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United States IT

Is There a Tech Worker 'Exodus' From the San Francisco Bay Area? (sfgate.com) 158

Posted by EditorDavid from the remoter-workers dept.
The New York Times reports on an "exodus" of tech workers from the San Francisco Bay Area, where "Rent was astronomical. Taxes were high. Your neighbors didn't like you" — and your commute could be over an hour. The biggest tech companies aren't going anywhere, and tech stocks are still soaring... But the migration from the Bay Area appears real. Residential rents in San Francisco are down 27% from a year ago, and the office vacancy rate has spiked to 16.7%, a number not seen in a decade. Though prices had dropped only slightly, Zillow reported more homes for sale in San Francisco than a year ago. For more than a month last year, 90% of the searches involving San Francisco on moveBuddha were for people moving out...

There are 33,000 members in the Facebook group Leaving California and 51,000 in its sister group, Life After California. People post pictures of moving trucks and links to Zillow listings in new cities.
They've apparently scattered across the country — even to tropical islands like Puerto Rico and Costa Rica They fled to more affordable places like Georgia. They fled to states without income taxes like Texas and Florida... The No. 1 pick for people leaving San Francisco is Austin, Texas, with other winners including Seattle, New York and Chicago, according to moveBuddha, a site that compiles data on moving. Some cities have set up recruiting programs to lure them to new homes.
The Times also notes "there is a very vocal Miami faction, led by a few venture capital influencers, trying to tweet the city's startup world into existence," as other cities begin to realize that "the talent and money of newly remote tech workers are up for grabs." Topeka, Kansas, started Choose Topeka, which will reimburse new workers $10,000 for the first year of rent or $15,000 if they buy a home. Tulsa, Oklahoma, will pay you $10,000 to move there. The nation of Estonia has a new residency program just for digital nomads. A program in Savannah, Georgia, will reimburse remote workers $2,000 for the move there, and the city has created various social activities to introduce the newcomers to one another and to locals...
But the article also points out that "More money was made faster in the Bay Area by fewer people than at any other time in American history," and speculates on what long-time residents may be thinking: People who distrusted the young newcomers from the start will say this change is a good thing. Hasn't this steep growth in wealth and population in a tiny geography always seemed unsustainable? These tech workers came like a whirlwind. Virtually every community from San Jose in the south to Marin County in the north has fought the rise of new housing for the arrivals of the last decade. Maybe spreading the tech talent around America is smart.

Locals have also seen this play before. Moving trucks come to take a generation of tech ambition away, and a few years later moving trucks return with new dreamers and new ambitions.
UPDATE (7/18/2021): "Tech workers who swore off the Bay Area are coming back," the New York Times reported six months later.
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Is There a Tech Worker 'Exodus' From the San Francisco Bay Area? More

Is There a Tech Worker 'Exodus' From the San Francisco Bay Area?

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  • Costa Rica, tropical island? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Entrope ( 68843 ) on Sunday January 17, 2021 @05:40PM (#60956294) Homepage

    Once upon a time, editors would check facts, and tell writers to fix mistaken assertions like the "tropical island like Puerto Rico and Costa Rica". Yes, Puerto Rico is an island. Costa Rica is on an isthmus, with ocean or sea on only two sides.

  • Texodus? (Score:3)

    by Carewolf ( 581105 ) on Sunday January 17, 2021 @05:42PM (#60956304) Homepage

    or techodus.. Gotta give it a catchy obvious name

    • Tech-xit?

    • Some prefer the term "white flight". It's the opposite of gentrification.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Applehu Akbar ( 2968043 )

        Some prefer the term "white flight". It's the opposite of gentrification.

        White flight is Bad, of course. But oops - gentrification is Bad too, as people demand the right to preserve traditional neighborhood values like drugs and carjacking.

        Small wonder the techies are headed for Texas.

        • Wow, so the only choices we have are neighborhoods where you have to duck bullets every time you open your front door, or neighborhoods where if you have to ask about the price of anything, you can't afford it.

          If only somebody could create a neighborhood which is safe but affordable to most people. Maybe we should give it the designation "middle class". As far as I know, no such place currently exists.

          • As far as I know, no such place currently exists.

            There are plenty of such places. Just not in coastal urban areas.

