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Thank you. I'm glad someone corrected this man's outrageous claim that we would let anyone in for less than 9 bags.
by atcole 9y ago
Thank you. I'm glad someone corrected this man's outrageous claim that we would let anyone in for less than 9 bags.
- pdeuchler 9y agoTell me about it... I'm sick and tired of the trope that Boulder is just white people from the coasts when it's actually wealthy people from the coasts, and Wisconsin.
- ianai 9y agoYou know what's funny? Six or seven hours south is Santa Fe/Albuquerque NM. Both have nearby national laboratories, colleges, and (some) technical businesses. They're also generally affordable. Pretty much anywhere in NM would just kill for more business and has some technical workforce. I'm also sure it'd be relatively easy to convince people to move there.
- jharger 9y agoNot only is it a nice and inexpensive place to live, but the traffic situation is cake. A very bad day is a 45 minute commute. (ABQ resident here)
- davidw 9y agoWe ended up in Bend, Oregon rather than Boulder and are happy. Prices are lower (for now) and traffic is nonexistant IMO. But there's something wrong with the development patterns in much of the US that means those things will get worse over time unless we do things differently.
- dreamcompiler 9y agoSeconded. But the big problem with NM is there's no first-world healthcare here, which makes it a tough place to live if you're older. Okay that's an exaggeration. There is good healthcare but not nearly enough for the population since doctors and nurses can make a lot more $$ elsewhere. So getting a PCP is very hard, ordinary appointments take weeks, and specialist appointments take months.
- ianai 9y agoWhat's weird about that is UNM has a research hospital.
- dreamcompiler 9y agoUNM also has a Level 1 trauma center and a world-class cancer center. But ordinary routine medicine is hard to come by in the state.
- ahmadss 9y agoI have a few questions about the ABQ area. How can I get in touch with you? Alternatively, mind emailing me? <hnusername> @ gmail
- ianai 9y agoI emailed you.
- Balgair 9y agoI have a brother that lived in Los Alomos, the National Labs are no where even close to Santa Fe or Albuquerque and the Universities there are not comparable to CU. When the Lobos join the Pac-12, that's a good way to know that they are comparable. Housing in Santa Fe is not exactly cheap either. Also, NM is an acquired taste and is not for everyone. The labs were kinda put there because of the remoteness of the place. I mean, Los Alomos is at about 7500 feet, 2 beers and you are knackered. That said, I do love NM and it's wilderness; I'll take my enchilada Christmas style ;)
- jldugger 9y ago> When the Lobos join the Pac-12 Your metric of comparison is a sports conference?
- ianai 9y agoS/He didn't even spell Los Alamos correctly. Pretty offensive all around, really.
- Balgair 9y agoSports teams seem to correlate pretty well with donor funding, grant funding, and general population. It's not a hard and fast rule, but it's not a bad metric
- ianai 9y agoYou might as well just say the city's not large enough for startup funding.
- vec 9y agoTwo years ago I moved from Albuquerque to Denver, explicitly for work related reasons. The difference in available engineering jobs is night and day. ABQ is a starkly beautiful midsize city with an unusually high number of nuclear physicists. That's necessary but far from sufficient for being a tech center. And as far as I could tell, the city's ideal is for a relatively small number of relatively large employers, not in hundreds of 5-20 employee firms. Besides, if you're interested in working for one of those firms, let alone starting one, Denver's only six or seven hours north.
- ianai 9y agoThat's why I think Abq could be a budding tech hub with relatively few changes. There are some phds in the neighborhood and at least one good, affordable engineering college (Socorro/NMT). I'm guessing it's governmental policies (or lack of tax incentives) and a lack of at least one tech billionaire that likes the place keeping it down. I mention that last part as I think Zappos being in LV has pulled some tech interest into LV.
- dreamcompiler 9y agoAlbuquerque does have reasonably good Internet infrastructure and the cost of living is low. But most of the tech employers are government contractors that require a security clearance, which is a turnoff for some. (If you lose your startup job and you don't have a clearance, you're screwed.) We also have this good news/bad news airport situation: The airport is in the middle of town and it's VERY easy to get in and out of quickly. OTOH there are few direct flights anywhere -- the Bay area being a notable exception.
- ianai 9y agoHow is it possible they have few direct flights? It's an international airport. Anyway, that's the sort of thing that would change if it became a tech hub. I imagine that's all supply/demand. The infrastructure is already there.
- 9y ago
- ThrustVectoring 9y agoUnaffordable housing is how local homeowners loot the vast sums of money chasing tech talent. If housing is affordable, you can assume that the high-paying jobs aren't there. If you start to prop up the job market there, it'll quickly become unaffordable once folks realize that its a tech hub.