8 ms·

I have a pretty large group of generally geek-oriented friends across most of the western US, and tracking their migration patterns has been fascinating - we're

I have a pretty large group of generally geek-oriented friends across most of the western US, and tracking their migration patterns has been fascinating - we're basically all 1980's-born millennials. In the 2000's was when we met, those who had grown up there and those who were moving were in the same age group. Only about 40% were college educated or in tech/programming oriented roles. Of those, a small amount has ridden the wave to prosperity. Most moved to Seattle (if looking for a career/home/etc), or Portland (if they pass the weird-test). There's been a steady trickle out of the Bay for anyone not in tech for the past decade, and now I think only 10% of them still remain. Now they're going to Colorado rather than Seattle, and a few more to Portland. Those that are currently missing the wave in Seattle are looking at moving to Colorado. I have no idea which area is gonna be next - Colorado is now seen as the last "cool" place thats "affordable" and liberal (sorry screaming Coloradan's, you're next). Personally, I just can't believe its gone on this long - the pressure release valve that I thought would be released from the bay every year for the last decade hasn't fully let go. Career or being able to afford a house seem to be mutually exclusive ideas if you're not in programming. This is creating a rather nomadic culture within my friend groups... welp, this area is too expensive, might as well move onto the next. Very few are putting down roots. I wonder what this all will look like when we look back 20 years hence - was it really a bubble, or the creation of a permanent Elysium style class divide between those that had the capital (or took the risks) early, and those who didn't start out as well (or were conservative in leveraging themselves)? Every day it feels like I'm leading more towards the latter.

