5 ms·

Personally, I have the opposite opinion. I took a pay cut to leave Seattle ( I lived in Chicago before that, I've lived in dense metro areas for many, many year

Personally, I have the opposite opinion. I took a pay cut to leave Seattle ( I lived in Chicago before that, I've lived in dense metro areas for many, many years now) so I could go live in a smaller town. I can actually afford a house. My dog has a yard to play in. I haven't been mugged since I left! No one uses my doorstep as a bathroom. My neighbors actually come say hi to me and are invested in forming relationships knowing I won't just up in move in the next year due to housing costs. We have decent enough restaurants, bars, bowling alleys, pool halls, movie theater, mall, etc, and if I really want to, I am within driving distance of the city (edit: for a day trip, no way in hell would it work for me as a commute). Yet, I haven't been back since I left. I think it's more nuanced than your comment indicates. You might be surprised how many people might take up an offer from Google to move to the boonies (I'm at least one).

jen20 8y ago
If you're within driving distance of Seattle, you're still in the catchment area for working there though. The equivalent would be living in New Jersey or Connecticut or Long Island and working in New York City - which hundreds of thousands of people do.
lordCarbonFiber 8y ago
I didn't mean to come off quite as harsh as that. There are plenty of goal sets that align well to being outside of the city; but I do think that y'all are the minority. When playing the numbers in trying to staff huge multi thousand head campuses catering to a specific minority doesn't add up.
gct 8y ago
There's dozens of us!
zjaffee 8y ago
One thing to point out about the NYC metro area is that there is a ton of land surrounding it with reasonably priced homes in safe areas with less than a 45 minute commute by public transit, where in the Bay Area and Seattle, the waterways are far larger, and transportation options more restricted. Within huge portions of nearby suburbs, you can buy a sizable 3+ bedroom house for <400k in a town with a train stop and a good school district that takes you directly to the office.
- vonmoltke 8y ago
  > Within huge portions of nearby suburbs, you can buy a sizable 3+ bedroom house for <400k in a town with a train stop and a good school district that takes you directly to the office. A train which sometimes get you there in 45 minutes, sometimes in 60 minutes, sometimes gets cancelled because of (Amtrak signal problems | disabled Amtrak equipment in the Hudson tunnel | overhead wire damage | $ PROBLEM_OF_THE_DAY). He says while crammed in to an NJTransit train.
  - PLenz 8y ago
    NJT is a mess but Metro North is pretty great. I walk to the train and then walk GCT to our office on Park. I grew up in Queens and my commute to Manhattan is shorter now when I live 30 miles outside the city. But I also pay for that with Westchester taxes.
  - zjaffee 8y ago
    This is absolutely true, from what I've been hearing NJ transit has just been getting worse and worse since I had used it on a daily basis.
    - vonmoltke 8y ago
      It has been going slowly downhill since I moved here two years ago. I'm glad I don't have to go into Penn any longer. Hoboken has its own problems, but at least the NJT cancellations are rare and the trains usually get there within 5 minutes of when they are supposed to.
- TarpitCarnivore 8y ago
  Reasonably priced homes within 45 minutes of NYC, via train, are definitely not a thing. You're also not even counting our absurd taxes in places like Morristown, Montlcair, Fair Lawn, etc.
- apohn 8y ago
  >Within huge portions of nearby suburbs, you can buy a sizable 3+ bedroom house for <400k in a town with a train stop and a good school district that takes you directly to the office. Not to be a ass, but where? And please don't just point out a home with no pictures you just found on Zillow, but a place where you've actually been to which has decent property taxes, decent schools, and is safe? And actually a 45 minute commute, not 45 minutes if you ignore the 20+ minutes it takes to drive your car from home to a train station and pay $50+/month to park for a reserved spot. I ask this because I used to live in a NYC area highrise and always used to think over the about the seemingly fantastic deals in the suburbs. Then I started looking and realized real-estate websites and Google Maps commuting are a far cry from reality.

jen20 8y ago

If you're within driving distance of Seattle, you're still in the catchment area for working there though. The equivalent would be living in New Jersey or Connecticut or Long Island and working in New York City - which hundreds of thousands of people do.

lordCarbonFiber 8y ago

I didn't mean to come off quite as harsh as that. There are plenty of goal sets that align well to being outside of the city; but I do think that y'all are the minority. When playing the numbers in trying to staff huge multi thousand head campuses catering to a specific minority doesn't add up.

gct 8y ago

There's dozens of us!

zjaffee 8y ago

One thing to point out about the NYC metro area is that there is a ton of land surrounding it with reasonably priced homes in safe areas with less than a 45 minute commute by public transit, where in the Bay Area and Seattle, the waterways are far larger, and transportation options more restricted. Within huge portions of nearby suburbs, you can buy a sizable 3+ bedroom house for <400k in a town with a train stop and a good school district that takes you directly to the office.

vonmoltke 8y ago
> Within huge portions of nearby suburbs, you can buy a sizable 3+ bedroom house for <400k in a town with a train stop and a good school district that takes you directly to the office. A train which sometimes get you there in 45 minutes, sometimes in 60 minutes, sometimes gets cancelled because of (Amtrak signal problems | disabled Amtrak equipment in the Hudson tunnel | overhead wire damage | $ PROBLEM_OF_THE_DAY). He says while crammed in to an NJTransit train.
- PLenz 8y ago
  NJT is a mess but Metro North is pretty great. I walk to the train and then walk GCT to our office on Park. I grew up in Queens and my commute to Manhattan is shorter now when I live 30 miles outside the city. But I also pay for that with Westchester taxes.
- zjaffee 8y ago
  This is absolutely true, from what I've been hearing NJ transit has just been getting worse and worse since I had used it on a daily basis.
  - vonmoltke 8y ago
    It has been going slowly downhill since I moved here two years ago. I'm glad I don't have to go into Penn any longer. Hoboken has its own problems, but at least the NJT cancellations are rare and the trains usually get there within 5 minutes of when they are supposed to.
TarpitCarnivore 8y ago
Reasonably priced homes within 45 minutes of NYC, via train, are definitely not a thing. You're also not even counting our absurd taxes in places like Morristown, Montlcair, Fair Lawn, etc.
apohn 8y ago
>Within huge portions of nearby suburbs, you can buy a sizable 3+ bedroom house for <400k in a town with a train stop and a good school district that takes you directly to the office. Not to be a ass, but where? And please don't just point out a home with no pictures you just found on Zillow, but a place where you've actually been to which has decent property taxes, decent schools, and is safe? And actually a 45 minute commute, not 45 minutes if you ignore the 20+ minutes it takes to drive your car from home to a train station and pay $50+/month to park for a reserved spot. I ask this because I used to live in a NYC area highrise and always used to think over the about the seemingly fantastic deals in the suburbs. Then I started looking and realized real-estate websites and Google Maps commuting are a far cry from reality.