5 ms·

I live 90 minutes south of Nashville, near Huntsville AL. We love Nashville and travel to the general area frequently. And he's right -- cost of living matter

I live 90 minutes south of Nashville, near Huntsville AL. We love Nashville and travel to the general area frequently. And he's right -- cost of living matters. For less than a condo in other places, we have a 4000 sf home and an acre in a walkable neighborhood with pleasant schools. Not a bad way to go.

atom-morgan 8y ago
The only bad thing about Huntsville (grew up in Enterprise) is it's almost 100% military, state work. Is that still the case?
- huntsvilleinfo 8y ago
  Yes, it is. Although Facebook is opening a data center here, so things may change in the future.
  - ghaff 8y ago
    Datacenters employ very few people.
- peckrob 8y ago
  It's still mostly defense/space contracting, but it is slowly diversifying. There's a pretty good telecom sector. Digium, the sponsor of Asterisk, was headquartered here before Sangoma bought them earlier this year and I understand Sangoma is keeping the Huntsville operation. Adtran is also here. Bioengineering is also an up-and-coming thing with HudsonAlpha. There's a small but growing startup scene and a few established tech companies (I work for one of them [0]). Tech256 [1] is where most of the local tech workers hang out. Outside of engineering work, there was been a lot of growth in manufacturing. Polaris, Remington, Toyota, Mazda soon, Blue Origin soon, etc. Seems like every other week a new factory is being announced. [0] https://www.dealnews.com/ https://www.dealnews.com/ [1] http://tech256.com/ http://tech256.com/
mnutt 8y ago
I grew up in Huntsville before moving to NYC 15 years ago, and the change in the "creature comforts" he describes is drastic. Back then downtown was desolate, nothing but lawyer offices and bail bonds. Now it's full of restaurants, hipster coffee shops, and spin classes. I don't know how much of it is due to a concerted push and how much is just a trend of gradual re-urbanization after decades of suburban sprawl, but it's a welcome change.
- peckrob 8y ago
  It's a little of both but it has really taken off over the last about five years. Downtown Huntsville, Inc has done a really good job of promoting downtown. Lots of new apartment buildings have gone up downtown, and some more are planned (there's a whole new area opening up soon on the other side of Big Spring Park where the old Holiday Inn used to be). There's also a new trend of turning parking garages into ground-floor retail. Happened with the Clinton St. garage, and the new garage they're planning on Greene St. will have ground-floor retail. The area right around the courthouse is still mostly law offices, but a few restaurants have started moving in there and I hope that trend will continue. My company relocated from Research Park to a historic building downtown a couple years go. We're two blocks off from the courthouse. It's been fun to watch this happen day-to-day.
  - mcguire 8y ago
    Remos Adhibe?
peckrob 8y ago
Hello fellow Huntsvillian! Don't let the secret out! :P I also live in Huntsville and I live very, very well here. A 50+% pay raise to move to a "tech center" (SF, SV, NYC, etc.) looks nice on paper until you really start to work the numbers and realize that you would actually come out worse off in many ways. * A mortgage on a 3,500 square foot house, on a 1/3 acre lot in a very nice neighborhood runs me a hair over $1,200 a month. Including taxes and insurance. Everything except the HOA, and that's an extra $30 or so a month. * I live in a nice family-oriented area with great schools (my kid's school even has an app, and I get daily progress reports!). Don't have to worry about violent crime. My biggest annoyance is the teen with the loud scooter. * Utilities are dirt cheap thanks to TVA. * Property taxes are dirt cheap. Income taxes are on the low side. Sales tax is a tad on the high side, but it's not bad. * I have a 20 minute commute to and from the office every day, maybe 30 on a bad day. I'm home every night for dinner with my family. And while Huntsville won't win any awards for high culture (although there is actually a surprisingly vibrant arts scene here considering its size, not really what I was expecting to find), Nashville and Birmingham are only 90 minutes away in either direction - great for a day trip (we do Nashville day trips fairly frequently). Atlanta or Memphis are weekend trips of a few hours away. And I can be on great beaches in a few hours as well. With my extra income, I can afford to save and do fun things. After our daughter was born, we needed a larger car, so we bought one and paid cash for it. We go skiing in West Virginia during the holidays. We did two weeks in Hawaii for our honeymoon, a week in London a few years, a week in Jamaica, a week in Costa Rica, 10 days at Disney World, etc. A lot of this is possible because my cost of living here is so low that it allows me a large amount of discretionary income. We have our problems, sure. No place is perfect, but every time I go to look at the trade offs, the math always works for me to stay put here. Even if I were to change jobs, it would probably be something remote unless it was to a city of not-crazy cost of living. No one has yet shown me that I can live the equivalent lifestyle in SF or SV that I live here on an average developer's salary.
- ryanwaggoner 8y ago
  equivalent lifestyle in SF or SV That's exactly the point. Living the equivalent lifestyle of Huntsville in SF or SV is astronomically expensive. But living the SF or SV lifestyle in Huntsville is impossible. To each their own!
logfromblammo 8y ago
We always go to Nashville for air travel, because it's not just that I'm not made of money, but also the money I'm not made out of isn't exclusively $100 bills and gold coins. It seems like the Huntsville airport is geared mainly towards business travel, for contracting companies that can turn around and charge the travel expenses to the federal government somehow. It's ridiculous.