fred_is_fred 9y ago
We have no avocados here. This isn't the state you are looking for. Move along. Move along.
- mulmen 9y ago
  I'm from a small town in Idaho. I recently went back to visit family. Everyone was eager to tell me that the direct flight from Seattle would be cancelled in favor of a town 45 minutes away. The local airport which used to serve the region is losing commercial service to the largest metro area in the region. Getting out of town will take an extra transfer and a 45minute to two hour drive. That town has stagnated and now it is dying. It is an oversimplification but I would rather deal with the problems of growth than stagnation and decay.
  - taurath 9y ago
    That's the squeeze I'm describing. If you want a "new economy" job you must be in a city. It feels like the only people doing well are the blue collar workers in the suburbs or rural areas who are mending to the retired or retiring boomer's homes. New blood has no money or resources.
  - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
    You don’t even have to go to small town Idaho, even Spokane is still economically struggling, though at least they still have plenty of Seattle directs.
  - dsfyu404ed 9y ago
    If I wasn't in tech I'd prefer to tough it out in some small town in some "backwards" state. Better to be marginally less wealthy and free to live how I want than run the race by the rules of some coastal city for little benefit.
    - mulmen 9y ago
      It doesn’t have to be about coastal vs inland. It’s more about growth vs stagnation. Be careful about romanticizing the idea of rural life if you haven’t already done it. It’s nothing special in my experience.
- taurath 9y ago
  https://www.google.com/maps/search/avocado+toast+denver/@39.6911565,-105.0431453,12z/data=!3m1!4b1 https://www.google.com/maps/search/avocado+toast+denver/@39.... Thats a lie! :P
jorblumesea 9y ago
Seattle is already on the path to being SF junior, and house prices are far beyond what is affordable for most. We're not SF prices yet (or hopefully ever) but pretty crazy right now. Sad, because what made the city interesting is being actively driven out.
- mulmen 9y ago
  When did you move to Seattle? 2011 for me. The city has certainly changed but I'm still unclear on this nebulous culture shift that has supposedly "ruined" Seattle. What was more interesting about Seattle when you moved here vs today?
  - tjr225 9y ago
    I moved out here last year - I do not live in Seattle proper, but I work there. I love Seattle but it is a crazy town that to me seems like it must've always been in flux. For the love of God do not move here if you don't want to be stressed out about housing costs and don't want to deal with an insane commute regardless of almost anywhere you live. I'm trying to find it but there was this old video recording from either 1995 or 2005 (I don't remember which) of a Bob Dylan-ish parody song being performed on acoustic guitar and the lyrics were complaining about the exact same things back then that you hear complained about here today. As a matter of fact, don't move here if you can't handle complaining.
    - mulmen 9y ago
      Seattle is a boom(and bust)town. Always has been. That's what makes it appealing to me. I'll ride out whatever happens next because I have no illusions that this crazy growth can continue. I'm willing to accept the complaining, it hasn't driven me out yet. As one of the most educated cities in the nation I expect to be able to challenge perceptions. I hear the line repeated often in local media but nobody has ever been able to explain to me what magic thing Seattle has lost. I suspect that's because it hasn't actually lost it.
    - saratogacx 9y ago
jrs95 9y ago
Maybe Colorado should implement some of what Hunter S. Thompson had in his platform for Sheriff of Aspen: 1. Rip up all city streets with jackhammers and sod the streets at once.... All public movement would be by foot and a fleet of bicycles, maintained by the city police force. 2. Change the name 'Aspen', by public referendum, to 'Fat City'. This would prevent greedheads, land-rapers and other human jackals from capitalizing on the name 'Aspen'.... These swine should be fucked, broken, and driven across the land. 3. Drug Sales must be controlled. My first act as Sheriff will be to install, on the courthouse lawn, a bastinado platform and a set of stocks in order to punish dishonest dope dealers in a proper public fashion. Each year these dealers cheat millions of people out of millions of dollars.... it will be the general philosophy of the Sheriff’s office that no drug worth taking should be sold for money. 4. Hunting and fishing should be forbidden to all non-residents, with the exception of those who can obtain the signed endorsement of a resident- who will then be legally responsible for any violation or abuse committed by the non-resident he has ‘signed for’…. By this approach-making hundreds or even thousands of individuals personally responsible for protecting the animals, fish and birds who live here-we would create a sort of de facto game preserve, without the harsh restrictions that will necessarily be forced on us if these blood-thirsty geeks keep swarming in here each autumn to shoot everything they see. 5. The Sheriff and his Deputies should never be armed in public. Every urban riot, shoot-out and blood-bath (involving guns) in recent memory has been set off by some trigger-happy cop in a fear frenzy. 6. It will be the policy of the Sheriff’s office savagely to harass all those engaged in any form of land-rape.
- taurath 9y ago
  I honestly think that a more modern version of "intentional communities" would really appeal to a lot of people. Cheap housing, walk able everything including grocery stores, a couple locally owned industries or two, and the support people to support them - it literally sounds like the dream to me. Suburbs are exclusion zones, and cities are so incredibly expensive and chaotic. I'm sure there's 1000 economic and social reasons they can't be done, but damn if it doesn't sound good.
  - imtringued 9y ago
nostrademons 9y ago
> Colorado is now seen as the last "cool" place thats "affordable" and liberal (sorry screaming Coloradan's, you're next). Asheville, NC is coming up after Colorado - I've got one friends-couple that's actively moving there this summer, and a couple others that are thinking seriously about it. > I wonder what this all will look like when we look back 20 years hence There was an interesting throwaway comment in Carlota Perez's Technical Revolutions and Financial Capital (written in 2002). She's famous for her observation that each technological revolution tends to lead to a financial crisis that separates the "Installation" phase (governed by financial capital, and marked by successive asset bubbles & widening wealth inequality) from the "Deployment" phase (governed by production capital, and marked by a widespread dissemination of best practices and corresponding productivity gains throughout the economy). Less famously, the book also mentions that towards the end of the "frenzy" period (the latter half of the Installation phase), you get a phenomena of "two monies". Any prices connected to the new means of production - stock values, salaries, real estate in key cities, etc. - grow exponentially, while the old economy remains stagnant. Eventually, the divide leads to war, with regions that have adopted the new production techniques battling rump states of the old declining empires. That's as far as the book goes, but the historical implication - based on the early 20th century examples of the Ottoman Turks, Czarist Russia, Imperial China & feudal Japan - is that societies that cling to the old ways collapse, and their leadership is exterminated. Those who aren't killed and who are adaptable enough to adopt new techniques find places within the victorious societies, which then start focusing their efforts on spreading the new production techniques widely within the society to equalize social divisions and cement the new order. Think of the GI Bill after WW2, the widespread suburbanization, mass production of the automobile, consumer goods, department stores, the Civil Rights Act, and so on.
- taurath 9y ago
  The one thing I have never seen yet of any of that large group is a move to the east coast. It’s as foreign as can be though some have spent a bit of time in NYC for work. I think the cultural “west” is still where these people will stay for the time being.
  - aaronblohowiak 9y ago
poof131 9y ago
It’s both. There clearly is a bubble. The Fed has essentially dumped easy money into the economy since the dotcom bust. 2008 saw another crash and again the spigots were opened. It only seemed to flow to certain areas though as top down economic policy tends to do. Now as the Fed raises rates, people can borrow less and thereby afford less. We may see zero percent interest rates forever and the government stepping in to prop up asset prices like Japan, but who knows for sure. [1, 2] But California also has a unique factor, proposition 13. [3] This drastically disincentives people from moving. Palo Alto has the lowest property tax rates in the state.[4] Why move when you will pay significantly more monthly. This is especially pertinent to retirees. So no one moves which destroys market liquidity. Combine this with NIMBYism, an over abundance of protected lands, rent control, affordable housing measures and piss poor public transportation, and you get the shit storm that is the Bay Area housing market. Tech is simply a convenient excuse. There’s a reason California is building a bullet train between SF and LA, but no public transportation from the east bay to the peninsula which would help an enormous number of workers and the environment. Despite lofty rhetoric, people vote their self interests. [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/bank-of-japans-50-billion-question-when-to-stop-buying-stocks-1515973533 https://www.wsj.com/articles/bank-of-japans-50-billion-quest... [2] https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-09-11/wtf-chart-day-boj-now-owns-75-japanese-etfs https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-09-11/wtf-chart-day-boj-... [3] https://medium.com/@michaellevinson_64108/landlords-and-heirs-why-prop-13-isnt-just-unfair-it-s-un-american-20a8597cb37b https://medium.com/@michaellevinson_64108/landlords-and-heir... [4] https://www.mercurynews.com/2016/12/01/high-priced-california-coastal-homes-have-lower-tax-rates-than-inland-houses/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2016/12/01/high-priced-californi...
- icantdrive55 9y ago
  The Bay Area has been increasing in value since the 70's. 1. Your bosses want to live in the better parts of San Francisco, Marin County, and certain parts if the east bay. Why--because they want only the best, and there's usually a rich daddy helping Jr. out in business, and housing. The workers will follow. 2. It has nothing to do with Prop 13. 3. The Bay Area is a nice place to live if you are wealthy. 4. The beach 45 miniutes away. Mountains are 45 minutes away. A city hootenanny is 45 minutes away. The wealthy/celebrities can go anywhere, and no one cares. It's land locked--yes. People don't want building--yes. Schools are safe. Why wouldn't property values go up? Buying real-estate in the Bay Area is as close of a sure thing as anything I betted on. It's no wonder Chinese buy our homes off the Internet.
ryandrake 9y ago
I used to live in South Florida (Ft Lauderdale area) and it has so many advantages: warm-to-hot weather year round, plenty of water based recreation, zero income taxes, great dining and entertainment, growing but still reasonable housing prices... Yet I still moved to the crowded and insane Bay Area because jobs. In FL I was always running that risk that if my current job didn’t work out I’d have few remaining options. And in today’s tough hiring market, where you have to apply to 100 jobs to get 10 interviews to get 1 offer, having few employers around is a massive risk. It’s why I’m forced to stay out in the SF area.
- CalRobert 9y ago
  Today's hiring market is tough? I don't know what sector you're in but I think most people would say it's a developer's market at the moment. 2009 was horrible by comparison.
  - ryandrake 9y ago
    Well, sure, in 2009 it was far worse, maybe 1000:10:1. However today isn’t exactly a walk in the park.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