          • There are many of those places. They just don't make the news. You may not be on the coast, but you can still have a house where you don't have to worry about locking your doors. Even in surrounding areas around Austin, that is still there. Some places are really decent pockets of suburban life. Once they get popular, and start making headlines, that gets destroyed in an instant.

    • There always has been an exodus. It's part of why Silicon Valley is so successful. Even in the 1990s I had friends moving to Costa Rica after doing successful businesses in Silicon Valley.

      Stanford and Berkeley constantly churn out entrepreneurs and researchers in emerging technologies

      Sand Hill Road's VC's constantly look for Stanford and Berkeley projects to invest in

      SF's bigger financial institutions work with those VCs take the companies beyond the startup stage.

      As the industry matures, those move out to make room for new innovation Silicon Valley is what it is because of a deliberately engineered close partnership of universities (Stanford, Berkeley), finance (Sand Hill Road for small ventures, San Francisco for bigger finance), industry (the Stanford Business Park, etc) and government (In-Q-Tel). This was intentionally modelled after a similar successful pattern around MIT. Great article on that here. http://www.netvalley.com/silic... [netvalley.com]

    • More like Taxodus

  • CA politics coming your way (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bradley13 ( 1118935 ) on Sunday January 17, 2021 @05:50PM (#60956336) Homepage

    Everybody duck. Prog pitics have made California unlivable. But the people leaving don't want to admit that. So they're bringing their politics with them.

    I used to live in Austin, before it was invaded. It's now a mini-California, only slightly restrained by the State government. Spending other people's money, driving up homelessness, etc.. If profs start eyeing your area, it's time to leave.

    • Re:CA politics coming your way (Score:5, Insightful)

      by sinij ( 911942 ) on Sunday January 17, 2021 @06:08PM (#60956408)

      I used to live in Austin, before it was invaded. It's now a mini-California, only slightly restrained by the State government. Spending other people's money, driving up homelessness, etc.. If profs start eyeing your area, it's time to leave.

      It is prudent to wait for housing to shoot up at least 5x, which inevitably happens in such cases and only then leave. With their money.

    • Re:CA politics coming your way (Score:5, Funny)

      by serviscope_minor ( 664417 ) on Sunday January 17, 2021 @06:35PM (#60956542) Journal

      Prog pitics have made California unlivable.

      Yeah nobody lives there anymore: it's too crowded.

    • My kid just graduated (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Sunday January 17, 2021 @06:37PM (#60956552)
      and would have cheerfully moved to California if the cost of living was lower. And not just the big places, anywhere near the beach (and by "near" I mean an hour or two's drive).

      Point is there's no shortage of people who want to move there, nor will there be. The weather's great, the economy is too despite what Fox News is telling you and there's tons of amenities.

      Now, I'm a grumpy old nerd so I don't much care about those things, but to a young person without kids it's a heavenly playground.

      So no, the reports of California's death are greatly exaggerated. Cut back on the Fox & Friends and find some alternative media sources where any blue state isn't a dystopian hell hole. I mean, did you know there are part of Europe that have clean running water? Who knew?

      • My kid just graduated and would have cheerfully moved to California if the cost of living was lower. And not just the big places, anywhere near the beach (and by "near" I mean an hour or two's drive).

        Point is there's no shortage of people who want to move there, nor will there be.

        The point you seem to be missing is that it doesn't matter how many people want to move there, what matters is how many people can afford to live there.

        You've got an educated daughter who wanted to move to CA and would've undoubtedly be an asset to whatever CA community they chose to be a part of. But you kid said, "No, too expensive", and California lost out.

        Don't you see that as a problem?

        • but I do understand supply and demand. The demand for places to live in California outstrips supply, resulting in very high cost of living. This does have the side effect that the people who remain tend to be very productive, resulting in a vibrant economy. There are downsides to this (i.e. Gentrification) but it means California isn't on the verge of collapse like the right wing wants them to be.

          California didn't lose out to my kid, my kid lost out to other kids who had higher earnings potential. After

          • Let me see if I've got this straight...

            California's high cost of living isn't a problem, it just means those with higher productivity will move there or remain there, and those with lower productivity will leave or be shut out.

            California didn't lose out because your kid can't afford to live there, your kid lost out to other, more productive kids who can afford to live there.

