20 ms·

Talent May Be Shifting Away from Superstar Cities: Study

167 points by jseliger 7y ago

jseliger 7y ago
Most of us cannot afford superstar cities: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-broughel-hamilton-overregulation-housing-california-20190703-story.html https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-broughel-hamilto.... Or, if we can afford it, we choose not to.
- JohnFen 7y ago
  Indeed. I'm in the "choose not to" camp. "Superstar cities" offer me nothing of serious value, and come with a great deal of cost (not just money).
  - zdragnar 7y ago
    I'm in a similar camp. The things I value about a place of residence simply are outweighed by the downsides of these cities. I work remotely for a medium-big tech-related company, based out of one, and had to visit HQ for a few days. The weather was much nicer than where I live this time of year, but otherwise was not my cup of tea.
- cheese4242 7y ago
  Yep. For me it would be too hard going back to living in an apartment after having my own house.
AWildC182 7y ago
Really? I totally wanted to spend my best years mindlessly lurching through eight solid lanes of traffic just to make someone else filthy rich.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
diogenescynic 7y ago
A lot of tech companies seem to be regularly laying off teams from the Bay Area and moving the jobs to Austin, Chandler, Raleigh, Omaha and other cheaper cities. I know I've seen this where I work and heard about it at other big tech companies.
- m463 7y ago
  I've seen this when a company switches from startup/growth to maintenance.
welder 7y ago
I personally don't see this happening in San Francisco, at least not with top-tier companies. The only workers I've seen leaving SF have moved to NYC for adventure, or moved back to China.
- softwaredoug 7y ago
  Or leaving because they’re really good in their field and can work remotely for their job of choice. Seems to be a natural path for senior devs that care more about their craft than the Valley startup ecosystem
- hellisothers 7y ago
  Agreed, I can’t tell if the Bay Area is an exception to this trend or if this trend is just wishful thinking by those who have left/want to leave.
- synaesthesisx 7y ago
  Or to LA, which has all the perks California has to offer (but with better weather and better affordability than SF, while being a world-class city with more to offer than the Bay). In terms of quality of life SoCal is pretty hard to top.
  - Apocryphon 7y ago
    Isn't traffic even worse than in SF?
    - neonate 7y ago
      Much.
  - undefined3840 7y ago
    I’ve done the math and not really sure how LA is more affordable than SF if you factor in time value of money (things spread apart = commuting) and cost of keeping a car. Also as a single person housing is flexible for most. If you rent a room in a house in SF (most apartments are houses) you’d most likely be spending less than if you rented a 1 bedroom in LA.
throwaway713 7y ago
The jobs may be spreading out but the compensation sure hasn’t been. The best paying jobs with the most interesting, cutting-edge work are still located in just a few cities. I keep hoping some more opportunities will appear in the southeast near my family, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen, so for the time being I will be staying in the Bay Area.
- sieabahlpark 7y ago
  Right? If these companies could stop being so reliant on in person meetings they could save money on office space and just pay me more for being remote where I want to live.
  - momokoko 7y ago
    If those companies didn't need people on-site, the jobs would, and typically do, go overseas to lower-wage countries. There are tons of companies using remote work. It's called outsourcing.
    - munk-a 7y ago
      There are plenty of remote employment opportunities that are stable career paths. So I don't think it's fair to say that as soon as remote work is a possibility the job will be sent overseas. I think the early 2000s burned a lot of companies for trying to cheap out on dev costs by offshoring - offshoring is a valid choice in some situations and will probably become more and more competitive as time goes on... but there still is quite a lot of value in hiring out of the four year uni grad pool.
    - thebean11 7y ago
      You think the only barrier to outsourcing white collar work is the physical location of workers?
  - hellisothers 7y ago
    The companies are also signaling that they find random in person collaboration more valuable than heads down efficiency. I imagine there is a correlation between novel/interesting ideas that generate new revenue and being immersed in an environment of peers that you collaborate/chat with.
daenz 7y ago
If it every becomes status quo to work remotely at a tech company, what will that do to the housing markets? Will people flood out of the cities and towards cheaper parts of the country?
- semiotagonal 7y ago
  I don't believe it will happen, but if it did, I think cities and outlying areas would return to a division according to desired excitement level, instead of who can afford what.
- trophycase 7y ago
  Probably nothing because most people don't work at a tech company and couldn't/wouldn't work remotely regardless. Also the city has plenty of other benefits.
- bdcravens 7y ago
  I suspect people will live where they want (which may be where they already are) - I think it will have a bigger impact on tech company turnover than on housing markets. (Very few markets are SF - there are very large cities like Dallas and Houston that really aren't tech hubs)
ulber 7y ago
In other news counties with the highest incidence of kidney cancer (very rare) have few people [1] and surprisingly many of the best schools are small [2]. In any noisy metric small samples tends to be overrepresented at the extremes. Emsi (the company behind this article) should note this where appropriate. [1]: https://dataremixed.com/2015/01/avoiding-data-pitfalls-part-2/ https://dataremixed.com/2015/01/avoiding-data-pitfalls-part-... [2]: https://caroljacoby.wordpress.com/2015/04/13/are-small-schools-better/ https://caroljacoby.wordpress.com/2015/04/13/are-small-schoo...
- james_s_tayler 7y ago
  Which also means some of the worst schools are small.
  - joker3 7y ago
