Is Remote Work Forcing Smaller Cities to Compete With Big Tech Salaries? (indiatimes.com) 100
Remote working seems like a boon to smaller cities, Reuters reports:
About 30 per cent of remote workers plan on moving, according to two recent surveys: an April poll of 1,000 tech workers by nonprofit One America Works and a June survey of 1,006 national remote workers for MakeMyMove, focused on intentions for the next 18 months... [T]he numbers mean a lot for some towns and cities that have seen "brain drains" to larger metropolitan areas, said Prithwiraj Choudhury, associate professor at the Harvard Business School.
But smaller cities are now also competing with big-tech recruiters, reports the Wall Street Journal: Some of the biggest names in tech aren't just allowing existing workers to relocate out of the Bay Area, they are also starting to hire in places they hadn't often recruited from before. The result is the most geographically distributed tech labor market to date. That's leading to above-market rates for workers in smaller hubs, forcing local companies to raise wages to keep up with the cost of living and fend off deeper-pocketed rivals from California.
But smaller cities are now also competing with big-tech recruiters, reports the Wall Street Journal: Some of the biggest names in tech aren't just allowing existing workers to relocate out of the Bay Area, they are also starting to hire in places they hadn't often recruited from before. The result is the most geographically distributed tech labor market to date. That's leading to above-market rates for workers in smaller hubs, forcing local companies to raise wages to keep up with the cost of living and fend off deeper-pocketed rivals from California.
Yes and that's a good thing. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes and that's a good thing.
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No, it's against the law.
Betteridge's law of headlines with a question mark.
Re: Yes and that's a good thing. (Score:3)
You know as much as this gets quoted here, I think that Bettridge fellow is a twat that also ruined the definition of law. It's barely a rule of thumb much less any kind of sophisticated reasoning as to be considered law.
I am going to make up Idance's Law of slashd other which is that if the first poster isn't a twat than the first reply to OP is a twat. Boo yah. In your face.
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Betteridge's Law applies in full force here. The smaller cities are not competing for these workers; employers in those cities are.
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"I am going to make up Idance's Law of slashd other which is that if the first poster isn't a twat than the first reply to OP is a twat. Boo yah. In your face."
Dr. Cranky, is that you?
Re: Yes and that's a good thing. (Score:3)
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Please form the response in the form of a Bettridge's law compatible headline.
Headline: Has Bettridge's law has been demoted to a mere rule of thumb?
Are they opposable?
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Is it any more accurate than Occam's Razor? Discuss.
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Occam's Razor is not a law. It's a razor which is to say more like a rule-of-thumb. As for it being more accurate, it likely is. In fact if you have a headline, there is likely a way to apply both Occam's Razor and Bettridge's Law which I would conclude would likely lead to Occam's Razor providing a better conclusion and insight. Bettridge's Law is very little than "If [headline_has_question] Then false". This is the aspect I am making fun of. It's too simplistic approach and further muddies the waters wher
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>"Yes and that's a good thing."
Not necessarily.
https://it.slashdot.org/commen... [slashdot.org]
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If I read it correctly, it says that non-local companies offering employment push up salaries for the local creative talent, and local companies need to increase salaries offered, which they then must pass onto customers or go out of business.
However there are so many other angles to this.
1. It can be seen as a diffusion of income/wealth. By _not_ centralizing higher earnings and higher earners, the country becomes more egalitarian. A child's economic outcomes will be somewhat less driven by the luck of whi
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The pandemic work-at-home changed that and that's the big change. Before, if you wanted big city salary, you lived in or near the big city. Now that big city salaries are spreading across the US, that's not necessarily a good thing (or a bad thing). But your item number two is exactly what changed. Before, you could leave the big city, but not for a better salary unless
Ok, so what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Is Remote Work Forcing Smaller Cities to Compete With Big Tech Salaries?
Smaller cities always were competing with big tech salaries. And they usually lost. The tech employees moved to bigger cities to earn more money.
The difference is that now the employees can stay put in the smaller cities. So the smaller cities now keep those employees local since they no longer have to move. The city can now bring in more cash that can be spent locally to support the local job market and tax base.
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The difference is that now the employees can stay put in the smaller cities.
If they really were. If they are in mobile mood, they can travel and not even set on particular country, esp. when elsewhere weather might be better. If company is very serious about that employee, it will want to have him/her met face-to-face from time to time, if not for a good chunk of the working week.
