8 ms·

I'm not sure what you consider the suburbs but I'm confident you could find that same situation or better so long as you looked at medium size and smaller citie

• mschuetz 8y ago
  When I was living in suburbs for a few months, getting from A to B on a bike took a long time. 40 minutes to work. 30 minutes to the next mall/shopping street. Just one small house after another, with no amenities nearby. Vast low-density residential areas make for a long commute. After I got back to the city it felt incredible to bike through it. Everything you need is within a few minutes driving distance. Work is 20 minutes on bike and I don't live particularely close to it. No worries about parking either, because there is always some place that you can lock your bike to.
  • pmorici 8y ago
    A small to medium sized city is not the suburbs.
• dtech 8y ago
  Berlin isn't exactly a medium or small city, and then you'd still have the problem that American cities are very car-centric.
  • pmorici 8y ago
    I guess that is my point. The OP says that having a family in the US would be a struggle but if you set aside the handful of cities with out of control costs in the US like SF, NY, and DC the rest really are quite affordable.
    • Retric 8y ago
      Exclude the east and west coast mega cities and you have a lot of land but a small chunk of the population. This tends to tie you much closer to a specific employer and has long term risks.
      • leetcrew 8y ago
        this is just not true, at least on the east coast. i rent a 4br house just over the city line that's listed for ~$200k . 10 minute drive to downtown and a 30 minute commute to work. if i wanted to i could easily come up with the down payment for this house in a couple years on my entry level engineer's salary. in my office park alone, there are already several other software companies right there that i could conceivably work at. once you rule out NYC, Boston, and the other megacities, there are still many mid-sized cities with good food, music, etc. they don't have nearly the same troubles with traffic, so it's often pretty easy to find a good job in the burbs if they dont do software in the city center.
        • Retric 8y ago
          A '30 minute commute to work' is a long time every day. It adds up to 250 hours a year, and over 10,000 hours over a lifetime. Accepting a longer commute means more options, but the price is steap. Mine is currently 10 minutes and in a prior job I walked to work. However, that means I either need to move regularly or have a lot of options very close to me.
          • dsfyu404ed 8y ago
            It's a direct time and money trade-off. People are spending time to obtain a standard of living that they do not have enough money to purchase with dollars. You can light your money on fire by renting or you can be paying off a house at the same rate at the time cost of whatever your commute is. If you want to eat healthy the options for fast meals get expensive. If you prepare everything from close to scratch you can eat just as health at the cost of time.
            • Retric 8y ago
              It's possible sure, but if 'they do not have enough money to purchase with dollars' then it's not "quite affordable" as originally suggested. I can easily live in the US, have a minimal commute, and save 1/3 of my income with my current lifestyle. I can't do that and have kids.
• lozenge 8y ago
  How many different tech jobs are there at a medium size city? In Berlin hundreds of companies in a small area are competing to attract talent with the best pay, perks and work life balance. Even if you have kids and prefer stability, you get some of the benefits of that. And if a job change becomes necessary, you'll have a much higher chance in Berlin of finding a good fit without moving home or lengthening your commute.
  • pmorici 8y ago
    There can be a huge number. I mean look at Baltimore for example. Median home price is $260k and salaries for engineers range anywhere from $60k - $250k. There was a post here the other day about how Grand Rapids had some huge amount of tech companies. Many towns with Universities are built for biking and walking and also have strong presence of companies looking for engineers.
    • CPLX 8y ago
      There are a couple minor differences in culture, food, the arts, and nightlife between Berlin and Grand Rapids.
      • dsfyu404ed 8y ago
        A medium city surrounded by BFE is going to have vastly better options for outdoor recreation. A medium or large city in a major metropolitan area will have better options for indoor recreation. I'd personally take the city surrounded by BFE if given the choice (actually, I'd rather live in BFE and commute into the medium city).
        • handsomechad 8y ago
          whats bfe??
          • grzm 8y ago
            Bum Fuck, Egypt https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/13372/what-is-the-etymology-of-bfe https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/13372/what-is-th...
• barry-cotter 8y ago
  I’m not an American and I’ve never lived there but aren’t the only cities you can bike safely as a method of transport rather than exercise in the Boston Washington corridor or San Francisco? There are many places with relatively high salaries and cheap rents for software engineers, but ones where you can live in a nice area, be 15 minutes bike from work and not have a car? The daycare and maternity leave are probably irrelevant. The OP could probably make enough more in the US that no maternity pay and high childcare costs don’t matter much but he’d still need a car. Also, comparing Berlin to medium size or small cities will not make the latter look good. Cultural infrastructure is much better if you’re into that. I doubt a parent of a small child has that much time to enjoy it but even just English language cultural events, meet ups etc. will be way more active in Berlin than in say, Raleigh.
