4 ms·

It never fails to boggle my mind that we have cities all over the Rust Belt with ample real estate, state investment funding, and all the incentives in the worl

It never fails to boggle my mind that we have cities all over the Rust Belt with ample real estate, state investment funding, and all the incentives in the world to attract people away from Seattle, SF, SJ, etc. - and instead the response is "let's ruin Seattle." Why not just ... move?

WorldMaker 9y ago
Same reason Y Combinator doesn't have a bigger presence in the "Rust Belt"? Network effects. If all the people are already on the West Coast what incentive is there to encourage relocation away from the West Coast as opposed to the continual brain drain from the rest of the country out to the West Coast?
- gitgreen 9y ago
  Coastal cities have other advantages too. Better weather, favorable access to trade, better access to travel. Software could arguably be made anywhere but that severely discounts the importance of face to face communication. It's "only" a 4 hour flight from SF to Kansas City but if you're in KC and trying to work with partners in Asia that's an extra 8 hours of travel for each trip which effectively costs you a day. Make that trip several times a year and that cost becomes untenable.
- rhapsodic 9y ago
  >If all the people are already on the West Coast what incentive is there to encourage relocation away from the West Coast as opposed to the continual brain drain from the rest of the country out to the West Coast? Well, it's not true that "all the people are already on the West Coast", but even if it were, YC might awaken to the obvious truth that rapid population growth in west coast cities is not sustainable for much longer. Then, as a forward-looking, long-term thinking company, they might see fit to establish footprints in some of the less crowded, less expensive inland cities before someone else beats them to it. Personally, I don't understand why people who have skills that are marketable in virtually any city in the first world choose to live with roommates in crappy century-old homes or tiny apartments in a handful of coastal cities. To each their own, I guess.
  - s73v3r_ 9y ago
    "Personally, I don't understand why people who have skills that are marketable in virtually any city in the first world" Because, in reality, there are only a handful of decent cities that offer a plethora of jobs, interesting ones at that. Sure, a bunch of techies could move to Columbus, but there you have worse weather, more sprawl, fewer job options, and for those who do want to start their own company, a dearth of VC money. Get YCombinator to open branches in the midwest, and you'll start to see that change. Until then, it likely won't.
    - rhapsodic 9y ago
      >Because, in reality, there are only a handful of decent cities that offer a plethora of jobs, interesting ones at that. How do you know this?
  - amarkov 9y ago
    For career driven people, it's not enough that just some company will hire them for something. And there are very few cities where it's easy to find a job matching the skills and expertise of e.g. a Microsoft tech lead.
    - WorldMaker 9y ago
      Much less cities where you have the opportunity at multiple such large companies. Seattle has Amazon's HQ as well as Microsoft's, and presences from Facebook and Google. You can be a Microsoft tech lead in Raleigh-Durham, too, but you aren't going to have as many opportunities with Amazon/Facebook/Google/etc there.
    - rhapsodic 9y ago
      >And there are very few cities where it's easy to find a job matching the skills and expertise of e.g. a Microsoft tech lead. Actually, I doubt that Microsoft tech leads are as special as all that.
s73v3r_ 9y ago
Because those Rust Belt cities don't have anywhere near what the coastal cities have, namely a plethora of tech jobs or a startup scene that produces highly successful companies, or a VC network that will just throw money at you. Get YCombinator to open a branch in Toledo, and you might see that start to change. But currently, most people aren't rushing to go back to the Rust Belt because, while they might get one job, if they get fired/laid off/the company goes under/the management is abusive, there isn't much in the way of alternatives.
neonate 9y ago
The have/have-not dichotomy is increasingly becoming a matter of geography, of have vs. have-not regions. A French sociologist whose name I forget has written extensively about this, and others claim that the theory applies throughout the industrialized world. If it's true, it answers your question almost by definition.

WorldMaker 9y ago

Same reason Y Combinator doesn't have a bigger presence in the "Rust Belt"? Network effects. If all the people are already on the West Coast what incentive is there to encourage relocation away from the West Coast as opposed to the continual brain drain from the rest of the country out to the West Coast?

gitgreen 9y ago
Coastal cities have other advantages too. Better weather, favorable access to trade, better access to travel. Software could arguably be made anywhere but that severely discounts the importance of face to face communication. It's "only" a 4 hour flight from SF to Kansas City but if you're in KC and trying to work with partners in Asia that's an extra 8 hours of travel for each trip which effectively costs you a day. Make that trip several times a year and that cost becomes untenable.
rhapsodic 9y ago
>If all the people are already on the West Coast what incentive is there to encourage relocation away from the West Coast as opposed to the continual brain drain from the rest of the country out to the West Coast? Well, it's not true that "all the people are already on the West Coast", but even if it were, YC might awaken to the obvious truth that rapid population growth in west coast cities is not sustainable for much longer. Then, as a forward-looking, long-term thinking company, they might see fit to establish footprints in some of the less crowded, less expensive inland cities before someone else beats them to it. Personally, I don't understand why people who have skills that are marketable in virtually any city in the first world choose to live with roommates in crappy century-old homes or tiny apartments in a handful of coastal cities. To each their own, I guess.
- s73v3r_ 9y ago
  "Personally, I don't understand why people who have skills that are marketable in virtually any city in the first world" Because, in reality, there are only a handful of decent cities that offer a plethora of jobs, interesting ones at that. Sure, a bunch of techies could move to Columbus, but there you have worse weather, more sprawl, fewer job options, and for those who do want to start their own company, a dearth of VC money. Get YCombinator to open branches in the midwest, and you'll start to see that change. Until then, it likely won't.
  - rhapsodic 9y ago
    >Because, in reality, there are only a handful of decent cities that offer a plethora of jobs, interesting ones at that. How do you know this?
- amarkov 9y ago
  For career driven people, it's not enough that just some company will hire them for something. And there are very few cities where it's easy to find a job matching the skills and expertise of e.g. a Microsoft tech lead.
  - WorldMaker 9y ago
    Much less cities where you have the opportunity at multiple such large companies. Seattle has Amazon's HQ as well as Microsoft's, and presences from Facebook and Google. You can be a Microsoft tech lead in Raleigh-Durham, too, but you aren't going to have as many opportunities with Amazon/Facebook/Google/etc there.
  - rhapsodic 9y ago
    >And there are very few cities where it's easy to find a job matching the skills and expertise of e.g. a Microsoft tech lead. Actually, I doubt that Microsoft tech leads are as special as all that.

s73v3r_ 9y ago

Because those Rust Belt cities don't have anywhere near what the coastal cities have, namely a plethora of tech jobs or a startup scene that produces highly successful companies, or a VC network that will just throw money at you. Get YCombinator to open a branch in Toledo, and you might see that start to change. But currently, most people aren't rushing to go back to the Rust Belt because, while they might get one job, if they get fired/laid off/the company goes under/the management is abusive, there isn't much in the way of alternatives.

neonate 9y ago

The have/have-not dichotomy is increasingly becoming a matter of geography, of have vs. have-not regions. A French sociologist whose name I forget has written extensively about this, and others claim that the theory applies throughout the industrialized world. If it's true, it answers your question almost by definition.