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"If they are in mobile mood, they can travel and not even set on particular country, esp. when elsewhere weather might be better. "
Until after 183 days the tax-police rings the bell, when you made the transition from overstayed 'expat' to illegal undocumented immigrant.
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Only applies to some locales, and even then one can usually get the right VISA or extensions. Or move to a place that understands the benefit of foreigners bringing foreign wages to the local economy. Last I checked I think Belize, CR, and Panama were pretty accommodating, for a start. A lot of places don't even have laws that address foreign employment income last I checked - they seem to worry more about competing with locals for local jobs.
Mexico and Colombia have such tax laws as you refer to, but not e
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"Only applies to some locales"
Yes, around 197 countries.
" and even then one can usually get the right VISA or extensions. Or move to a place that understands the benefit of foreigners bringing foreign wages to the local economy. "
That 'benefit' is called 'Income tax'.
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"Only applies to some locales"
Yes, around 197 countries.
Maybe, I didn't count the ones I didn't care about. It almost sounds like you're telling a guy who's done a thing that the thing he's done can't be done. That would be silly. Point being, yes, it can be done, I and others have done it and will do it again. *shrug*
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Is Remote Work Forcing Smaller Cities to Compete With Big Tech Salaries?
Smaller cities always were competing with big tech salaries. And they usually lost. The tech employees moved to bigger cities to earn more money. The difference is that now the employees can stay put in the smaller cities. So the smaller cities now keep those employees local since they no longer have to move. The city can now bring in more cash that can be spent locally to support the local job market and tax base.
The flip side is now companies that compete for employees in similar businesses will have to raise wages since switching jobs no longer requires relocation. In addition, those employees will no have more direct access to job information at the bigger tech companies so they may be more likely to hear of openings. It's a win for employees, which is good.
One challenge will be culture clash and expectations. Someone moving from Silicon Valley to say a smaller southern or midwestern city is likely to encounter
Re: Ok, so what? (Score:2)
One challenge will be culture clash and expectations.
People with those small town values will move there. People with big city expectations will move back. Or be smart and never move to small towns in the first place.
Anecdote: A co-worker and her husband have a big place out in the county. They have a pistol range set up in the ravine in their back yard. Some time ago, a family from California moved in down the road. And freaked out when they heard the shooting. So they called the sheriff. Who came out and promptly started laughing. "Everyone out here shoots
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One challenge will be culture clash and expectations.
People with those small town values will move there. People with big city expectations will move back. Or be smart and never move to small towns in the first place.
Anecdote: A co-worker and her husband have a big place out in the county. They have a pistol range set up in the ravine in their back yard. Some time ago, a family from California moved in down the road. And freaked out when they heard the shooting. So they called the sheriff. Who came out and promptly started laughing. "Everyone out here shoots. If you don't like it, why did you move here?" They moved back.
My experience is a lot stick around because they like the cost of living and moving back takes a big hit to that. As a result, they work to change things to do it "like where they used to live;" which can be good but some will cause friction with folks who've lived there for generations. It's not that the changes are bad per se, just reflect a changing lifestyle as the population grows. The current political climate does not help as you get more liberal people moving in and start electing more liberal po
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One massive problem with this, and most small towns are already raising huge stinks over it. It drives up the price of EVERYTHING.
The big one that has most small towns in a major bind is that the out of town tech salaries allow extravagant home purchases. The starts reducing the housing supply for all the locals, since they have to usually operate on a budget, whereas the big budget salaries don't care
No it's not. (Score:2)
If life is 5-10x cheaper in Smalltown than it is in the valley - which it is - is guess that remote working is by and large an upside for Smalltown. They do have to invest in feasible fault tolerant internet connections though.
Re: No it's not. (Score:2)
Well, more like 50% cheaper, you mean. You can't buy a house for 1/20th the cost, but you can buy it for 1/2. But it sure feels like 5x cheaper, though, doesn't it!
Re: No it's not. (Score:3)
A decent small house in Seattle is over 1 million. A large house in the suburbs of Greensboro, North Carolina is 200 to 250k. For 1 million there, you get a mansion.
Greensboro suburbs aren't even small town really either. So yes, it's at least 4x with an average of 5x being fair.
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But the humidity back there is horrible. It was one thing to live in it as a kid because I didn't know any better. Now that I've been in a much more arid environment, it's horrible going into a really humid environment.
