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I live in a relatively small suburb of Seattle. I'm a software developer. There are no jobs for me where I live. None. None within 20 miles. The only job for me

I live in a relatively small suburb of Seattle. I'm a software developer. There are no jobs for me where I live. None. None within 20 miles. The only job for me is in Seattle or Bellevue or Redmond, an hour-long commute. I love where I live, and I don't want to live in Seattle (which I could barely afford anyway-- I like owning a house). I also don't want to exclusively work-from-home and be cut-off socially from my co-workers. It sucks. (And as I've griped before, this is only true of a couple professions, and software developer happens to be one of them. If I had become a lawyer, I could work in any town in the US. Or a plumber, or a doctor, or a school administrator, or a tow truck driver, or a...) I'd just be happy with some policy that spreads these companies out a bit. Maybe a tax benefit for opening office space in communities under a certain population size. I'm not sure how it would work. All those angel investors propping up tech companies could also be propping up small town economies merely by moving their offices outside of Seattle, Bellevue, Los Angeles, San Francisco, etc. The last company I worked for had 55 employees, about a dozen of which were software developers. That 55-person company means nothing to Seattle. Not even to the South Lake Union neighborhood. It's not even a blip. But it'd be part of the lifeblood in a smaller town. It'd also help cut the commute for everybody, be able to recruit technical workers like myself who don't want to live in a big city, etc. Anyway, just a thought, hopefully relevant to this site. Meanwhile I go back to the jobs site, sigh heavily, and judge positions on how close they are to the bus stops...

