5 ms·

Just visited Pittsburgh. There is indeed a renaissance happing in that town. The restaurant scene alone is phenomenal. And the addition of a FANG level HQ could

by indescions_2018 9y ago

Just visited Pittsburgh. There is indeed a renaissance happing in that town. The restaurant scene alone is phenomenal. And the addition of a FANG level HQ could cement its burgeoning international reputation as a destination. The idea is that CMU spits out about 200+ world class CS grads a year. If even 5% decide to stay in the area to start their own ventures. There would be potential for massive growth. the other data points that shocked me is that the population of Greater Austin, Texas is now 2.5M souls! I still think of it as a sleepy southern college town like Athens, GA ;) And that Denver is experiencing a net influx of 10K people per day!

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
planteen 9y ago
Denver isn't gaining 10K people a day - that would be insane! This article says 13K people in a year to Denver city & county: https://www.denverpost.com/2017/03/28/denvers-growth-spurt-slows-down/ https://www.denverpost.com/2017/03/28/denvers-growth-spurt-s... It looks like Colorado's population is around 5.7 million with an annual growth rate of 1.4% - so about 80K people per year for the state. http://worldpopulationreview.com/states/colorado-population/ http://worldpopulationreview.com/states/colorado-population/
- corpMaverick 9y ago
  Do you know why is housing in Denver so expensive ? It seems to have good density. Even small towns in Colorado look expensive.
  - planteen 9y ago
    Nice small mountain towns, especially those near ski areas, are expensive. But towns and cities on the plains (e.g., Ft. Morgan) are pretty inexpensive. And southern Colorado cities like Pueblo and Colorado Springs are also a lot more inexpensive. Denver and Boulder are quite expensive.
    - fetus8 9y ago
      Uh, there's nothing out in the eastern part of Colorado that qualifies as a city. Sterling, is like 10k people, if that. But anything east of Greeley is still relatively affordable. Anything along the Front Range, Colorado Springs, and north, all the way up to Fort Collins, have seen huge increases in housing costs in the last 5 years. Denver and Boulder are expensive, yes, but the commuter (bedroom) communities, like Fort Collins, Longmont, Brighton, etc, have seen huge spikes in housing costs. Rentals in these areas, throughout my college career, were more than manageable. My rent TRIPLED when I moved out of my last college apartment. I moved from Greeley, to Fort Collins, which is consistently rated as like the best place to raise a family too. These communities have been relatively affordable until the last few years, when things have suddenly gotten a little out of control. There's not enough new development, a huge demand for single family homes, and an influx of population has driven the housing market up and up. The Oil and Gas industry seemingly started the trend back in 2013-2014, but now, all sorts of businesses are opening up, there's just more demand. It's unfortunate for those of us just getting started in our careers, and definitely creates disdain for all the new-comers.
      - planteen 9y ago
        > Uh, there's nothing out in the eastern part of Colorado that qualifies as a city. Sterling, is like 10k people, if that. You realize that both Ft. Morgan and Sterling call themselves cities? But I get your point. They are small in population compared to Front Range municipalities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_and_towns_in_Colorado https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_and_towns_in_Co...
        fetus8 9y ago
        I didn't realize that. I thought the term City was used mostly for places with larger populations. Thanks for the insight!
      - Pokepokalypse 9y ago