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The median home price in San Jose is $1.4M. The median home price across the US -- including high-priced cities -- is $350k, a quarter of San Jose's median. You can get a decent house in a lot of small cities for half that ($175k).
In distressed places, you absolutely can buy a house for 1/20th the median San Jose house price. You'll pay a lot to bring it up to standard, and you may regret choosing the neighborhood, but the entry price is low.
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In Youngstown, you can buy houses in what look like abandoned neighborhoods for 10-15k a pop.
The catch is that you have to live in Youngstown, which would almost be tolerable if it wasn't also in Ohio.
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This is a point which apparently cannot be stressed enough.
If you want to find a cheap house, they are out there, if by "out there" you mean "in shitholes nobody wants to live in". But those shitholes could in theory be improved if enough people move into them, and do things that make them better.
UBI has often been impugned as a reward for laziness, but if its levels are set properly then it won't pay for you to have an American Dream lifestyle in California. If you want to be lazy, you'll have to live in a
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Probably off topic, but I'll risk it.
Wait, it's okay to call these places shitholes, but when Trump said it it was wrong?
I just want to understand what the politically correct position is, because even though I'm a conservative, I think Trump was an ass. Although, I've been to ~50 countries and some are shitholes.
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I think it's insensitive to call them shitholes, but Trump wasn't exactly wrong. It's insensitive because of what made them shitholes, which often involved American intervention. So it was correct but wrong to say, given the implicit lack of awareness.
Am I wrong to use the word, too? Probably. But I'm not wrong about what they are, which is why they're empty.
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Wait, it's okay to call these places shitholes, but when Trump said it it was wrong?
Yes. It is.
For the same reason that it's not OK for some other foreign Head of State to call Arkansas a shithole.
It's different when you're the head of state calling foreign countries, which the country you're supposed to be representing needs to deal with, insulting things.
I.e., in my mind, it's just fine for you to call any country you like a shithole country. Hell, I may even agree with your assessment.
I lived in Arkansas for a while. It's a fucking shithole.
If Angela Merkel calls it a shithole thou
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While I'd generally agree with you that politicians need to be tactful, you realize that part of the reason he was elected was because people were tired of the political doubletalk. Unfortunately, Trump carried things to the opposite extreme.
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you realize that part of the reason he was elected was because people were tired of the political doubletalk.
Absolutely. Which is just another piece of evidence that the illness is with American culture, not the guy it elected in a fit of impotent rage.
There's a difference between a straight shooter and a fucking buffoon who that moonlights as some kind of edge lord. The fact that we as a country couldn't see that is probably why we can't agree on basic fucking truths anymore.
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I think it feels that much cheaper because you can save 5x more living in a small town (with the same salary, of course).
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Cheapness of Smalltown was always available, but was the lack of job the only major factor?
I heard Detroit is goddamn inexpensive.
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Detroit was inexpensive, but inexpensive is a relative word. The city has had a resurgence since the end of the recession. But there still are parts that nobody would want to go to.
So? (Score:4, Insightful)
How does my living condition affect my employer? Am I going to get a higher salary if I decide to move into a bigger apartment that costs more rent?
If not, then why should me living in a cheaper environment have an impact?
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The pool of comparable candidates is almost always going to much larger if telework is allowed. Your competitors for the job expand from people in a given metro area to the whole world.
If you think you personally are that unique of a developer, make that argument to your employer. I look forward to discovering the result of that experiment in supply versus demand in the enjoyment market.
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I'm in a fairly privileged position. I work in security in the financial environment. A place with very paranoid if not outright xenophobic C-Levels that are also routinely personally (read: with their private money) liable for anything that could be considered gross negligence.
I'm fairly confident that my job will not go to Bangalore.
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Worry about your job going to Bangor, not Bangalore.
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Unless if you move to Bangalore, which is the point of this article as far as I can tell.
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Info sec for example specifically has
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>"How does my living condition affect my employer?"
It isn't your living condition. It is the reach of your marketability to places where you don't live and don't spend your money.
If you are in a non-local pool pushing up wages and small localities have to buy from that pool, since local labor is now also in that market, then small localities have to pay much more for that type of labor.
If that small locality's market is only local, and they are forced to raise prices to stay in business to cover that in
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If this was true, then one has to wonder why corporations are so hellbent on moving their employees back into offices. Wouldn't it be much more sensible to benefit from the vast, international pool of talents?