            Further, if your kid wants to enjoy living in California, all she need do is spend another few tens of thousands of dollars to incre

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by djinn6 ( 1868030 )

              Maybe don't live in a capitalist society if you don't like richer people taking the stuff you wanted.

              The situation in the SF Bay Area is entirely predictable. Anywhere with a surge of business and people looking for housing ends up with a shortage. North Dakota was in the same situation with its oil boom. The only difference is Fox and friends don't shit on them (and neither do homeless people, because they freeze to death too quickly).

              • California's "homeless problem" is largely because the homeless don't freeze to death (or die of heat exhaustion like they do in TX, NM, AZ).

              • Maybe don't live in a capitalist society if you don't like richer people taking the stuff you wanted.

                I have no problem with people who are richer than I am having more/better stuff than I do. As long as they came by their wealth honestly, that is.

                The situation in the SF Bay Area is entirely predictable. Anywhere with a surge of business and people looking for housing ends up with a shortage.

                It isn't capitalism that's caused the decades long housing shortage in San Francisco. There has been no surge in the population of San Francisco in the last ten or even twenty years. Since 2000, the population of San Francisco has grown less than 0.5% per year on average. [wikipedia.org]

                In that time, a little capitalism might've helped San Francisco with its housing shortage.

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by djinn6 ( 1868030 )

                  In North Dakota, small towns in its oil patch like Watford City [worldpopul...review.com] went from a population less than 1,800 in 2010 to almost 7,000 in 2015. That's a growth of 372% compared to San Francisco's 7% over the same period. [statista.com]

                  That 7% is 300,000 people. Why do you think it's easier to build that many houses on a peninsula with all available land already in use than it is to build 5,200 houses on the great plains?

                  • I don't think that and I said nothing of the sort.

                    Re-check the link I provided. The 300K population increase isn't for the San Francisco peninsula, it's for the entire San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward metro area. A five county area that covers almost 2,500 square miles.

                    The population of the city of San Francisco proper in 2010 was 805K. [worldpopul...review.com] The city's population in 2015 was 841K. That's 34K people in five years. There simply hasn't been a surge of people into San Francisco that's driving its high housing co

            • but that's what anarcho-capitalism gets ya. Yes, we could easily building out cities, desalanization plants (for the increased population) and social services. But then where would we get $740 billion a year to spend blowing up children in Afghanistan? I mean defense.

              • Sure, it's fucked up but that's what anarcho-capitalism gets ya.

                So you've gone from "California is A-OK" to "California is fucked up" in two posts, and you top it all off with a claim that one of the most left wing states in the country is actually practicing an extreme form of libertarianism. Are you trying to give readers here whiplash?

                Yes, we could easily building out cities, desalanization plants (for the increased population) and social services.

                California does all that, except their "building out cities" part doesn't include much in the way of affordable housing.

                But then where would we get $740 billion a year to spend blowing up children in Afghanistan? I mean defense.

                Ah yes, one of your signature subject pivots to off-topic political bullshit. Let's see if I can try to steer us b

        • "what matters is how many people can afford to live there."

          CA population=~40M
          CA Per Capita Income: $36,955
          FL Per Capita Income: $52,426

          That's over 10% of the US population. CA ranks #16 in per capita income. North Dakota is higher. It seems like plenty of people can and do afford to live there.

          • CA Per Capita Income: $36,955
            FL Per Capita Income: $52,426

            Where are you getting these numbers? According to the US Bureau of Economic Analysis, [bea.gov] California's per capita personal income is $67,603 and Florida's is $52,731 as of Q42019. Looks like your FL number is in the ballpark, but certainly not your CA number.

            CA ranks #16 in per capita income. North Dakota is higher.

            Again, where do your numbers come from? According to the BEA, CA ranks 6th and ND ($57,690) ranks 17th. [bea.gov]

            I'm not sure why this needs pointing out, but you can't talk about affordability using income alone. You have to know what the dollar you earn actua

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      driving up homelessness

      To be fair, the homeless follow the wealth. When the Yukon gold rush started, Seattle was the jumping off point and supply depot for the miners. Once the money started rolling in, so did the bums.

      They set up a shanty town along the route where they skidded logs out of the forest to the waterfront sawmill. Hence the name 'Skid road'. They have never left.