        Foreign Investment is driving this. The money got sucked out of the US economy (foreign manufacturing, high oil prices back in the '00's) - and now that wealth is consolidated, and they're investing in property all over the place; especially in US suburbs (and Canada), and it's jacking up demand so bad, that even very high-paying white-collar jobs can't realistically finance a house anymore. Oh- people can BUY the homes. They will have to stretch to pay for maintenance, save for kids' college, and their own retirement. Only people who bought before the last bubble are really able to afford these homes. Or Doctors and Lawyers and executives. The only way to beat this game, seems to be; if you're a rock-star, and can work out a remote gig, you can live in a cheap area, and still make "expensive area" money. (and if you go for a company that's expanding to an area of low housing demand: they'll pay you less. AND. In 5-10 years when the economy hits a low spot, they'll shut your site down and lay you off. In any case, the GOOD projects, the kind that will boost your career, are not going to come to your backwater site. You would need to relocate to their main headquarters. Territorial battles are a real thing)
  - adventured 9y ago
    Colorado has grown increasingly affluent. It has a GDP per capita above Australia, Sweden and Denmark. It's a very desirable location to move to. Simultaneously like a lot of the US, they haven't been building up new housing inventory very aggressively since the great recession.
    - varroa 9y ago
      Partly because most of the builders went under during & after the great recession. They don't quite need decades to come back, but it definitely leaves a ripple.
dgritsko 9y ago
FANG = Facebook, Apple, Netflix, Google? (Just based on https://www.acronymfinder.com/FANG.html https://www.acronymfinder.com/FANG.html - I hadn't heard that one before)
- JauntTrooper 9y ago
  Yes though A is Amazon. It’s been used by the investing media to describe their ezcellent stock performance in recent years. Sometimes it’s FAANG to include Apple. Google kind of ruined it by rename the parent company Alphabet though!
  - dgritsko 9y ago
    Yeah, FAAAN doesn't have quite the same ring to it :)
    - femto113 9y ago
      Try imagining William Shatner shouting it.
    - Pokepokalypse 9y ago
      South Koreans are especially wary of that, due to FAAAN death.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
mbesto 9y ago
This. You also have Pitt which has a pretty decent CS degree. People are friendly. Sports is great. I believe Apple and Google already have fairly significant offices in Pittsburgh. If I was more liquid I'd be buying property in Pittsburgh.
- PascLeRasc 9y ago
  Eh, as a Pitt graduate I can't really vouch for our CS degree. Most people I've talked to about it think it's actually getting worse recently, as we've hired more teaching professors who aren't good at teaching and not had too many upper-level electives. The program is also stuck in the Arts & Sciences school which puts a bit of a limit on how many CS classes you get to take. Where we really shine is biotechnology/medical devices. Sports have been good, but the Pirates won't be anything to watch now that McCutchen's gone. I love Pittsburgh and now is really a great time to invest in real estate here. Lots of places just outside downtown are really sprucing up like uptown, the North side, and Lawrenceville/Bloomfield.
jamestimmins 9y ago
Serious question: is 200 top level CS grads really all that significant? Seems like a pretty small number, given what is possible at larger state schools.
- rasen58 9y ago
  Even at a larger state school, only the top few percent would be comparable to CMU CS grads.
startupdiscuss 9y ago
But CMU has been producing world class CS grads for decades now, and some % do stay to start their own ventures, and yet Pittsburgh is not (yet) in the same league as even the "Next Silicon Valley" list cities. (Seattle, LA, etc)
- jimbokun 9y ago
  First, there will never be another "Silicon Valley". It's one of a kind. Second, categorizing Seattle or LA as some kind of "up and coming" business area is disingenuous. Seattle has always had Microsoft, now also Amazon, and I'm sure many companies spun off from former employees of those. LA is the second biggest city in the US, with all kinds of businesses and industries there. It's not trying to be the "Next Silicon Valley", it has it's own firmly established identity.
  - startupdiscuss 9y ago
    I note that all three points you make: 1. I agree with and 2. Don't contradict anything I said The question at hand is whether there is reason to believe that Pittsburgh's future growth will outperform its past growth because of CMU's output.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