atom-morgan 8y ago

The only bad thing about Huntsville (grew up in Enterprise) is it's almost 100% military, state work. Is that still the case?

huntsvilleinfo 8y ago
Yes, it is. Although Facebook is opening a data center here, so things may change in the future.
- ghaff 8y ago
  Datacenters employ very few people.
peckrob 8y ago
It's still mostly defense/space contracting, but it is slowly diversifying. There's a pretty good telecom sector. Digium, the sponsor of Asterisk, was headquartered here before Sangoma bought them earlier this year and I understand Sangoma is keeping the Huntsville operation. Adtran is also here. Bioengineering is also an up-and-coming thing with HudsonAlpha. There's a small but growing startup scene and a few established tech companies (I work for one of them [0]). Tech256 [1] is where most of the local tech workers hang out. Outside of engineering work, there was been a lot of growth in manufacturing. Polaris, Remington, Toyota, Mazda soon, Blue Origin soon, etc. Seems like every other week a new factory is being announced. [0] https://www.dealnews.com/ https://www.dealnews.com/ [1] http://tech256.com/ http://tech256.com/

mnutt 8y ago

I grew up in Huntsville before moving to NYC 15 years ago, and the change in the "creature comforts" he describes is drastic. Back then downtown was desolate, nothing but lawyer offices and bail bonds. Now it's full of restaurants, hipster coffee shops, and spin classes. I don't know how much of it is due to a concerted push and how much is just a trend of gradual re-urbanization after decades of suburban sprawl, but it's a welcome change.

peckrob 8y ago
It's a little of both but it has really taken off over the last about five years. Downtown Huntsville, Inc has done a really good job of promoting downtown. Lots of new apartment buildings have gone up downtown, and some more are planned (there's a whole new area opening up soon on the other side of Big Spring Park where the old Holiday Inn used to be). There's also a new trend of turning parking garages into ground-floor retail. Happened with the Clinton St. garage, and the new garage they're planning on Greene St. will have ground-floor retail. The area right around the courthouse is still mostly law offices, but a few restaurants have started moving in there and I hope that trend will continue. My company relocated from Research Park to a historic building downtown a couple years go. We're two blocks off from the courthouse. It's been fun to watch this happen day-to-day.
- mcguire 8y ago
  Remos Adhibe?

peckrob 8y ago

Hello fellow Huntsvillian! Don't let the secret out! :P I also live in Huntsville and I live very, very well here. A 50+% pay raise to move to a "tech center" (SF, SV, NYC, etc.) looks nice on paper until you really start to work the numbers and realize that you would actually come out worse off in many ways. * A mortgage on a 3,500 square foot house, on a 1/3 acre lot in a very nice neighborhood runs me a hair over $1,200 a month. Including taxes and insurance. Everything except the HOA, and that's an extra $30 or so a month. * I live in a nice family-oriented area with great schools (my kid's school even has an app, and I get daily progress reports!). Don't have to worry about violent crime. My biggest annoyance is the teen with the loud scooter. * Utilities are dirt cheap thanks to TVA. * Property taxes are dirt cheap. Income taxes are on the low side. Sales tax is a tad on the high side, but it's not bad. * I have a 20 minute commute to and from the office every day, maybe 30 on a bad day. I'm home every night for dinner with my family. And while Huntsville won't win any awards for high culture (although there is actually a surprisingly vibrant arts scene here considering its size, not really what I was expecting to find), Nashville and Birmingham are only 90 minutes away in either direction - great for a day trip (we do Nashville day trips fairly frequently). Atlanta or Memphis are weekend trips of a few hours away. And I can be on great beaches in a few hours as well. With my extra income, I can afford to save and do fun things. After our daughter was born, we needed a larger car, so we bought one and paid cash for it. We go skiing in West Virginia during the holidays. We did two weeks in Hawaii for our honeymoon, a week in London a few years, a week in Jamaica, a week in Costa Rica, 10 days at Disney World, etc. A lot of this is possible because my cost of living here is so low that it allows me a large amount of discretionary income. We have our problems, sure. No place is perfect, but every time I go to look at the trade offs, the math always works for me to stay put here. Even if I were to change jobs, it would probably be something remote unless it was to a city of not-crazy cost of living. No one has yet shown me that I can live the equivalent lifestyle in SF or SV that I live here on an average developer's salary.

ryanwaggoner 8y ago
equivalent lifestyle in SF or SV That's exactly the point. Living the equivalent lifestyle of Huntsville in SF or SV is astronomically expensive. But living the SF or SV lifestyle in Huntsville is impossible. To each their own!

logfromblammo 8y ago

We always go to Nashville for air travel, because it's not just that I'm not made of money, but also the money I'm not made out of isn't exclusively $100 bills and gold coins. It seems like the Huntsville airport is geared mainly towards business travel, for contracting companies that can turn around and charge the travel expenses to the federal government somehow. It's ridiculous.