rconti 10y ago
This feels like an issue with the way our cities and towns are designed, sadly. (I grew up in Bellevue and worked in Seattle).
laserDinosaur 10y ago
>The only job for me is in Seattle or Bellevue or Redmond, an hour-long commute I don't mean to belittle your situation but..an hour seems like fantastic commuting time. Most people I work with take an hour to an hour and a half to get to work. Up until our office moved there was two guys that had a 2 hour trip into work every day. Most people I know would kill to have an hour commute.
- obj-g 10y ago
  Have to agree with you -- jeez, it used to take me 2 hours to get home and it was just from one side of Phoenix to the other using freeways. Currently, I live in Barcelona, and it takes me about 45 minutes when you add up walking to the metro, taking the metro, etc.
- eru 10y ago
  What are people putting up with such crazy commutes? Where do you live? Why don't people just move closer, or change jobs?
  - blakeyrat 10y ago
    You obviously don't live in the Seattle area. You can't move closer, because real estate is literally twice as expensive as where you currently live, and you can't change jobs because all the jobs are in the same places with the crummy commutes. About the only factor you can optimize is picking jobs that are along mass transit routes.
    - drzaiusapelord 10y ago
      Uh, I think you're being very dismissive here. There are many rational reasons for urban business. Being able to get rental real estate for your business. In the suburbs you now need a loan, credit, collateral, 30% down, etc to build your own building as there generally isn't a rash of empty floors on skyscrapers like cities do. Being able to have face to face meetings frequently with your investors, board members, and bankers and other people who hold your pursestrings. Being able to find investors in the first place. Picture two similar business plans. One by a group in the far out suburbs and one nearby. As an investor, which one would you lean towards, especially if you expect yourself to do any hands on work or attend board meetings? Being able to get to the airport and mass transportation hubs quickly. Being able to wine and dine investors and customers in places that will impress them. Being able to court youngsters and urban professionals who want a city life and won't even interview in the suburbs. (Hi! This is me and almost everyone I know.) Being near urban universities for the above reasons and job fairs. Being near your competitors to help you poach their staff. Being able to work with a local government that understands business needs and not being subjected to a 'board of elders' of out of touch 70 year old suburban retirees who will bikeshed the shit out of any proposal of yours and NIMBY you to death. Being able to quickly expand by taking more office space instead of, you guessed it, building another fucking building. Being able to order 1gb fiber and have in here in 30 days as opposed to 360 days in the suburbs and that's on top of paying tens of thousands of dollars for that last mile to your office, which they will need to dig up just for you. ...and yes, maybe some perks of city life as you mention. Work life should have pleasant parts and it helps attract talent.
neeleshs 10y ago
I believe you simply made a choice. I live in the bay area, but my commute is hour long,30 miles away from my house, and I don't have any jobs that I want to do near my house. That's a choice I made.
- blakeyrat 10y ago
  At the time I made the choice, I didn't know that this industry was so concentrated in only large urban areas. In fact, I was basically hearing the opposite: "tech is HUGE, those jobs will be EVERYWHERE in 10 years!" Well. It's been 20 years, and they aren't. So, yes, I made a choice to get into software development. It wasn't an informed choice. How about we come at it from the reverse angle: why are all those 55-person tech companies founded in Seattle? They pay more taxes. They pay more for office space and pretty much everything else. They create a longer commute for everybody by centralizing all the work. What's the problem with spreading-out a bit? Anyway, the question was how to help blue-collar workers, and I just gave an answer that amounts to basically, "move jobs where they are".
  - eru 10y ago
    Assume that the people funding the companies are not total idiots. So there must be good reason to fund companies in these hot cities---especially given all the down sides yous mentioned. What could they be?
    - blakeyrat 10y ago
      Companies are (generally speaking) founded by people with type-A "go go go!" personalities, who love to be in the center of large cities with all kinds of hustle and bustle. The kind of people who couldn't even imagine living anywhere else. That's not to say they're idiots, of course not. But it might be to say that the reasons for placing their company in the center of a large city aren't very rational or well-considered.
      - eru 10y ago
        The country pumpkins are free to start their own companies, if they like it better there. And lots of them do. See all the startups in decidedly suburban Silicon Valley. (And yes, I am being a bit snarky here in equating everything outside of cities, be that suburban sprawl or proper countryside.) Also see SAP in Walldorf.
utefan001 10y ago
This is the best idea I have heard all year. Centralizing too many jobs where the cost of living is so high creates an "us vs them" mentality.
drzaiusapelord 10y ago
So you're proposing a massive tax[1] increase on urban workers who live with urban compromises (traffic, higher prices on goods, higher real estate prices, crime, terrible schools, high taxes, pollution, etc) to be near work so that other workers in the suburbs can enjoy big lawns and beautiful single-family homes? Well, that's been our strategy with these red state rust belts for decades and it doesn't work. These states receive much more in taxes than they pay. These get doled in various ways, and some ways very close to what you're proposing[2]. It didn't work. Unemployment and wages are still poor. The larger issue here is why do you get that wonderful suburban home and I get a tiny condo and yet somehow I'm taxed extra so you can live, and lets be frank here, a wasteful and high-carbon footprint lifestyle? Urban migration, telework, and re-training are the real solutions here. Everything else is just welfare with 'make work' jobs that will evaporate the second those tax credits get cut or the company in question has a bad quarter and realizes it can just eliminate that office, that only really exists as a tax shelter, for cost savings. Lastly, the "come to the suburbs for savings" is a staple in business. Every suburban mayor is constantly flirting with urban companies to move jobs there as he's empowered to give significant tax sweetheart deals and other incentives. In fact, this is one of the main policy platforms for suburban mayors: bring in jobs. This is a normal part of suburban political life. Its not a new idea, its the status quo. One of my previous employers moved from downtown Chicago to the suburbs exactly for this. Ultimately, you can only poach so many jobs, so its not some magical solution for suburban and rural unemployment. [1] Because thats where the money ultimately comes from, we wont cut medicare or SS or our military in half to pay for this, we'll just raises taxes on the middle class. [2] Tax credits for creating jobs in poor areas are common public policy on both the state and federal levels. For example and were vastly increased after the 2008 meltdown. These were so popular many corporations not only didn't pay tax but received free money from the government for it! Worse, they're easily abused eve before they create jobs (if they even do, its easy to take these credits for new offices you were planning on opening anyway): http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2014/08/11/1B-Tax-Credit-Poor-Areas-Going-Big-Banks http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2014/08/11/1B-Tax-Cre...
