4 ms·

As far as weather, the Midwest, Boston, and NYC are pretty much the same. Boston and the upper Midwest are cooler, of course. If weather mattered all that much

As far as weather, the Midwest, Boston, and NYC are pretty much the same. Boston and the upper Midwest are cooler, of course. If weather mattered all that much, the coast from LA to San Diego would be where you'd want to go.

nostrademons 8y ago
Silicon Valley is pretty awesome as far as weather goes - it will be straight 70 degrees and sunny from March till November, and rarely gets below 50. Summers are a bit more mild than in SoCal, air pollution is less of a problem, and the fire danger has been less in recent years. There is more rain and lower temperatures in the winter, but not really enough to be annoying, and it means you might actually see running water that's not channeled by concrete in the South Bay. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles#Climate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles#Climate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Jose,_California#Climate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Jose,_California#Climate
lotsofpulp 8y ago
Considering the Cali coast has the highest cost of living, doesn't that mean it is where many people want to be? Boston/NYC have the benefits of being in very highly populated areas with very old institutions, especially with reputations like MIT/Harvard/Columbia/etc and there's already a lot of money floating around, so that makes up for the weather part a little. It's not just one factor, it's a combination of all of these that unfortunately make some places more desirable to live in than others. And who knows, may be it will change in the future.
- deleted 8y ago
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- amyjess 8y ago
  > Considering the Cali coast has the highest cost of living, doesn't that mean it is where many people want to be? CA has more natural boundaries that spike the cost of living higher. For example, pretty much the entire LA area (except around Palmdale) consists of a bunch of small valleys nestled between mountains. Not only do they have the west coast in the way, but they've got mountains blocking them from expanding in every other direction. And you can say the same thing about the Bay Area, too. If expansion isn't blocked by water, it's blocked by mountains. NYC's COL is also in large part due to natural boundaries, but it's not as bad as CA. Manhattan is a tiny island. Long Island is also, well, an island. The Bronx and Westchester are a peninsula. But there's at least some room to expand. The Hudson Valley opens up when you get north of White Plains, and Jersey has plenty of room to sprawl. So the COL isn't nearly as bad as SF. What really keeps it as high as it is, though, is culture: Manhattan is the center of the world, and that's exactly how New Yorkers like it. There's a massive stigma to setting up shop in places like Morristown or Ossining. So instead everyone either pays $$$$$ to live near work in Manhattan or they pay $$$$ live in the suburbs but not so far out in the suburbs that they can't commute to Manhattan every day. In the midwest and the southwest, on the other hand, there's no stigma to setting up shop in suburban edge cities. So you have metro areas like Dallas where there are large tech hubs in suburbs like Plano and Richardson, and some companies now are setting up shop in the exurbs.
  - jdhn 8y ago
    >There's a massive stigma to setting up shop in places like Morristown or Ossining. Morristown isn't some haven for bumpkins, it's a major stop on the Morristown Line with a lot of wealthy people. Maybe there's a sigma for setting up a tech shop, but it's not some backwater where nobody wants to live.
    - amyjess 8y ago
      The problem isn't that nobody wants to live there; it's that nobody wants to work there. It's a bedroom community for people who commute to Manhattan. A very nice, wealthy bedroom community, but still a bedroom community. The NY metro area has yet to embrace edge cities, and if it ever does (I'm not holding my breath) the COL will become much less of an issue.

nostrademons 8y ago

Silicon Valley is pretty awesome as far as weather goes - it will be straight 70 degrees and sunny from March till November, and rarely gets below 50. Summers are a bit more mild than in SoCal, air pollution is less of a problem, and the fire danger has been less in recent years. There is more rain and lower temperatures in the winter, but not really enough to be annoying, and it means you might actually see running water that's not channeled by concrete in the South Bay. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles#Climate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles#Climate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Jose,_California#Climate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Jose,_California#Climate

lotsofpulp 8y ago

Considering the Cali coast has the highest cost of living, doesn't that mean it is where many people want to be? Boston/NYC have the benefits of being in very highly populated areas with very old institutions, especially with reputations like MIT/Harvard/Columbia/etc and there's already a lot of money floating around, so that makes up for the weather part a little. It's not just one factor, it's a combination of all of these that unfortunately make some places more desirable to live in than others. And who knows, may be it will change in the future.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
amyjess 8y ago
> Considering the Cali coast has the highest cost of living, doesn't that mean it is where many people want to be? CA has more natural boundaries that spike the cost of living higher. For example, pretty much the entire LA area (except around Palmdale) consists of a bunch of small valleys nestled between mountains. Not only do they have the west coast in the way, but they've got mountains blocking them from expanding in every other direction. And you can say the same thing about the Bay Area, too. If expansion isn't blocked by water, it's blocked by mountains. NYC's COL is also in large part due to natural boundaries, but it's not as bad as CA. Manhattan is a tiny island. Long Island is also, well, an island. The Bronx and Westchester are a peninsula. But there's at least some room to expand. The Hudson Valley opens up when you get north of White Plains, and Jersey has plenty of room to sprawl. So the COL isn't nearly as bad as SF. What really keeps it as high as it is, though, is culture: Manhattan is the center of the world, and that's exactly how New Yorkers like it. There's a massive stigma to setting up shop in places like Morristown or Ossining. So instead everyone either pays $$$$$ to live near work in Manhattan or they pay $$$$ live in the suburbs but not so far out in the suburbs that they can't commute to Manhattan every day. In the midwest and the southwest, on the other hand, there's no stigma to setting up shop in suburban edge cities. So you have metro areas like Dallas where there are large tech hubs in suburbs like Plano and Richardson, and some companies now are setting up shop in the exurbs.
- jdhn 8y ago
  >There's a massive stigma to setting up shop in places like Morristown or Ossining. Morristown isn't some haven for bumpkins, it's a major stop on the Morristown Line with a lot of wealthy people. Maybe there's a sigma for setting up a tech shop, but it's not some backwater where nobody wants to live.
  - amyjess 8y ago
    The problem isn't that nobody wants to live there; it's that nobody wants to work there. It's a bedroom community for people who commute to Manhattan. A very nice, wealthy bedroom community, but still a bedroom community. The NY metro area has yet to embrace edge cities, and if it ever does (I'm not holding my breath) the COL will become much less of an issue.