung from the city.
The big downside, however, is that there just aren't many local jobs for techies. The few that exist pay very little compared to the ones in the Bay Area or even a little further north in LA despite the cost of living being on the high side.
My wife and I have talked about moving there for a while (we both work from home) but the big challenge is that we'd have to find other income streams (in addition to our day jobs) to fund a good lifestyle in San Diego. In the face of a pretty tepid local job market and challenges with remote work pay being lower, that seems to be a requirement to make it out there.
I'm no expert in the SD job market, but my feeling is that there are many tech jobs but not the kind HN people are thinking of. There are large bio and defense industries there, along with some hardware companies like Qualcomm. It's definitely not a software haven though. I actually worked in SD in defense at graduation - I wouldn't say the pay was worse than the Bay, unless you were a rockstar Ruby ninja.
I interned at Qualcomm once, and they are a pretty great place to work if you are a software engineer with experience in mobile, embedded systems, or even .NET. Plus their mobile computing division is growing incredibly quickly. Over the course of my 3 month internship, my team almost doubled in size.
There is also a great web/javascript community that is growing in the area called sandiego.js (http://sandiegojs.org/). I attended most of their talks this summer and there were always people looking to hire people to do work for them.
It really depends. We have 2 children so good schooling is a must and the better neighborhoods in SD cost a pretty penny.
I currently live in Dallas, TX and for me the numbers work out this way:
* Housing is 2-3x more expensive for comparable neighborhoods.
* Jobs pay about 10-15% less on average.
So if you have a $100K income and own a $300K home in Texas, you can expect to get a $85K income and own a $900K home (worst case scenario). Downsizing can make the numbers more favorable, but it only gets you so far.
All that being said, I would probably need an secondary income stream that provides an additional 25% or more of my primary income stream to justify moving out there.
San Diego is a great place to live and work. How "low cost" are you talking? There are areas of SD that are less expensive like East County in the South or Escondido in the North. It's always a tradeoff.
Yeah, everyone else wants to move to a place like that, too, myself included. Which is why you won't find anywhere like that in the US with a low cost of living. San Diego is also somewhat unique. 72F and dry year-round? Other than San Diego I'd be hard-pressed to think of such a place.