- blakeyrat 10y ago
  > So you're proposing I'm not proposing anything. This is a casual conversation on a web forum, not drafting a party platform. > a massive tax[1] increase I'm definitely not proposing anything massive. > on urban workers who live with urban compromises (traffic, high prices, crime, etc) to be near work so that other workers in the suburbs can enjoy big lawns and beautiful single-family homes? I live in the suburbs and I have to deal with all of those things. Remember: my exact gripe is I have to commute into the city to be employed. While I'm there, I'm subjected to the same traffic, high prices, crime, etc. as all other city dwellers are. And I get even more traffic coming and going. And I don't see anything wrong with people who want to own a lawn or a single-family home being able to own one. > Well, that's been our strategy with these red state rust belts for decades No it hasn't. You know what? Nevermind. I don't want to get into any more political discussion right now. Just relax a bit. It's just a casual conversation on a web form, I don't run the RNC or anything and I wasn't drafting a law and I don't need to be yelled at for how wrong I am.
api 10y ago
Related to the hollowing out of the middle class is the insane super-concentration of opportunity into cities. Even some suburbs around hot cities are now no-go zones.
motoford 10y ago
[quote]If I had become a lawyer, I could work in any town in the US. Or a plumber, or a doctor, or a school administrator, or a tow truck driver, or a...[/quote] There are software jobs outside of Seattle.
kin 10y ago
As a fellow software developer, you do bring up a good point and I agree with you, but I think he's referring to more blue collar jobs. We have white collar jobs and are pretty well off. You have a job and own a home which is far more than what it sounds like the rust belt that voted for Trump has.
jimbokun 10y ago
"(which I could barely afford anyway-- I like owning a house)" First world problems indeed. I can own a dwelling much larger than the vast majority of people living in the world can afford, on a spacious lot, or can live in a much smaller dwelling with much more convenient access to my place of work, but can't have both! Sorry, but you're not ranking high on my list of people in desperate need of government intervention to fix your problem.
rewrew 10y ago
This is a part of modern life: You have to go where the jobs are. Apologies if this comes off as antagonistic, but why would you complain about having to an hour commute to a job when you have the benefit of living exactly where you want to live? Do you really expect to have everything exactly the way you want it? I get complaining about a four or six hour commute, but an hour each way/option to live at home for a great career and a great life seems like something most people would be really, really grateful for.
- humanrebar 10y ago
  > This is a part of modern life: You have to go where the jobs are. There's a kind of unfairness in small communities creating safe and nurturing environments for families, educating children well, then waving farewell as their young adults move to a city far away. It's especially unfair if the young adults would just as soon stay in their hometowns given comparable opportunities.
  - jimbokun 10y ago
    That's why I'm happy my son is attending an urban high school. He's part of the college track, where it's not uncommon for students to graduate and attend Ivies or other good universities. But he also gets to interact with people across racial, religious, and socio-economic groups. So he won't freak out and be terrified to leave his insular, closed little community and experience the bigger world.
    - humanrebar 10y ago
      You don't have to be freaked out or terrified to love your hometown. Sometimes you just like fishing or living near your family.
  - micaksica 10y ago
    > "There's a kind of unfairness" Whether or not something is fair is a subjective statement, and when stated like this it reads like nothing more than a veneer on entitlement. At the end of the day, "fairness" is a quaint ideal held by people that wish that power structures were different than they are. Life is not fair; it is ruled by politics, power and leverage in a Hobbesian fashion. While I enjoy urban living, I did not choose to play the emigrate-everywhere version of "modern life". I did what I needed to because the economics of the situation demanded it. This is why the rural complaint rings hollow to me. The economy decides where you go and what you do, not some suburban ideal.
atourgates 10y ago
The flipside is that there probably aren't enough of you to fulfill the needs of companies that need a specialized technical or creative workforce. I was recently talking with a former software company founder who started his company in Boise, Idaho in the late-90s. The first few years, their product was a success and they doubled or more in size every year. Then, they started to plateau even though demand was still through the roof. They couldn't keep up with demand, because they ran out of developers who lived in or were willing to move to Boise. In the words of the founder, "Every qualified developer within 100 miles of us got a job-offer, until there weren't any left." The obvious solution would have been for them to move to Seattle or San Francisco. But all the founders were from Boise, and were committed to keeping the company in their home town. At the end, they were paying qualified developers Silicon Valley wages, in addition to signing bonuses equivalent to a year's salary just to get them to move to Boise. As you can imagine, that severely hampered their ability to compete. Finally, they sold to Microsoft. The founders assumed that the cache of Microsoft's name would be enough to draw developers, but Microsoft had the same problem. After a few years, Microsoft moved the whole operation back to Redmond. All that to say, you (and I coincidentally) are in the minority. Most creative and technical professionals want to live in nice, big cities. The great thing for those of us that don't fit that mold, is that it's easier than ever to work remotely.
cwe 10y ago
Hopefully you voted for ST3
jrnichols 10y ago
> Maybe a tax benefit for opening office space... i was just reading an article about a company with offices near St Louis. They took the tax incentives to open an office, promised like 150 jobs, and now they're all but shuttering it and laying off the 77 IT workers they had. And contracting their jobs to a company in India. The tax incentives are definitely there. But the incentive to keep the jobs there isn't, when offshoring is so in vogue still.
rifung 10y ago
> I don't want to live in Seattle (which I could barely afford anyway-- I like owning a house). My understanding is that if companies were more spread out, then compensation would also be lower because there's less competition for employees. With compensation also being lowered, wouldn't you just be in the same situation because while real estate is more expensive in Seattle, salaries are higher too? As salaries increase, the real estate near those companies will naturally increase. I don't see why having companies be spread farther out would change this relationship. I live in Seattle but grew up in the suburbs and also sometimes miss living in a house (mainly because I play piano). But even my friends who live in the suburbs are struggling to save up to own a house, so as far as I can tell it's not any different. If anything, it's even better working in the city because as far as I can tell it's easier to save money since even if you save the same percentage of income you would make more.