      • Birmingham and Atlanta had a sure fire cure for their homeless problem. Bought them a bus ticket for California. Maybe California should take a page out of their book.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by PPH ( 736903 )

          Bought them a bus ticket for California.

          I forget where, but one city was buying homeless people one-way tickets to Honolulu. Warm enough weather so they won't die of exposure on a park bench. But good luck thumbing a ride back to the mainland.

          Seattle had a program a few years back with quite a few takers. If a friend or relative would commit to taking care of them, the city would buy a bus or plane ticket to send them back home. But the libs started screeching because it undermined their standard narrative that the homeless are all 'from here'.

        • Birmingham and Atlanta had a sure fire cure for their homeless problem. Bought them a bus ticket for California. Maybe California should take a page out of their book.

          San Francisco wrote the book on busing homeless people elsewhere. [theguardian.com] From 2005 to 2017, 140 homeless were bused in to San Francisco. 10,570 homeless were bused out of San Francisco.

  • Are they smart enough to not bring the disastersous policies that made them leave in the first place? Or are they going to bring the "progressive" policies that are destroying Commiefornia? Hopefully they are smart enough to not spread the disease... and I'm not talking COVID.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by oldgraybeard ( 2939809 )
      Question: Are they smart enough to not bring the disastrous policies that made them leave in the first place?
      Answer: No! They do not associate their politics with the results of their politics. That would require them to be wrong, and for them that is inconceivable.

    • No, no, they're not. I grew up in northern New Jersey and went to a private high-school in New York City. All of my snooty New Yorker classmates used to poke fun at New Jersey. Now, they all live there because they couldn't afford to live in New York. Of course, now they all can't afford to live in New Jersey either.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      Agent Smith said it best.

      You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus.

    • Blue states should really stop subsidising red states with the results of their destructive commie policies it seems.

  • Not going to matter. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gurps_npc ( 621217 ) on Sunday January 17, 2021 @06:09PM (#60956414) Homepage

    There are several things that made Silicon Valley, none of whom can be transported away or copied:

    1) Concentration. Once you start a tech hub then there are advantages to having everyone around you being in tech. Your company goes under? Get a new job without moving. Your friends are in the same business so you can help each other. Or quit and start your own business. Have an issue with a vendor? They can walk across the street and fix it.

    2) Culture. The area itself was pro-tech before and still is. The teachers, the bankers, etc. were all pro-tech and helped the area develop. People willing to work long hours for shares. Parents that understood why you worked 20 hours but had to live at home.

    3) Laws. Yeah, you need pro-tech laws that are actually enforced.. Not as much of a problem in the US, but places like Russia for example, has tried and failed to create their own Silicon Valley.

    • Re:Not going to matter. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by cj* ( 149112 ) on Sunday January 17, 2021 @06:18PM (#60956462)

      Laws are an issue in the US also.

      CA has pro-employee laws on non-compete clauses and the know-how facets of intellectual property, both of which have been cited in why Si Valley took over from Route 128 (Massachusetts) in the 80's.

      If employees aren't legally allowed to walk across the street to a new job, it turns out that start-ups are hard.

    • 1) Concentration. Once you start a tech hub then there are advantages to having everyone around you being in tech. Your company goes under? Get a new job without moving. Your friends are in the same business so you can help each other. Or quit and start your own business. Have an issue with a vendor? They can walk across the street and fix it.

      Also VC concentration and culture. Money is crucial to starting a company. There's lots of VC there all in one place making it easy to do the round, and competition be

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by PPH ( 736903 )

        VC money travels around the globe. There may be some advantage to investing within the same country or culture. But as an investor, if you aren't casting a wide net for opportunities, your ROI isn't going to be as good.

        On the other hand, VCs like to work from jurisdictions that have low tax rates (no state income/cap gains). Texas, Nevada, Washington*, etc. California is not one of those. Although I suspect that a lot of the investors live elsewhere.

        *Washington will be departing that group shortly. I cou

        • VC money travels around the globe. There may be some advantage to investing within the same country or culture. But as an investor, if you aren't casting a wide net for opportunities, your ROI isn't going to be as good.

          Yeah, maybe, but if you're flush with far more opportunities than you have time to evaluate (as you are in the Bay area), you may as well stick there.