fred_is_fred 9y ago

We have no avocados here. This isn't the state you are looking for. Move along. Move along.

mulmen 9y ago
I'm from a small town in Idaho. I recently went back to visit family. Everyone was eager to tell me that the direct flight from Seattle would be cancelled in favor of a town 45 minutes away. The local airport which used to serve the region is losing commercial service to the largest metro area in the region. Getting out of town will take an extra transfer and a 45minute to two hour drive. That town has stagnated and now it is dying. It is an oversimplification but I would rather deal with the problems of growth than stagnation and decay.
- taurath 9y ago
  That's the squeeze I'm describing. If you want a "new economy" job you must be in a city. It feels like the only people doing well are the blue collar workers in the suburbs or rural areas who are mending to the retired or retiring boomer's homes. New blood has no money or resources.
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago
  You don’t even have to go to small town Idaho, even Spokane is still economically struggling, though at least they still have plenty of Seattle directs.
- dsfyu404ed 9y ago
  If I wasn't in tech I'd prefer to tough it out in some small town in some "backwards" state. Better to be marginally less wealthy and free to live how I want than run the race by the rules of some coastal city for little benefit.
  - mulmen 9y ago
    It doesn’t have to be about coastal vs inland. It’s more about growth vs stagnation. Be careful about romanticizing the idea of rural life if you haven’t already done it. It’s nothing special in my experience.
taurath 9y ago
https://www.google.com/maps/search/avocado+toast+denver/@39.6911565,-105.0431453,12z/data=!3m1!4b1 https://www.google.com/maps/search/avocado+toast+denver/@39.... Thats a lie! :P

jorblumesea 9y ago

Seattle is already on the path to being SF junior, and house prices are far beyond what is affordable for most. We're not SF prices yet (or hopefully ever) but pretty crazy right now. Sad, because what made the city interesting is being actively driven out.