planteen 9y ago

Denver isn't gaining 10K people a day - that would be insane! This article says 13K people in a year to Denver city & county: https://www.denverpost.com/2017/03/28/denvers-growth-spurt-slows-down/ https://www.denverpost.com/2017/03/28/denvers-growth-spurt-s... It looks like Colorado's population is around 5.7 million with an annual growth rate of 1.4% - so about 80K people per year for the state. http://worldpopulationreview.com/states/colorado-population/ http://worldpopulationreview.com/states/colorado-population/

corpMaverick 9y ago
Do you know why is housing in Denver so expensive ? It seems to have good density. Even small towns in Colorado look expensive.
- planteen 9y ago
  Nice small mountain towns, especially those near ski areas, are expensive. But towns and cities on the plains (e.g., Ft. Morgan) are pretty inexpensive. And southern Colorado cities like Pueblo and Colorado Springs are also a lot more inexpensive. Denver and Boulder are quite expensive.
  - fetus8 9y ago
    Uh, there's nothing out in the eastern part of Colorado that qualifies as a city. Sterling, is like 10k people, if that. But anything east of Greeley is still relatively affordable. Anything along the Front Range, Colorado Springs, and north, all the way up to Fort Collins, have seen huge increases in housing costs in the last 5 years. Denver and Boulder are expensive, yes, but the commuter (bedroom) communities, like Fort Collins, Longmont, Brighton, etc, have seen huge spikes in housing costs. Rentals in these areas, throughout my college career, were more than manageable. My rent TRIPLED when I moved out of my last college apartment. I moved from Greeley, to Fort Collins, which is consistently rated as like the best place to raise a family too. These communities have been relatively affordable until the last few years, when things have suddenly gotten a little out of control. There's not enough new development, a huge demand for single family homes, and an influx of population has driven the housing market up and up. The Oil and Gas industry seemingly started the trend back in 2013-2014, but now, all sorts of businesses are opening up, there's just more demand. It's unfortunate for those of us just getting started in our careers, and definitely creates disdain for all the new-comers.
    - planteen 9y ago
      > Uh, there's nothing out in the eastern part of Colorado that qualifies as a city. Sterling, is like 10k people, if that. You realize that both Ft. Morgan and Sterling call themselves cities? But I get your point. They are small in population compared to Front Range municipalities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_and_towns_in_Colorado https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_and_towns_in_Co...
      - fetus8 9y ago
        I didn't realize that. I thought the term City was used mostly for places with larger populations. Thanks for the insight!
    - Pokepokalypse 9y ago
      Foreign Investment is driving this. The money got sucked out of the US economy (foreign manufacturing, high oil prices back in the '00's) - and now that wealth is consolidated, and they're investing in property all over the place; especially in US suburbs (and Canada), and it's jacking up demand so bad, that even very high-paying white-collar jobs can't realistically finance a house anymore. Oh- people can BUY the homes. They will have to stretch to pay for maintenance, save for kids' college, and their own retirement. Only people who bought before the last bubble are really able to afford these homes. Or Doctors and Lawyers and executives. The only way to beat this game, seems to be; if you're a rock-star, and can work out a remote gig, you can live in a cheap area, and still make "expensive area" money. (and if you go for a company that's expanding to an area of low housing demand: they'll pay you less. AND. In 5-10 years when the economy hits a low spot, they'll shut your site down and lay you off. In any case, the GOOD projects, the kind that will boost your career, are not going to come to your backwater site. You would need to relocate to their main headquarters. Territorial battles are a real thing)
- adventured 9y ago
  Colorado has grown increasingly affluent. It has a GDP per capita above Australia, Sweden and Denmark. It's a very desirable location to move to. Simultaneously like a lot of the US, they haven't been building up new housing inventory very aggressively since the great recession.
  - varroa 9y ago
    Partly because most of the builders went under during & after the great recession. They don't quite need decades to come back, but it definitely leaves a ripple.

dgritsko 9y ago

FANG = Facebook, Apple, Netflix, Google? (Just based on https://www.acronymfinder.com/FANG.html https://www.acronymfinder.com/FANG.html - I hadn't heard that one before)

JauntTrooper 9y ago
Yes though A is Amazon. It’s been used by the investing media to describe their ezcellent stock performance in recent years. Sometimes it’s FAANG to include Apple. Google kind of ruined it by rename the parent company Alphabet though!
- dgritsko 9y ago
  Yeah, FAAAN doesn't have quite the same ring to it :)
  - femto113 9y ago
    Try imagining William Shatner shouting it.
  - Pokepokalypse 9y ago
    South Koreans are especially wary of that, due to FAAAN death.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]

mbesto 9y ago

This. You also have Pitt which has a pretty decent CS degree. People are friendly. Sports is great. I believe Apple and Google already have fairly significant offices in Pittsburgh. If I was more liquid I'd be buying property in Pittsburgh.

PascLeRasc 9y ago
Eh, as a Pitt graduate I can't really vouch for our CS degree. Most people I've talked to about it think it's actually getting worse recently, as we've hired more teaching professors who aren't good at teaching and not had too many upper-level electives. The program is also stuck in the Arts & Sciences school which puts a bit of a limit on how many CS classes you get to take. Where we really shine is biotechnology/medical devices. Sports have been good, but the Pirates won't be anything to watch now that McCutchen's gone. I love Pittsburgh and now is really a great time to invest in real estate here. Lots of places just outside downtown are really sprucing up like uptown, the North side, and Lawrenceville/Bloomfield.

jamestimmins 9y ago

Serious question: is 200 top level CS grads really all that significant? Seems like a pretty small number, given what is possible at larger state schools.

rasen58 9y ago
Even at a larger state school, only the top few percent would be comparable to CMU CS grads.

startupdiscuss 9y ago

But CMU has been producing world class CS grads for decades now, and some % do stay to start their own ventures, and yet Pittsburgh is not (yet) in the same league as even the "Next Silicon Valley" list cities. (Seattle, LA, etc)

jimbokun 9y ago
First, there will never be another "Silicon Valley". It's one of a kind. Second, categorizing Seattle or LA as some kind of "up and coming" business area is disingenuous. Seattle has always had Microsoft, now also Amazon, and I'm sure many companies spun off from former employees of those. LA is the second biggest city in the US, with all kinds of businesses and industries there. It's not trying to be the "Next Silicon Valley", it has it's own firmly established identity.
- startupdiscuss 9y ago
  I note that all three points you make: 1. I agree with and 2. Don't contradict anything I said The question at hand is whether there is reason to believe that Pittsburgh's future growth will outperform its past growth because of CMU's output.