rconti 10y ago

This feels like an issue with the way our cities and towns are designed, sadly. (I grew up in Bellevue and worked in Seattle).

laserDinosaur 10y ago

>The only job for me is in Seattle or Bellevue or Redmond, an hour-long commute I don't mean to belittle your situation but..an hour seems like fantastic commuting time. Most people I work with take an hour to an hour and a half to get to work. Up until our office moved there was two guys that had a 2 hour trip into work every day. Most people I know would kill to have an hour commute.

obj-g 10y ago
Have to agree with you -- jeez, it used to take me 2 hours to get home and it was just from one side of Phoenix to the other using freeways. Currently, I live in Barcelona, and it takes me about 45 minutes when you add up walking to the metro, taking the metro, etc.
eru 10y ago
What are people putting up with such crazy commutes? Where do you live? Why don't people just move closer, or change jobs?
- blakeyrat 10y ago
  You obviously don't live in the Seattle area. You can't move closer, because real estate is literally twice as expensive as where you currently live, and you can't change jobs because all the jobs are in the same places with the crummy commutes. About the only factor you can optimize is picking jobs that are along mass transit routes.
  - drzaiusapelord 10y ago
    Uh, I think you're being very dismissive here. There are many rational reasons for urban business. Being able to get rental real estate for your business. In the suburbs you now need a loan, credit, collateral, 30% down, etc to build your own building as there generally isn't a rash of empty floors on skyscrapers like cities do. Being able to have face to face meetings frequently with your investors, board members, and bankers and other people who hold your pursestrings. Being able to find investors in the first place. Picture two similar business plans. One by a group in the far out suburbs and one nearby. As an investor, which one would you lean towards, especially if you expect yourself to do any hands on work or attend board meetings? Being able to get to the airport and mass transportation hubs quickly. Being able to wine and dine investors and customers in places that will impress them. Being able to court youngsters and urban professionals who want a city life and won't even interview in the suburbs. (Hi! This is me and almost everyone I know.) Being near urban universities for the above reasons and job fairs. Being near your competitors to help you poach their staff. Being able to work with a local government that understands business needs and not being subjected to a 'board of elders' of out of touch 70 year old suburban retirees who will bikeshed the shit out of any proposal of yours and NIMBY you to death. Being able to quickly expand by taking more office space instead of, you guessed it, building another fucking building. Being able to order 1gb fiber and have in here in 30 days as opposed to 360 days in the suburbs and that's on top of paying tens of thousands of dollars for that last mile to your office, which they will need to dig up just for you. ...and yes, maybe some perks of city life as you mention. Work life should have pleasant parts and it helps attract talent.

neeleshs 10y ago

I believe you simply made a choice. I live in the bay area, but my commute is hour long,30 miles away from my house, and I don't have any jobs that I want to do near my house. That's a choice I made.

blakeyrat 10y ago
At the time I made the choice, I didn't know that this industry was so concentrated in only large urban areas. In fact, I was basically hearing the opposite: "tech is HUGE, those jobs will be EVERYWHERE in 10 years!" Well. It's been 20 years, and they aren't. So, yes, I made a choice to get into software development. It wasn't an informed choice. How about we come at it from the reverse angle: why are all those 55-person tech companies founded in Seattle? They pay more taxes. They pay more for office space and pretty much everything else. They create a longer commute for everybody by centralizing all the work. What's the problem with spreading-out a bit? Anyway, the question was how to help blue-collar workers, and I just gave an answer that amounts to basically, "move jobs where they are".
- eru 10y ago
  Assume that the people funding the companies are not total idiots. So there must be good reason to fund companies in these hot cities---especially given all the down sides yous mentioned. What could they be?
  - blakeyrat 10y ago
    Companies are (generally speaking) founded by people with type-A "go go go!" personalities, who love to be in the center of large cities with all kinds of hustle and bustle. The kind of people who couldn't even imagine living anywhere else. That's not to say they're idiots, of course not. But it might be to say that the reasons for placing their company in the center of a large city aren't very rational or well-considered.
    - eru 10y ago
      The country pumpkins are free to start their own companies, if they like it better there. And lots of them do. See all the startups in decidedly suburban Silicon Valley. (And yes, I am being a bit snarky here in equating everything outside of cities, be that suburban sprawl or proper countryside.) Also see SAP in Walldorf.