          On the other hand, VCs like to work from jurisdictions that have low tax rates (no state income/cap gains). Texas, Nevada, Washington*, etc. Ca

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by djinn6 ( 1868030 )

          On the other hand, VCs like to work from jurisdictions that have low tax rates (no state income/cap gains).

          Nope. Established businesses like low taxes. VCs don't care. They don't start paying taxes until their businesses are making money, which is going to be years down the line, and by then they're already executing their exit strategy.

    • Yeah. The area has had its downturn and upturns to be sure; and I have no doubt that cycle will continue. But I think the first time I saw a "Silicon Valley is over." story was the first time I read the term "Silicon Valley" in the first place. It was when I was a kid in the '80s and was one of the many times a "beleaguered" Apple was and doomed to go out of business within two years... that time because the IBM PS2 and OS/2 were going to make every other computer in the world obsolete and irrelevant.

    • There are several things that made Silicon Valley, none of whom can be transported away or copied:

      1) Concentration. Once you start a tech hub then there are advantages to having everyone around you being in tech. Your company goes under? Get a new job without moving. Your friends are in the same business so you can help each other.

      Unless your friends are C level execs, you will be in the same competition as every other candidate. Otherwise, at best networking gets you is initial interview. And since everyone wants to move there, you are basically in competition with the best in the world. After 10 years there I found little advantage to actually being in the Valey vs someone who wasnt.

      Or quit and start your own business. Have an issue with a vendor? They can walk across the street and fix it.

      2) Culture. The area itself was pro-tech before and still is. The teachers, the bankers, etc. were all pro-tech and helped the area develop. People willing to work long hours for shares. Parents that understood why you worked 20 hours but had to live at home.

      3) Laws. Yeah, you need pro-tech laws that are actually enforced.. Not as much of a problem in the US, but places like Russia for example, has tried and failed to create their own Silicon Valley.

      Certain other countries are going to have a hard time mimicking the sucess of SV, because the US is a free society with a pretty open immigration po

  • It's all the money disappearing from the area. The Bay area is going to look like a Pennsylvania mining or steel town pretty soon.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      That's your shoes getting stuck to the poop in the streets.

      • That's your shoes getting stuck to the poop in the streets.

        Protip from this old consultant: when you take BART, stay off the escalators. Take the stairs.

  • I believe so.... (Score:5, Informative)

    by sizzlinkitty ( 1199479 ) on Sunday January 17, 2021 @06:18PM (#60956458)

    The only facts I have are based on my current job (SF SaaS Tech Company with about 400 employees). About 242 employees lived in the SF Bay Area before the pandemic started, before our main SF office closed. Now, almost a year later, around a quarter of them still live there. The rest work remotely from other parts of the world.

  • If it diversifies the economy it's a good thing. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by hey! ( 33014 ) on Sunday January 17, 2021 @06:29PM (#60956510) Homepage Journal

    People who aren't engineers and tech workers need employment too, and housing, which they certainly can't afford if the region is in a state of semi-permanent tech boom. A tech-centric economic monoculture good for the tech industry but it's not good for people.

    I remember San Francisco before the dot com era; it was a funky place that attracted a lot of oddball people because it was comfortable, easy-going and affordable. People who'd been long time residents may not have felt like their home town was being taken over by hippies, yogis, and gay people looking for a place where they could live openly, but the truth was you can live with *weirdos*. Rich people price you and your kids out of your neighborhood. I've seen the same thing happen in the Florida Keys; money coming in is good, but too much money turns places into Epcot center versions of themselves

  • Depends on the type of tech. Software - yes, there is an expectation that remote work will become the norm. Semiconductor industry - no, there is an expectation that we will need to get back to the office. Those of us who work in labs still go to work.

    Being honest, it is probably good for people in hardware - we will have to deal with less traffic, rents will normalize and the Silicon Valley will be about Silicon again an not software.

    • I went to SF recently, and it was quite pleasant. All the people who left are the people who didn't really like the Bay Area, they just came here for money or something else.

      Now the people who actually like here can enjoy it again.

  • I moved away. I might move back. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Firedog ( 230345 ) on Sunday January 17, 2021 @06:45PM (#60956576)

    I actually found a pretty good place to live in the Bay Area during my last stint there - Orinda. Lots of open space and I found our neighbors to be really nice people.