mulmen 9y ago
When did you move to Seattle? 2011 for me. The city has certainly changed but I'm still unclear on this nebulous culture shift that has supposedly "ruined" Seattle. What was more interesting about Seattle when you moved here vs today?
- tjr225 9y ago
  I moved out here last year - I do not live in Seattle proper, but I work there. I love Seattle but it is a crazy town that to me seems like it must've always been in flux. For the love of God do not move here if you don't want to be stressed out about housing costs and don't want to deal with an insane commute regardless of almost anywhere you live. I'm trying to find it but there was this old video recording from either 1995 or 2005 (I don't remember which) of a Bob Dylan-ish parody song being performed on acoustic guitar and the lyrics were complaining about the exact same things back then that you hear complained about here today. As a matter of fact, don't move here if you can't handle complaining.
  - mulmen 9y ago
    Seattle is a boom(and bust)town. Always has been. That's what makes it appealing to me. I'll ride out whatever happens next because I have no illusions that this crazy growth can continue. I'm willing to accept the complaining, it hasn't driven me out yet. As one of the most educated cities in the nation I expect to be able to challenge perceptions. I hear the line repeated often in local media but nobody has ever been able to explain to me what magic thing Seattle has lost. I suspect that's because it hasn't actually lost it.
  - saratogacx 9y ago

jrs95 9y ago

Maybe Colorado should implement some of what Hunter S. Thompson had in his platform for Sheriff of Aspen: 1. Rip up all city streets with jackhammers and sod the streets at once.... All public movement would be by foot and a fleet of bicycles, maintained by the city police force. 2. Change the name 'Aspen', by public referendum, to 'Fat City'. This would prevent greedheads, land-rapers and other human jackals from capitalizing on the name 'Aspen'.... These swine should be fucked, broken, and driven across the land. 3. Drug Sales must be controlled. My first act as Sheriff will be to install, on the courthouse lawn, a bastinado platform and a set of stocks in order to punish dishonest dope dealers in a proper public fashion. Each year these dealers cheat millions of people out of millions of dollars.... it will be the general philosophy of the Sheriff’s office that no drug worth taking should be sold for money. 4. Hunting and fishing should be forbidden to all non-residents, with the exception of those who can obtain the signed endorsement of a resident- who will then be legally responsible for any violation or abuse committed by the non-resident he has ‘signed for’…. By this approach-making hundreds or even thousands of individuals personally responsible for protecting the animals, fish and birds who live here-we would create a sort of de facto game preserve, without the harsh restrictions that will necessarily be forced on us if these blood-thirsty geeks keep swarming in here each autumn to shoot everything they see. 5. The Sheriff and his Deputies should never be armed in public. Every urban riot, shoot-out and blood-bath (involving guns) in recent memory has been set off by some trigger-happy cop in a fear frenzy. 6. It will be the policy of the Sheriff’s office savagely to harass all those engaged in any form of land-rape.

taurath 9y ago
I honestly think that a more modern version of "intentional communities" would really appeal to a lot of people. Cheap housing, walk able everything including grocery stores, a couple locally owned industries or two, and the support people to support them - it literally sounds like the dream to me. Suburbs are exclusion zones, and cities are so incredibly expensive and chaotic. I'm sure there's 1000 economic and social reasons they can't be done, but damn if it doesn't sound good.
- imtringued 9y ago