  • pmorici 8y ago
    Your view sounds like it is based on stereo types and not reality. I mean bicycling.com has a list of the top 50 bicycling cities in the US. Raleigh has an Opera, several theaters, a symphony. It does not lack for cultural events.
    • flanban 8y ago
      My view is based on Panasonic
    • barry-cotter 8y ago
      I have been to the US, New York, New Jersey and Florida. Given the length and density of settlement in the first two there’s probably not a more bicycle hospitable part of the US. I would be terrified to cycle there. Bicycling magazine’s website supports your contention less than you might imagine. It’s for hobbyists, people who bike for exercise and who tour. Most Europeans who cycle do so as a mode of transport, not recreation. And just as you will not find articles on the best places to find good pasta in Italy, or croissants in France you’re not going to find a list of the most bike friendly cities in Germany. By American standards they’re all really, really bike friendly. And that’s totally unremarkable, just like cities built for the convenience of people in cars are normal in the US. I’m not saying Raleigh is a cultural wasteland. I’m sure it has much to recommend it but to compare it to Berlin? Really? Berlin has almost eight times the population and has many very heavily subsidised national cultural institutions. I’m sure Raleigh has a better live music scene in English. You should travel in Europe some. You would not compare anywhere in Western Europe to the US in terms of bike friendliness if you had.
• cribbles 8y ago
  You can't. US cities are uniformly car-centric. The exceptions to the rule are too expensive to buy property in anywhere close to city center. Aside: I lived (and grew up) in several small-to-medium sized US cities prior to settling in Berlin. None come close to offering a similar range of cultural infrastructure to the typical medium-size European city, and quality of life is totally incomparable - again in Europe's favor.
  • Spooky23 8y ago
    Sure you can. I live in such a place. Housing around $200k for 4br, 2ba, decent salary, etc. I don’t know what your vision of cultural infrastructure is, but I feel culturally satiated.
    • germinalphrase 8y ago
      Where do you live that a decent 4br/2ba goes for 200k? I’m in the Midwest and that’s at least 100-150k lower than I’d expect in an urban area (rural communities, sure - but not the city).
      • weber111 8y ago
        My sister is in Tulsa and has a _very_ nice 4+2 (or maybe 3+2, idr, but it's a well-built, big house on an acre); it cost her $250k. Where I live (central Illinois, 200000 person metro area), prices are even lower.
        • germinalphrase 8y ago
          My reference is Madison/Minneapolis where I’d respectively price a decent 3br at 250/350 in cheaper areas.
      • tomkinstinch 8y ago
        Rochester and Buffalo are this affordable, and have the added benefit of being in New York State.
• maxsilver 8y ago
  > I'm confident you could find that same situation or better so long as you looked at medium size and smaller cities Are you certain? In my experience, there really isn't an "affordable medium size city" in the US. There are affordable suburbs of medium sized cities. There are affordable suburbs that technically lie within the cities legal boundary lines, and are so-called 'urban' (by legal/taxable status only). But if "city" is being used as a measure of minimum density (and not a line on a map) then there is no such thing as an "affordable for families" large or medium-sized city in the US. Any urban area developed enough to have an average building height of 5 stories or higher is unafforable to the vast majority of US families. This remains true even in the so-called "low cost of living" mid-sized cities.
  • rsync 8y ago
    "Are you certain? In my experience, there really isn't an "affordable medium size city" in the US." Minneapolis. A very, very rich urban environment (there are two cities there, after all) and cultural scene. Is currently, very affordable - even in the most desirable neighborhoods. Denver also fit this bill up until 3-4 years ago.
    • phil21 8y ago
      I don't consider Minneapolis much of a city - more like a giant suburb with some nice bike paths. I grew up on the Northside. Same for the few times visiting Denver. You're gonna be driving if you want to have a social life. You simply cannot compare it to a similar sized European city, or to any of the "big city" style US cities on the East coast. For this exact reason I split my time between Minneapolis and Chicago and plan to move to Chicago as soon as possible full time. The lifestyles are not remotely comparable.
    • maxsilver 8y ago
      Minneapolis is exactly what I was thinking of when I said, "there are affordable suburbs that technically lie within the cities legal boundary lines" and are therefore called 'city' but are actually suburbs. Lyndale, Cocoran, Harrison, and many other examples, are actually suburban but they are technically within the legal/tax boundaries of Minneapolis and get called 'urban', when they are not. Minneapolis is a cool place, this is not an slight to the city or it's residents in any way. But Minneapolis is almost entirely suburban, and the parts of Minneapolis / St Paul that are actually urban (where "urban" means more than 75% of the buildings are 4+ stories), those parts are not affordable to families.
• tjr225 8y ago
  Eh....how many medium sized cities have you lived in? Most of them were designed for automobiles and are horrible for pedestrians.