Yep, exactly. Boston's financial tech is deep downtown (Harborside), but other big-name firms like Athena have set up shop in the outskirts and even run shuttle

Yep, exactly. Boston's financial tech is deep downtown (Harborside), but other big-name firms like Athena have set up shop in the outskirts and even run shuttles out from the city center. I suppose part of the reason is the number of colleges out past the densest part of the city, and the rest is the difficulty of building urban offices compared to expanding out into the cheaper Cambridge/Somerville/Watertown market. It's definitely cheaper than SF now, but even more interesting is that it doesn't look to be set for a price spike; there's plenty of land to develop further, and for all the stupid housing laws there's not too much NIMBYism. (Now if only the existing land wasn't so horrific to build on...)