nostrademons 9y ago

> Colorado is now seen as the last "cool" place thats "affordable" and liberal (sorry screaming Coloradan's, you're next). Asheville, NC is coming up after Colorado - I've got one friends-couple that's actively moving there this summer, and a couple others that are thinking seriously about it. > I wonder what this all will look like when we look back 20 years hence There was an interesting throwaway comment in Carlota Perez's Technical Revolutions and Financial Capital (written in 2002). She's famous for her observation that each technological revolution tends to lead to a financial crisis that separates the "Installation" phase (governed by financial capital, and marked by successive asset bubbles & widening wealth inequality) from the "Deployment" phase (governed by production capital, and marked by a widespread dissemination of best practices and corresponding productivity gains throughout the economy). Less famously, the book also mentions that towards the end of the "frenzy" period (the latter half of the Installation phase), you get a phenomena of "two monies". Any prices connected to the new means of production - stock values, salaries, real estate in key cities, etc. - grow exponentially, while the old economy remains stagnant. Eventually, the divide leads to war, with regions that have adopted the new production techniques battling rump states of the old declining empires. That's as far as the book goes, but the historical implication - based on the early 20th century examples of the Ottoman Turks, Czarist Russia, Imperial China & feudal Japan - is that societies that cling to the old ways collapse, and their leadership is exterminated. Those who aren't killed and who are adaptable enough to adopt new techniques find places within the victorious societies, which then start focusing their efforts on spreading the new production techniques widely within the society to equalize social divisions and cement the new order. Think of the GI Bill after WW2, the widespread suburbanization, mass production of the automobile, consumer goods, department stores, the Civil Rights Act, and so on.

taurath 9y ago
The one thing I have never seen yet of any of that large group is a move to the east coast. It’s as foreign as can be though some have spent a bit of time in NYC for work. I think the cultural “west” is still where these people will stay for the time being.
- aaronblohowiak 9y ago

poof131 9y ago

It’s both. There clearly is a bubble. The Fed has essentially dumped easy money into the economy since the dotcom bust. 2008 saw another crash and again the spigots were opened. It only seemed to flow to certain areas though as top down economic policy tends to do. Now as the Fed raises rates, people can borrow less and thereby afford less. We may see zero percent interest rates forever and the government stepping in to prop up asset prices like Japan, but who knows for sure. [1, 2] But California also has a unique factor, proposition 13. [3] This drastically disincentives people from moving. Palo Alto has the lowest property tax rates in the state.[4] Why move when you will pay significantly more monthly. This is especially pertinent to retirees. So no one moves which destroys market liquidity. Combine this with NIMBYism, an over abundance of protected lands, rent control, affordable housing measures and piss poor public transportation, and you get the shit storm that is the Bay Area housing market. Tech is simply a convenient excuse. There’s a reason California is building a bullet train between SF and LA, but no public transportation from the east bay to the peninsula which would help an enormous number of workers and the environment. Despite lofty rhetoric, people vote their self interests. [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/bank-of-japans-50-billion-question-when-to-stop-buying-stocks-1515973533 https://www.wsj.com/articles/bank-of-japans-50-billion-quest... [2] https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-09-11/wtf-chart-day-boj-now-owns-75-japanese-etfs https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-09-11/wtf-chart-day-boj-... [3] https://medium.com/@michaellevinson_64108/landlords-and-heirs-why-prop-13-isnt-just-unfair-it-s-un-american-20a8597cb37b https://medium.com/@michaellevinson_64108/landlords-and-heir... [4] https://www.mercurynews.com/2016/12/01/high-priced-california-coastal-homes-have-lower-tax-rates-than-inland-houses/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2016/12/01/high-priced-californi...

icantdrive55 9y ago
The Bay Area has been increasing in value since the 70's. 1. Your bosses want to live in the better parts of San Francisco, Marin County, and certain parts if the east bay. Why--because they want only the best, and there's usually a rich daddy helping Jr. out in business, and housing. The workers will follow. 2. It has nothing to do with Prop 13. 3. The Bay Area is a nice place to live if you are wealthy. 4. The beach 45 miniutes away. Mountains are 45 minutes away. A city hootenanny is 45 minutes away. The wealthy/celebrities can go anywhere, and no one cares. It's land locked--yes. People don't want building--yes. Schools are safe. Why wouldn't property values go up? Buying real-estate in the Bay Area is as close of a sure thing as anything I betted on. It's no wonder Chinese buy our homes off the Internet.

ryandrake 9y ago

I used to live in South Florida (Ft Lauderdale area) and it has so many advantages: warm-to-hot weather year round, plenty of water based recreation, zero income taxes, great dining and entertainment, growing but still reasonable housing prices... Yet I still moved to the crowded and insane Bay Area because jobs. In FL I was always running that risk that if my current job didn’t work out I’d have few remaining options. And in today’s tough hiring market, where you have to apply to 100 jobs to get 10 interviews to get 1 offer, having few employers around is a massive risk. It’s why I’m forced to stay out in the SF area.

CalRobert 9y ago
Today's hiring market is tough? I don't know what sector you're in but I think most people would say it's a developer's market at the moment. 2009 was horrible by comparison.
- ryandrake 9y ago
  Well, sure, in 2009 it was far worse, maybe 1000:10:1. However today isn’t exactly a walk in the park.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]