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>"If this was true, then one has to wonder why corporations are so hellbent on moving their employees back into offices. Wouldn't it be much more sensible to benefit from the vast, international pool of talents?"
Because, like I said, it is "complicated." While companies can benefit from remote labor, it is also labor that is:
1) Harder to control
2) More difficult to communicate with in certain ways
3) Far less loyal and perhaps not as committed
4) Sometimes less productive
Plus, there are lots of segments o
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>because there is "physical" stuff that has to be done.
Absolutely this. I work in IT and was working remote for the pandemic, but still had to come in every week or so to take care of my usual physical workload. Not all IT jobs can be completely remote.
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The return to offices is being driven by worthless middle managers who cannot justify their existence unless they have people in the office whose performance they can reduce and then take credit for with meaningless meetings and discussions. They neither know nor care about the work being done, they only know and care about their paychecks.
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LOL, you are really jaded :)
There is probably some truth to what you said. Plus, I don't doubt some of that occurs. But I don't think that is the sole explanation nor that it nullifies the points I offered. But it might be worthy of adding to the list.
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My company
1) Productivity was negatively affected during WFH (late launches, etc.) with graphs/stats aplenty, so all employees will be back to the office 7/6, no exceptions
2) Good job everyone! We have had our best quarter yet with +20% Y/Y revenue
Can't wait for the bonus allocation during the annual performance review - hopefully they go with #2
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I was part of my former company's telecommuting pilot project back in the 90s. One of our program managers was exactly as you describe, whining that he couldn't tell if people were goofing off or not. I told him that if they were getting their work done, why did he give a shit? And, if he wouldn't tell then he failed as a manager. Since that time, I never came across another manager who complained about it that way. But for reasons I listed in a previous post, I'll also say that remote work also has it
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In my last 25 years of work, I did engineering development with teams distributed across the country, and some overseas. It's much more difficult than when everyone is local for a number of reasons. Just a few from my own experience.
1. People are tribal, so when something goes wrong, it's always that other group that fucked up.
2. Meetings in person are always more effective.
3. Dealing with multiple time zones is a pain in the ass. Having everyone around for the same core hours makes a difference.
4. Break
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1. How is this different in virtual meetings?
2. Quite the contrary, I'm way more productive in virtual meetings where I can do some sensible work while the markedroid drones on.
3. The main difference here is that I don't have to fly around to get the associated jet lag. I just have to be at the meeing at 4am, with the difference that I didn't have to spend the 12 hours before wedged into a plane.
4. This is why we have a "virtual water cooler" in our company.
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1. When you're working in groups that aren't together was the point. When you're together, you're the same tribe.
2. Then your meetings are being ran by idiots.
3. You wouldn't have had to fly anywhere if you were all in the same office.
4. Pls explain...never heard of it.
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1. I repeat the question, where is the difference?
2. You know other kinds of meetings? But snideness aside, most things that people call meetings for can be solved in mail or in much smaller, more focused groups. People should learn how to meet before we continue this insanity.
3. If we're all in the same office, there is also no time zone problem... unless you're used to MUCH bigger offices than I am.
4. It's basically a set of Teams rooms that are actually called "Water cooler floor X". Our collaboration un
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1. The difference is when you're not in the same tribe, you don't work well together. Instead of searching for solutions to common issues, you point fingers at the other side, and accuse them of being the problem.
2. I ran other kinds of meetings for the last 15+ years of my career. My company had specifically trained people (myself included) in meeting moderation. It included things like making sure people came prepared (so you're not wasting everyone's time reading what you should have prior to the meet
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1. That's very different in our company because we have a huge retention and internal shuffling. People working here for 20-30 years is very common, and them moving between teams is, too. Blaming another group usually means blaming a person you know and possibly like, and since even despite the 1000+ people working here people know each other, blame shifting doesn't really work too well because you just know that X doesn't do Y (or manager X wouldn't allow Y to happen in his team), because you have known X
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1. I worked for a F100 company, in a group with many others that I'd known for 30+ years. That included five of the other managers I shared office space with. But, you'd get a contract from a customer that might require you to partner with another firm, or even just another division within your own company. I've witnessed this kind of behavior in everything from the military (operations vs. maintenance crews), to politics, etc.
2. I think we're mostly in agreement here.
3. This goes to the point of people
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If this was true, then one has to wonder why corporations are so hellbent on moving their employees back into offices. Wouldn't it be much more sensible to benefit from the vast, international pool of talents?