    It's just over the hill from Berkeley and the nicer parts of Oakland (and within DoorDash range of their restaurants). It's half an hour from downtown SF without traffic (granted that can increase to two hours with traffic). It also has a BART station.

    But... the cost of living is still pretty high. The property tax *alone* on the house we rented there was almost as much as the mortgage *and* taxes on the similarly-sizes house I own in Park City, Utah. And the utilities? Literally five times the cost, and not as reliable.

    We had a minor water leak in the irrigation system and ended up with a $2000 water bill one month. And I could go on and on about PG&E power failures.

    The schools are relatively highly rated, but when my daughter transferred from Park City to there, she called it a "step down". That's partially because Proposition 13 has (over the past few decades) had the net effect of defunding California's public schools.

    Prop 13 is the reason behind a lot of California's woes, and it was *not* spearheaded by progressives - it was spearheaded by anti-tax movement. In reality, though, it merely shifted the tax load from one set of people (long-time CA homeowners, and corporations) to a different set (recent home purchasers, anyone who moves within the state, anyone who builds a new house).

    People like to blame California's problems on "progressive feel-good" policies. And I will grant that some of the blame lies there. Maybe 20%.

    But in reality, Proposition 13 (a conservative anti-tax policy) has done the most damage to the state over the last 30 years, and 80% of the blame lies there.

    • Really? Fixed and low income retired people should have to take more than 2% property tax increases every year? They should just take it because Beaurocrats want more and more money for BS projects? Maybe stop spending to oblivion. Aren't they making enough off the high income taxes of tech workers.
      • Then protect retired people, and retired people ONLY. Not everyone. Texas did this correctly, they only freeze property taxes for those over 65, and for primary RESIDENCE only. Not every single damm property.

        • Or don't do that either. Seriously, I don't know why the younger generation needs to constantly subsidize the old generation. But let retirees move to lower population density areas with a much cheaper cost of living if they weren't able to save enough. Or constantly pull equity from their skyrocketing house with a reverse mortgage.

    • But in reality, Proposition 13 (a conservative anti-tax policy) has done the most damage to the state over the last 30 years, and 80% of the blame lies there.

      Prop 13 was necessary. It's not the best solution. But the times before Prop 13 was worse. Every town had a friend of a friend that could get them a lower valuation on their home and a cut in taxes. If you weren't local and had the right friends, you paid substantially more than Prop 13.

      And it made it far more difficult for local governments to ear mark taxes for special projects. They're forced to seek other ways to fund programs instead of slipping everything into your tax bill. Even though many of those

    • California spends a bit more than $11,000 per student on schools, while Utah spends a bit more than $9,000 per student. It's not likely that Park City had more funding than wherever you were in California.

      The actual revenue the state gets has grown significantly over the last 40 years, it's not a poor state. In fact, this year, there's a budget surplus. That happens every 5-10 years, but the state can't ever bring itself to save any cash.

      See our problem is that we have a lot of "feel good" policies, but no

  • It's not politics, it's affordability (Score:3)

    by ErichTheRed ( 39327 ) on Sunday January 17, 2021 @06:54PM (#60956600)

    I live in suburban NYC, and while housing prices/taxes/CoL are high here, California is another level up. Having to pay nearly $2M for a nothing-special house that is less than a 2-hour one way commute in miserable traffic is crazy to me. Throw COVID/WfH in the mix and it's even less attractive. When you can't go into the magical Google/Facebook/Apple all-inclusive workplace and spend your days, there's less of a reason to live in such an expensive region. I've visited several times and just have zero desire to live there, even though the weather is nice.

    I think tech companies are realizing that they can just send most of their workers to cheaper locations, cut their pay to non-SV levels, and still be fine. Back in SV's formative years, the concentration of tech companies all in one place made sense...talent poaching, companies working with one another, etc. There was no video conferencing, rapid prototyping, cloud computing, etc. Now, it's less of an issue. Tech companies, even the money-printing ones, probably aren't happy about having to pay $300K+ for regular employees just to keep up with cost of living and keep their headquarters in a super-expensive area.

