6 ms·

I love the sentiment. Silicon Valley and NYC became what they are because of people hacking on things in garages / shitty apartments. Now those shitty apartment

I love the sentiment. Silicon Valley and NYC became what they are because of people hacking on things in garages / shitty apartments. Now those shitty apartments cost $2,000/month. The equivalent of those places, where things like Apple started, isn't Silicon Valley and NYC. It's places like Detroit. Or wherever people doing cool things decide to move and congregate. Then again, it is still possible to live cheaply in NYC. My friend lives in Bed Stuy, Brooklyn for $450/month. And there's value in living in or near where the community is already strong. You just have to move out a bit further and live a bit grungier.

nextos 10y ago
I can't agree more. But it's hard. I feel Silicon Valley and NYC became what they are because of cheap real estate and talent pool. I find it hard to find places with a lot of talent but undervalued real estate these days. Maybe all low hanging fruit is gone. In Europe, London, Oxbridge, Stockholm are somewhat similar. Insane prices. Berlin and to a certain extent Copenhagen are cheaper. Some smaller locations like Cluj are quite cheap, but maybe a bit outside common tech circles.
- ido 10y ago
  Copenhagen? I don't know how much real estate costs there but I doubt it's cheap. Last time I visited it was as expensive as Zurich (I.e. Double German prices). Better examples might be Leipzig and Prague.
  - nextos 10y ago
    IMHO suburbs in Copenhagen are pretty affordable wrt salaries.
    - uola 10y ago
      Malmö is probably a better deal in that case.
- bbcbasic 10y ago
  Kiev?
Apocryphon 10y ago
Detroit is an actual city with deep history. It may be in decline, but it still seems like to have more going on, or at least the potential to have more going on, than small towns. There's likely a lot of other second- or even third-tier cities that are overlooked, but are still more interesting to live in than a town in "Northeast Ohio." Austin, Portland, Boulder are becoming the new NY/SF because of the process of saturation. We just need to find the next Austins and Portlands.
- dionidium 10y ago
  >a town in "Northeast Ohio." She basically lives in Cleveland. Cleveland, like many rust belt cities, is very old and its borders surround a small percentage of the area. But that's an entirely arbitrary line. In practice, she lives in "Cleveland."
- rmason 10y ago
  Though primarily my Detroit friends are entrepreneurs or engineers working for them I've noticed that there has been a wholesale movement of artists to the city. Though in the last five years it's gotten kind of pricey in the downtown area I keep discovering clusters of artists out in the neighborhoods in my travels in the city. https://i-d.vice.com/en_us/article/new-york-i-love-you-but-its-time-to-move-to-detroit https://i-d.vice.com/en_us/article/new-york-i-love-you-but-i... Buildings are really cheap though you've got to restore them yourself. Tax valuations though are set at pre-recession values. But if you get a lawyer they can be lowered sometimes up to 75%. I'm starting to see others following the clusters of artists and slowly these neighborhoods are in the beginning stages of gentrification.
  - danvasquez29 10y ago
    downtown Detroit is in a weird state right now where it's bounced back enough and gotten enough hype that it's gentrifying, but the development efforts haven't quite finished fast enough to catch up to demand. My rent from 2013-2015 went up 35% and I eventually moved to a suburb. I tried to buy a place and even when I convinced myself to overpay would be beat out by a better all-cash offer within 24 hours of a place going on sale. It's nuts here right now. 3 years ago it was a great place to move in cheapish and be around a burgeoning scene, right now it's expensive as hell, and in 2 years will probably be back to being able to support that student/new grad/bootstrapping entrepreneur scene. We need more housing to come online, and it's being built, just not done yet.
no_flags 10y ago
Can anyone comment on how and why this price increase happened? Has supply not kept up with demand?
- bufordsharkley 10y ago
  Basically, yes. I recommend reading Kim-Mai Cutler's series of articles about Bay Area housing to get a better picture. Her piece from 2014, "How Burrowing Owls Lead to Vomiting Anarchists"[0] is a good place to start. In short, it's the preponderance of restrictive zoning laws (largely caused in CA by Prop 13), poor regional cooperation, and land entitlements (see Prop 13). [0] https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/ https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/
whybroke 10y ago
Unfortunately, as soon as an area demonstrates it is becoming a significant hacker/maker region, speculation drives housing process through the roof killing the trend before it seriously takes off. For example Portland OR. If there is ever going to be another profuondly innovative tech center (ala early SV) we have to solve the way housing prices work first.
- kilroy123 10y ago
  But to be fair, Portland _is_ trying. Every hole in the ground, is a mid-level apartment building going up. Yeah it's changing rapidly here and prices have risen. Still, you have to give the city some props for trying very hard to deal with it. Unlike San Fransisco that doesn't drastically try to increase inventory.
  - whybroke 10y ago
    It is also an interesting test case for the hypothesis that merely increasing inventory, however enormously, will fix the problem.
bluedino 10y ago
Silicon Valley was full of castaways from big high tech companies, they created Intel in the 70's, software companies in the 80's, and web companies in the 2000's Your Midwestern cities don't have that.
czinck 10y ago
How did your friend find an apartment in Bed Stuy for only $450? Rent controlled? Splitting a bedroom with someone else? A quick search on streeteasy gives literally no apartments in Bed Stuy for less than $1k currently available, the cheapest being $1350 for a very small studio apartment. Craigslist has individual rooms for as little as $700, but that's still way more than what your friend is paying.