I work for Google. My team of nine consists of two Americans, one German, one Sri Lankan, one Dane, one Chinese, one Indian, one Brit and one Israeli. Of my bosses, all the way up to the CEO, two are Indian, one is Japanese, one is American and one is Persian.
AFAICT, big tech already does exploit the vast, international pool of talents. It's just that in the past they've mostly made them move to Silicon Valley.
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Google still hires for specific offices with Google's discretion to set the minimum number of days in the office, right? Also, Google offices are specialized and not all offices employ people in all areas. So, depending on specialization, there may be one or a couple of US offices and zero or one European office. If I live close to an European Google office, it's still not an option unless one is a generalist.
So, is it fair to say that Google's primary criterion for hiring is not knowledge, hard work or exc
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So, is it fair to say that Google's primary criterion for hiring is not knowledge, hard work or excellence, but it's location, or ability and willingness to move?
No, I don't think that's fair at all. There are far, far more people who are willing to move than who have the required talent and skills. And adjustments can be made for those with sufficiently-valuable skills. I've been full-time remote -- 500 miles from the nearest office, over 1000 miles from the office where most of my team sits -- since 2014, for example. Many, many people work in small offices far from the rest of their team.
Also, I think you underestimate the number of Google offices. A lot of
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If not, then why should me living in a cheaper environment have an impact?
Great question. I doubt many employers give a hoot about your housing costs, but they don't want to pay any more than they have to. Labor is a free market and both employers and employees are competing, with the going rate determined by supply and demand. 1) Employers generally seem to think in-office work is more productive and hence worth paying more for. 2) Remote workers are competing against other remote workers in cheaper environments who still come out ahead even with some pay cut.
Basic eco
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It affects the taxes your employer pays for you, as well as the cost of benefits. They have to play by the laws where they're employing you, and that adds overhead, although they're likely saving a ton by not having to supply you with office space. My former company billed out 30% more for people working in the office.
The "Internet saving the small communities" (Score:4, Interesting)
Where I live, in Denmark, the small villages are dying off fast even though they do have fast, fiber based internet. Our educations are mostly in the big cities (>100000 inhabitants) , and once you moved there, you tend to stay. If they move, it is to Copenhagen, where there are more jobs and higher saleries. Working remotely isn't going to change that.
Re: The "Internet saving the small communities" (Score:2)
I think the cost of living is more stratified in America or comparably China. You can easily find cities with 5x the cost of living in AmerI can and China probably approaching close to 20x if you factor in home ownership. For instance buying in the best part of my city in China is a bit over 1 million RMB but I am told in Beijing that jumps to 1 billion...
Is the difference in cost between the village and Copenhagen that big?
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"Working remotely isn't going to change that."
They'll all move to Belize.
The corporation doesn't pay any taxes and their workers neither and they don't buy lunch or cars for that matter.
Why would such corporations need to be anywhere really, they could build a giant carrier-ship as a corporate home.
I'd call it 'The Flying Dutchmen' because it would need a double Irish with a Dutch sandwich tax in the beginning.
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In small communities where high speed internet (gigabit fiber) has arrived, it has saved them.
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The article isn't talking about villages with under 5k residents. They're talking pretty large 100k-500k pop cities (read: metro regions, a few cities that have run together). They're the biggest thing around for 30-60 minutes (or more) and often in the interior of the country. But they are talking about drawing people out from metro regions of 5mil, so even a 500k city is going to seem small compared to that.
According to wikipedia Worcester, MA–CT starts the list at just under 500k at #89. You drop b
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Most of those 500k places have plenty of stuff to do and the biggest thing you will miss out on is national sports venues, major stadium events and possibly some region specific things.
You have your movie theaters, grocery stores, clothing stores, Target/walmart/costco/home depot all show up in towns of those sizes. Many of those towns have airports or are otherwise only 30-60 minutes away. It's like living in the suburbs but with more space available and an extra half hour to major stuff you don't need eve
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I don't know the geography in Denmark, so maybe there aren't attractions in the small towns or rural areas there like there are here in the US. If I could live anywhere I wanted in the US, I think it would be a choice among San Juan or Orcas Island in Washington state, the Oregon coast, somewhere on the North Cascades Highway, the Sierra Nevada, near the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, or another location like that. Sigh... Of course I might be off hiking and not get much work done.
