4 ms·

A version of your comment is posted in response to every suggestion that somebody leave expensive coastal areas. One wonders what the heck you think is going on

A version of your comment is posted in response to every suggestion that somebody leave expensive coastal areas. One wonders what the heck you think is going on in the rest of the country. There are jobs in other cities. The idea that there is "little or no job market" outside of NYC and San Francisco is -- I'm sorry, there's no other way to say it -- absurd. The fact that you forward this claim with such smugness -- "rrrright" -- makes it all the more baffling. Where are you getting these ideas? Click-bait articles about the Rust Belt? A few figures on median income. These cities were chosen at random: - Cincinnati-Middletown Ohio metro area was $60,260 - Indianapolis-Carmel Indiana metro area was $56,750 - Nashville-Davidson--Murfreesboro-Franklin Tennessee metro area was $60,030 Compare to: - Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue Washington metro area was $78,612 - San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, CA Metro Area was $96,677 - New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA Metro Area was $71,897 So, look, San Francisco is an outlier, even by the standards of big, growing cities with lots of jobs. But look at those others. The median income in Cincinnati is about $10k less than in New York City. Do you think the cost of living in New York City is only about $10k more per year than in Cincinnati? Of course not. The cost of living differences between the cities in that first group and the cities in the second group far, far, far outpace those earnings differences. So, you're wrong on both counts. The cheaper cities aren't "slightly less expensive;" they are vastly less expensive.

magduf 8y ago
There's "jobs" in all those places, but not necessarily jobs the OP can do. I lived in the NYC area for a short time, and the job market there for my specialty and experience was terrible. Here in the DC area, it's excellent. Places like Indianapolis, Nashville, etc., would also likely be terrible for me. Certain industries and specialties are concentrated mainly in certain areas, so if you're specialized, you have to stick to those places.
- dionidium 8y ago
  Yes, of course. If you're a deep sea fisherman, it's trivially provable that you can't do that job in Nebraska :) But that's never what these guys mean. It's always casually advanced as a blanket statement about the hopelessness of living somewhere that you can't smell the ocean. I don't know why it became popular to demonstrate such obvious ignorance about the job markets of inland cities, but here we are. I, for example, know precisely nothing about the job market in, say, Salt Lake City, but that's why I don't make statements on the internet about the job market in Salt Lake City.
  - wetpaws 8y ago
    This is precisely what I meant. Good luck searching for tech jobs in Portland or even in Seattle outside of Amazon/MS
    - jacquesm 8y ago
      There are tech jobs everywhere. From Toronto to Paraguay and from SF to NYC and everywhere in between. Technology is everywhere, it is almost impossible to find a place where there are no tech jobs. But the bigger cities tend to have more of them and for better pay and Silicon Valley, New York, DC, Amsterdam, Berlin, London, and so on will have the best paid jobs but also the highest cost of living. Silicon Valley is an outlier in many respects, you should not calibrate your worldview by it. If you mean by tech job: a place where I can sit in a chair and make 7 figures easily then indeed, there are no tech jobs outside of SV and Seattle.
      - dionidium 8y ago
        Look, yes, obviously there are more jobs in the biggest cities. Why people insist on translating this into “there are no jobs anywhere else” is anybody’s guess. But it extends beyond preference or opinion and into objectively, verifiably, factually wrong territory with remarkable consistency. It makes the people who claim it look ridiculous, but they seem to think it makes them look — I don’t know what — something not ridiculous. They don’t merely say it; they say it with aplomb and even contempt. (Maybe because they get universal agreement every time they bring this up with people in their real life?) The person we’re responding to in this thread is an almost archetypical example. Is this some sort of “winner take all” bias? It’s very weird. Programmers in the most expensive cities are doing fine. But this cultural wisdom is doing very real harm to people who would be much better off in cheaper cities. They think, “well, sheesh, it’s hard here, but I probably couldn’t even find a job in Pittsburgh.” And that’s factually, dangerously wrong.
        jacquesm 8y ago
        Echo chambers are dangerously wrong in many ways but today anybody that can use a browser should be able to verify the information for themselves with a little bit of work if it really mattered to them.

magduf 8y ago

There's "jobs" in all those places, but not necessarily jobs the OP can do. I lived in the NYC area for a short time, and the job market there for my specialty and experience was terrible. Here in the DC area, it's excellent. Places like Indianapolis, Nashville, etc., would also likely be terrible for me. Certain industries and specialties are concentrated mainly in certain areas, so if you're specialized, you have to stick to those places.

dionidium 8y ago
Yes, of course. If you're a deep sea fisherman, it's trivially provable that you can't do that job in Nebraska :) But that's never what these guys mean. It's always casually advanced as a blanket statement about the hopelessness of living somewhere that you can't smell the ocean. I don't know why it became popular to demonstrate such obvious ignorance about the job markets of inland cities, but here we are. I, for example, know precisely nothing about the job market in, say, Salt Lake City, but that's why I don't make statements on the internet about the job market in Salt Lake City.
- wetpaws 8y ago
  This is precisely what I meant. Good luck searching for tech jobs in Portland or even in Seattle outside of Amazon/MS
  - jacquesm 8y ago
    There are tech jobs everywhere. From Toronto to Paraguay and from SF to NYC and everywhere in between. Technology is everywhere, it is almost impossible to find a place where there are no tech jobs. But the bigger cities tend to have more of them and for better pay and Silicon Valley, New York, DC, Amsterdam, Berlin, London, and so on will have the best paid jobs but also the highest cost of living. Silicon Valley is an outlier in many respects, you should not calibrate your worldview by it. If you mean by tech job: a place where I can sit in a chair and make 7 figures easily then indeed, there are no tech jobs outside of SV and Seattle.
    - dionidium 8y ago
      Look, yes, obviously there are more jobs in the biggest cities. Why people insist on translating this into “there are no jobs anywhere else” is anybody’s guess. But it extends beyond preference or opinion and into objectively, verifiably, factually wrong territory with remarkable consistency. It makes the people who claim it look ridiculous, but they seem to think it makes them look — I don’t know what — something not ridiculous. They don’t merely say it; they say it with aplomb and even contempt. (Maybe because they get universal agreement every time they bring this up with people in their real life?) The person we’re responding to in this thread is an almost archetypical example. Is this some sort of “winner take all” bias? It’s very weird. Programmers in the most expensive cities are doing fine. But this cultural wisdom is doing very real harm to people who would be much better off in cheaper cities. They think, “well, sheesh, it’s hard here, but I probably couldn’t even find a job in Pittsburgh.” And that’s factually, dangerously wrong.
      - jacquesm 8y ago
        Echo chambers are dangerously wrong in many ways but today anybody that can use a browser should be able to verify the information for themselves with a little bit of work if it really mattered to them.