nextos 10y ago

I can't agree more. But it's hard. I feel Silicon Valley and NYC became what they are because of cheap real estate and talent pool. I find it hard to find places with a lot of talent but undervalued real estate these days. Maybe all low hanging fruit is gone. In Europe, London, Oxbridge, Stockholm are somewhat similar. Insane prices. Berlin and to a certain extent Copenhagen are cheaper. Some smaller locations like Cluj are quite cheap, but maybe a bit outside common tech circles.

ido 10y ago
Copenhagen? I don't know how much real estate costs there but I doubt it's cheap. Last time I visited it was as expensive as Zurich (I.e. Double German prices). Better examples might be Leipzig and Prague.
- nextos 10y ago
  IMHO suburbs in Copenhagen are pretty affordable wrt salaries.
  - uola 10y ago
    Malmö is probably a better deal in that case.
bbcbasic 10y ago
Kiev?

Apocryphon 10y ago

Detroit is an actual city with deep history. It may be in decline, but it still seems like to have more going on, or at least the potential to have more going on, than small towns. There's likely a lot of other second- or even third-tier cities that are overlooked, but are still more interesting to live in than a town in "Northeast Ohio." Austin, Portland, Boulder are becoming the new NY/SF because of the process of saturation. We just need to find the next Austins and Portlands.

dionidium 10y ago
>a town in "Northeast Ohio." She basically lives in Cleveland. Cleveland, like many rust belt cities, is very old and its borders surround a small percentage of the area. But that's an entirely arbitrary line. In practice, she lives in "Cleveland."
rmason 10y ago
Though primarily my Detroit friends are entrepreneurs or engineers working for them I've noticed that there has been a wholesale movement of artists to the city. Though in the last five years it's gotten kind of pricey in the downtown area I keep discovering clusters of artists out in the neighborhoods in my travels in the city. https://i-d.vice.com/en_us/article/new-york-i-love-you-but-its-time-to-move-to-detroit https://i-d.vice.com/en_us/article/new-york-i-love-you-but-i... Buildings are really cheap though you've got to restore them yourself. Tax valuations though are set at pre-recession values. But if you get a lawyer they can be lowered sometimes up to 75%. I'm starting to see others following the clusters of artists and slowly these neighborhoods are in the beginning stages of gentrification.
- danvasquez29 10y ago
  downtown Detroit is in a weird state right now where it's bounced back enough and gotten enough hype that it's gentrifying, but the development efforts haven't quite finished fast enough to catch up to demand. My rent from 2013-2015 went up 35% and I eventually moved to a suburb. I tried to buy a place and even when I convinced myself to overpay would be beat out by a better all-cash offer within 24 hours of a place going on sale. It's nuts here right now. 3 years ago it was a great place to move in cheapish and be around a burgeoning scene, right now it's expensive as hell, and in 2 years will probably be back to being able to support that student/new grad/bootstrapping entrepreneur scene. We need more housing to come online, and it's being built, just not done yet.

no_flags 10y ago

Can anyone comment on how and why this price increase happened? Has supply not kept up with demand?

bufordsharkley 10y ago
Basically, yes. I recommend reading Kim-Mai Cutler's series of articles about Bay Area housing to get a better picture. Her piece from 2014, "How Burrowing Owls Lead to Vomiting Anarchists"[0] is a good place to start. In short, it's the preponderance of restrictive zoning laws (largely caused in CA by Prop 13), poor regional cooperation, and land entitlements (see Prop 13). [0] https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/ https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/

whybroke 10y ago

Unfortunately, as soon as an area demonstrates it is becoming a significant hacker/maker region, speculation drives housing process through the roof killing the trend before it seriously takes off. For example Portland OR. If there is ever going to be another profuondly innovative tech center (ala early SV) we have to solve the way housing prices work first.

kilroy123 10y ago
But to be fair, Portland _is_ trying. Every hole in the ground, is a mid-level apartment building going up. Yeah it's changing rapidly here and prices have risen. Still, you have to give the city some props for trying very hard to deal with it. Unlike San Fransisco that doesn't drastically try to increase inventory.
- whybroke 10y ago
  It is also an interesting test case for the hypothesis that merely increasing inventory, however enormously, will fix the problem.

bluedino 10y ago

Silicon Valley was full of castaways from big high tech companies, they created Intel in the 70's, software companies in the 80's, and web companies in the 2000's Your Midwestern cities don't have that.

czinck 10y ago

How did your friend find an apartment in Bed Stuy for only $450? Rent controlled? Splitting a bedroom with someone else? A quick search on streeteasy gives literally no apartments in Bed Stuy for less than $1k currently available, the cheapest being $1350 for a very small studio apartment. Craigslist has individual rooms for as little as $700, but that's still way more than what your friend is paying.