    Honestly, it wouldn't be a bad idea for these companies to start expanding outside of the traditional Seattle/SV/NYC bubbles they're in. You look at a lot of products and startups now and think...this could only have come out of an environment overrun with hyper-wealthy toy-obsessed techies. It's a different kind of monoculture, but a monoculture nonetheless. In NY, we're seeing similar exoduses to North Carolina, Florida, Texas, etc. because regular companies realize that most people would be happier living in a super-huge mansion on 2 acres of property for the cost of living in NY, and derive little benefit from living in NY. All the high cost regions of the country are going to have to deal with this to some extent.

  • Those that want to see an exodus will see an exodus.
    Those that do not want to see an exodus will not see an exodus.
    Those that just want to know will have to take a look at reality and make their best guess.

  • So much wrong here (Score:3)

    by luis_a_espinal ( 1810296 ) on Sunday January 17, 2021 @07:43PM (#60956830)
    Where to start? Oh, yes, here.

    even to tropical islands like Puerto Rico and Costa Rica

    There was a time that posters and contributors in Slashdot were educated enough to know that Costa Rica is not an island. Good times. Also here

    "there is a very vocal Miami faction, led by a few venture capital influencers, trying to tweet the city's startup world into existence,"

    Floridian here. This has been a bs theme (and a local joke) for ages. The whole 'Miami startup scene' or the 'Florida Internet Coast' thing, it's been going on for 25 years. It's not going anywhere and it will never go anywhere.

    Whatever happens in Miami tends to be IT-centric (nothing wrong with that, but that's not what drives startups or innovation). There's no product development to speak off, and any startup that happens here tends to become a contractors firm for web development or IT (again, nothing wrong with that, but that's not what innovation is about.)

    The closest you see to innovation is with big firms in Broward/Ft. Lauderdale and Boca - payment and big data processing, security, we have a couple of players in medical equipment, robotics and avionics/defense. None of that is in Miami, for so many depressing reasons.

    Orlando and Melbourne have better environments for a startup scene being closed to "space-grant" universities, defense companies and Disney (which produces and consumes a lot of tech.)

    Forget MIami if you want to see a startup culture. I lived there for a long time and then I moved just north to Ft. Lauderdale, which is where the "tech" action has been (which is uber-small compared to Austin, Boston or Silicon Valley.)

  • Seattle? Really? (Score:3)

    by ndykman ( 659315 ) on Sunday January 17, 2021 @07:54PM (#60956856)

    Where the traffic is even worse (no, seriously), it's just as expensive in many ways, the neighbors also don't like you (for good reason, tech ruined Ballard) and the taxes aren't that much better? Weird.

    If this is so, I expect Portland to have another surge of people coming in. Oh well. If there's anything good about this, is that work at home may be permanent enough to keep traffic from absolute nightmare levels of bad.

  • I've seen a few other things mentioning people moving from California to .Puerto Rico.

    What is going on there? I heard from someone there's a big bitcoin community there, but that cannot be all it is... what is drawing people to live there?

    I've visited before and while nice, I'm not sure I would want to live that far removed from the mainland, Hawaii seems like a nicer choice (though probably more expensive).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      Bitcoin? Both Puerto Rico and Hawaii (being islands) have pretty high power rates. Not ideal for running mining systems.

      Someone needs to calculate how many square feet of solar panels it takes to mine one Btc.

  • Was laid off last year, after several months looking for work I could not justify the $3k/month rent. So I sold stuff I didn't want anymore, stuffed my car to the brim with whatever was left, and high tailed ifor the east coast. My rent happens to be zero here, so no place can compete with that, but had it been cheaper I might stayed longer.

  • My team all left Palo Alto in the last 6 months. (Score:3)

    by brainchill ( 611679 ) on Sunday January 17, 2021 @09:58PM (#60957308)
    My entire team, more than 30 people, from a large tech firm in Palo Alto moved from the SF Bay Area to the whole way across the US but mostly the Midwest. They all said it was like doubling their salary.

  • It's not how I thought it would be. Most of the area that I've been in looks like a slightly less poor version of New Mexico. People don't seem to take pride in their state or their parks as there is liter everywhere. I thought maybe it was the area we were in, but we drove to Laguna Beach for a day and it also seemed dirty. You have such wonderful natural beauty, but you leave trash all over. It just doesn't leave me respecting CA or it's residents.

    I expected the food to be great, but it wasn't any be

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