Re: Yes until the red states (Score:3, Informative)
And why would that happen? There is always someone that wants to turn everything into a political argument and they are gullible enough to think that Democrats are night and day different from Republicans, but they aren't - despite your MSNBC/CNN or Fox News. They are all corrupt and incompetent, just in slightly different ways.
But use your brain instead of repeating what MSNBC tells you. Why would Republicans want to stop people moving away from large cities? Moving people away from large cities is exa
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Re: Yes until the red states (Score:2)
Again with the false narrative. Low income voters historically do NOT vote for Republicans, as sited here [npr.org].
Lots of similar studies, but outside of big cities, people earning large salaries typically vote Republican. Despite the talking points on MSNBC, people moving away from cities would be a blessing for Republicans and they would encourage it, not hinder it
Re: Yes until the red states (Score:2)
*cited
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Again with the false narrative. Low income voters historically do NOT vote for Republicans, as sited here [npr.org].
Lots of similar studies, but outside of big cities, people earning large salaries typically vote Republican. Despite the talking points on MSNBC, people moving away from cities would be a blessing for Republicans and they would encourage it, not hinder it
One political challenge is tech workers demographics tend put the in the D voter bloc, as while they are wealthier than average, that is not the only correlation with how one votes. Gender and education, [theatlantic.com] for example also influence voting trends. If you look at some of the blue states, some of the wealthiest areas in say Cali are strongly Democratic and many of those same voters are potentially remote workers. While the referenced article is a bit old, I suspect the pattern has held throughout subsequent
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Road and fuel subsidies also limit wage growth by helping companies expand their hiring pool so they can hire cheaper workers from farther out of town.
But ask a Republican how they can be both pro-free-marker and pro-subsidy and they'll tell you some subsidies are "necessary." But not affordable housing or single payer health care, those are "socialism!"
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"I keep click the flag and reporting but the posts still stay there,"
That's because it's just you doing it.
You can buy houses in bad areas around where I am (Score:2)
For $30,000-$50,000 in the "bad part" of the city.
If you move out to the suburbs, a nice 3-4 bedroom on a 1/2 acre are under $200k with a 15-20 minute commute in good weather (probably not an issue with remote working)
If you want to make your bones, buy and live in CA for a while, sell at a profit, then move somewhere sensible with lower costs.
Re:You can buy houses in bad areas around where I (Score:4, Interesting)
For $30,000-$50,000 in the "bad part" of the city.
If you move out to the suburbs, a nice 3-4 bedroom on a 1/2 acre are under $200k with a 15-20 minute commute in good weather (probably not an issue with remote working)
If you want to make your bones, buy and live in CA for a while, sell at a profit, then move somewhere sensible with lower costs.
Living in an area where that was once true but has seen tremendous growth it eventually it becomes an 1.5 hour commute and the 200k house is now over 500k to 1 million; and all those nice horse farms and wooded areas are now housing tracts and strip malls. Road construction and other services are hard pressed to keep pace with the growth, partially because that costs money and if you've lived here for a while you don't want higher taxes so someone living elsewhere in the county gets a nice new road. Let the builder put in the road and add it to the cost of the new house. Same with sewer and electric hookups. Also, be sure when you buy you are located close enough to the good schools in the district so when they build a new school you don't suddenly find yourself in a less desirable school's area and see house prices drop accordingly.
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Good bye Blue cities (Score:1)
When I left my previous employer⦠(Score:1)
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Careful. Rats aren't supposed to understand the game.
This is what... (Score:1)
This is the same thing as outsourcing manufacturin (Score:2)
The economy doesn't care about borders. It sees a geographic wage inequality as an inefficiency, and attempts to equalize it. In manufacturing, it did so by moving the manufacturing jobs to countries where labor costs were lower, and transporting the finished goods around the globe to the countries where labor co
Re: This is the same thing as outsourcing manufact (Score:2)
Good for the cities does not necessarily mean good for the people in the city, though.
Misleading headline (Score:2)
The place small towns have to compete with big tech is when Amazon drains all the wealth from the local economy and crushes small businesses. The other major place small communities get burned is by being more economically conservative and fiscally responsible. The consequence is the local dollar doesn't inflate n
It goes both ways (Score:2)
Remote work is forcing big cities to compete with smaller ones, because before, you pretty much had to live in a big city to get good tech work. Now that that's no longer true, cities are losing more of their good people to the smaller cities. On the other hand, tech workers in smaller cities are now able to get better paying jobs because they can work for big-city companies. It's a win for everybody.