utefan001 10y ago

This is the best idea I have heard all year. Centralizing too many jobs where the cost of living is so high creates an "us vs them" mentality.

drzaiusapelord 10y ago

So you're proposing a massive tax[1] increase on urban workers who live with urban compromises (traffic, higher prices on goods, higher real estate prices, crime, terrible schools, high taxes, pollution, etc) to be near work so that other workers in the suburbs can enjoy big lawns and beautiful single-family homes? Well, that's been our strategy with these red state rust belts for decades and it doesn't work. These states receive much more in taxes than they pay. These get doled in various ways, and some ways very close to what you're proposing[2]. It didn't work. Unemployment and wages are still poor. The larger issue here is why do you get that wonderful suburban home and I get a tiny condo and yet somehow I'm taxed extra so you can live, and lets be frank here, a wasteful and high-carbon footprint lifestyle? Urban migration, telework, and re-training are the real solutions here. Everything else is just welfare with 'make work' jobs that will evaporate the second those tax credits get cut or the company in question has a bad quarter and realizes it can just eliminate that office, that only really exists as a tax shelter, for cost savings. Lastly, the "come to the suburbs for savings" is a staple in business. Every suburban mayor is constantly flirting with urban companies to move jobs there as he's empowered to give significant tax sweetheart deals and other incentives. In fact, this is one of the main policy platforms for suburban mayors: bring in jobs. This is a normal part of suburban political life. Its not a new idea, its the status quo. One of my previous employers moved from downtown Chicago to the suburbs exactly for this. Ultimately, you can only poach so many jobs, so its not some magical solution for suburban and rural unemployment. [1] Because thats where the money ultimately comes from, we wont cut medicare or SS or our military in half to pay for this, we'll just raises taxes on the middle class. [2] Tax credits for creating jobs in poor areas are common public policy on both the state and federal levels. For example and were vastly increased after the 2008 meltdown. These were so popular many corporations not only didn't pay tax but received free money from the government for it! Worse, they're easily abused eve before they create jobs (if they even do, its easy to take these credits for new offices you were planning on opening anyway): http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2014/08/11/1B-Tax-Credit-Poor-Areas-Going-Big-Banks http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2014/08/11/1B-Tax-Cre...

blakeyrat 10y ago
> So you're proposing I'm not proposing anything. This is a casual conversation on a web forum, not drafting a party platform. > a massive tax[1] increase I'm definitely not proposing anything massive. > on urban workers who live with urban compromises (traffic, high prices, crime, etc) to be near work so that other workers in the suburbs can enjoy big lawns and beautiful single-family homes? I live in the suburbs and I have to deal with all of those things. Remember: my exact gripe is I have to commute into the city to be employed. While I'm there, I'm subjected to the same traffic, high prices, crime, etc. as all other city dwellers are. And I get even more traffic coming and going. And I don't see anything wrong with people who want to own a lawn or a single-family home being able to own one. > Well, that's been our strategy with these red state rust belts for decades No it hasn't. You know what? Nevermind. I don't want to get into any more political discussion right now. Just relax a bit. It's just a casual conversation on a web form, I don't run the RNC or anything and I wasn't drafting a law and I don't need to be yelled at for how wrong I am.

api 10y ago

Related to the hollowing out of the middle class is the insane super-concentration of opportunity into cities. Even some suburbs around hot cities are now no-go zones.

motoford 10y ago

[quote]If I had become a lawyer, I could work in any town in the US. Or a plumber, or a doctor, or a school administrator, or a tow truck driver, or a...[/quote] There are software jobs outside of Seattle.

kin 10y ago

As a fellow software developer, you do bring up a good point and I agree with you, but I think he's referring to more blue collar jobs. We have white collar jobs and are pretty well off. You have a job and own a home which is far more than what it sounds like the rust belt that voted for Trump has.

jimbokun 10y ago

"(which I could barely afford anyway-- I like owning a house)" First world problems indeed. I can own a dwelling much larger than the vast majority of people living in the world can afford, on a spacious lot, or can live in a much smaller dwelling with much more convenient access to my place of work, but can't have both! Sorry, but you're not ranking high on my list of people in desperate need of government intervention to fix your problem.

rewrew 10y ago

This is a part of modern life: You have to go where the jobs are. Apologies if this comes off as antagonistic, but why would you complain about having to an hour commute to a job when you have the benefit of living exactly where you want to live? Do you really expect to have everything exactly the way you want it? I get complaining about a four or six hour commute, but an hour each way/option to live at home for a great career and a great life seems like something most people would be really, really grateful for.

humanrebar 10y ago
> This is a part of modern life: You have to go where the jobs are. There's a kind of unfairness in small communities creating safe and nurturing environments for families, educating children well, then waving farewell as their young adults move to a city far away. It's especially unfair if the young adults would just as soon stay in their hometowns given comparable opportunities.
- jimbokun 10y ago
  That's why I'm happy my son is attending an urban high school. He's part of the college track, where it's not uncommon for students to graduate and attend Ivies or other good universities. But he also gets to interact with people across racial, religious, and socio-economic groups. So he won't freak out and be terrified to leave his insular, closed little community and experience the bigger world.
  - humanrebar 10y ago
    You don't have to be freaked out or terrified to love your hometown. Sometimes you just like fishing or living near your family.
- micaksica 10y ago
  > "There's a kind of unfairness" Whether or not something is fair is a subjective statement, and when stated like this it reads like nothing more than a veneer on entitlement. At the end of the day, "fairness" is a quaint ideal held by people that wish that power structures were different than they are. Life is not fair; it is ruled by politics, power and leverage in a Hobbesian fashion. While I enjoy urban living, I did not choose to play the emigrate-everywhere version of "modern life". I did what I needed to because the economics of the situation demanded it. This is why the rural complaint rings hollow to me. The economy decides where you go and what you do, not some suburban ideal.

atourgates 10y ago

The flipside is that there probably aren't enough of you to fulfill the needs of companies that need a specialized technical or creative workforce. I was recently talking with a former software company founder who started his company in Boise, Idaho in the late-90s. The first few years, their product was a success and they doubled or more in size every year. Then, they started to plateau even though demand was still through the roof. They couldn't keep up with demand, because they ran out of developers who lived in or were willing to move to Boise. In the words of the founder, "Every qualified developer within 100 miles of us got a job-offer, until there weren't any left." The obvious solution would have been for them to move to Seattle or San Francisco. But all the founders were from Boise, and were committed to keeping the company in their home town. At the end, they were paying qualified developers Silicon Valley wages, in addition to signing bonuses equivalent to a year's salary just to get them to move to Boise. As you can imagine, that severely hampered their ability to compete. Finally, they sold to Microsoft. The founders assumed that the cache of Microsoft's name would be enough to draw developers, but Microsoft had the same problem. After a few years, Microsoft moved the whole operation back to Redmond. All that to say, you (and I coincidentally) are in the minority. Most creative and technical professionals want to live in nice, big cities. The great thing for those of us that don't fit that mold, is that it's easier than ever to work remotely.

cwe 10y ago

Hopefully you voted for ST3

jrnichols 10y ago

> Maybe a tax benefit for opening office space... i was just reading an article about a company with offices near St Louis. They took the tax incentives to open an office, promised like 150 jobs, and now they're all but shuttering it and laying off the 77 IT workers they had. And contracting their jobs to a company in India. The tax incentives are definitely there. But the incentive to keep the jobs there isn't, when offshoring is so in vogue still.

rifung 10y ago

> I don't want to live in Seattle (which I could barely afford anyway-- I like owning a house). My understanding is that if companies were more spread out, then compensation would also be lower because there's less competition for employees. With compensation also being lowered, wouldn't you just be in the same situation because while real estate is more expensive in Seattle, salaries are higher too? As salaries increase, the real estate near those companies will naturally increase. I don't see why having companies be spread farther out would change this relationship. I live in Seattle but grew up in the suburbs and also sometimes miss living in a house (mainly because I play piano). But even my friends who live in the suburbs are struggling to save up to own a house, so as far as I can tell it's not any different. If anything, it's even better working in the city because as far as I can tell it's easier to save money since even if you save the same percentage of income you would make more.