    And counties with the lowest incidence of kidney cancer are small.
flipgimble 7y ago
My experience is that “talent” in a superstar city jumps around between major companies every year or three in search of better salary. There is an expectation then that each new hire is immediately put to work and depending on your level, you are coding almost 100% of the time. I’ve now lived in a much smaller city for the past 5 years. My company hires both senior developers tired of the mercenary treadmill as well as many recent grads that stay for longer than three years since we invest in their career growth and provide much more mentorship. Also the biking distance commute to work are a big selling point. I loved living in a big city in my 20s but don’t regret moving away in my 30s. my quality of life and financial freedom is immeasurably improved. This regularly surprises my acquaintances that stayed.
- threwawasy1228 7y ago
  This seems really dependent on finding a good company with openings, which is not always the case. I tried to stay in the Midwest as a recent cs grad with an internship under my belt, but after spending 4 months doing job search I just gave up and went coastal. 1. The offers I got were abysmally small and out of touch with the market even when adjusting for my experience and local cost of living. 2. Most places were either extremely poorly reviewed on glassdoor, or were not hiring junior/midlevel developers. 3. Places I interviewed at were using ancient software stacks from 2000-era that would have hampered my professional growth. Until all these things are fixed and accounted for there is no way brain drain is going to stop. I literally spent 4 months interviewing, fully willing to relocate in the general Midwest to stay in a smaller more affordable town within reasonable driving distance of my family. If people want to keep smart people around, give them reasonable offers in line with the global market, and take risks on junior developers.
  - Grzegrzolka 7y ago
    It's very easy to explain. Even very weak companies that are located in "hot" cities have chance to catch really experienced and knowledgable talent. One good guy employed for 6 months can be an amazing catalyst of great changes, you can very quickly modernize process and technologies if you have passionate people on board. It does not matter that they will all leave in couple months, the know-how will stay. The "less popular" places are the polar opposite of this mindset. If talent is not easily available, you will find companies with no proper culture, stupidly old technologies and "old guard" not wanting to change much if anything.
davidw 7y ago
I wrote about that some: https://journal.dedasys.com/2018/07/27/fight-or-flight-yimbys-and-the-exodus-to-smaller-towns/ https://journal.dedasys.com/2018/07/27/fight-or-flight-yimby... I think it's an open question. My recollection is that Moretti's research still shows people being pushed towards cities.
40acres 7y ago
There is this constant hope out there that somehow someway workers will move away from cities at a critical enough mass to reach an equilibrium regarding affordability. Why? Humans converge on cities for many, many reasons. Even if remote work is ubiquitous there are many other reasons why living in a big city is advantageous. Even now the cities that people are moving to are those that can provide similar services to the larger cities, and with enough time those cities will become just like their larger counterparts with all the issues of a modern city.
- smt88 7y ago
  > will move away from cities That's not what this article is about. The key word is "superstar". The trend its describing is how different cities (though still certainly cities, with 1M+ metro areas) are now the most attractive to talented workers.
  - bdcravens 7y ago
    Exactly. Houston is far larger than SF or Austin, and is definitely not a tech hub, but you can buy a 4 bedroom single-family home here cheaper than a 1 bedroom condo in SF.
- eloisant 7y ago
  For many people the hope is not that big cities become more affordable, but that you can get more freedom to live whenever you want. Currently too many people would want to live in a smaller city but are forced to live in megalopolis because that's where the jobs are.
  - lotsofpulp 7y ago
    Perhaps it’s impossible to have the job security and income levels that people desire in smaller cities.
undefined3840 7y ago
I feel like the decision is very different if you’re gay (speaking as a gay male). Urban centers are pretty much the only places with gay culture, and the idea of moving outside of one of those centers is hard to imagine. It’s tough because I also want the lower cost of living of living away from SF/LA/NY but feel like it would be especially lonely to move to a small or even mid-sized city that has a small or non-existent gay scene.
- jimmaswell 7y ago
  There are gay people everywhere, you might just have to use a dating app or something. There are also lots of smaller towns with a progressive atmosphere like New Paltz, New York for one specific example I'm aware of. It's not the wasteland out there beyond the city limits you might think it is.
  - ixtli 7y ago
    It's not so much that there aren't gays in those places its about whether or not someone is in a place in their life where they want to be a "trailblazing gay," ya know? The guy that cuts my hair was in Bend, Oregon in a nice store and got called a 'faggot' a month or so ago. There are definitely gay people and maybe even a community in Bend, but those types of things just don't happen in that way in NYC and when they do you can expect passersby to be absolutely reviled.
    - MiroF 7y ago
      absolutely. i can't imagine someone dropping the f*g slur in a store in a core urban center and not being called on it almost immediately.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- onlyrealcuzzo 7y ago
  I think this is the same for any community: Jews, Armenians, Female Body Builders, etc... It's part of the benefit of a big city. By virtue of being big, there's bound to be people like you.
ryanthedev 7y ago
I have been talking about PHX having a mini boom of IT jobs. The cost of living has taken a hit though. Just gotta stand the heat.
- Ancalagon 7y ago
  PHX, and more specifically Scottsdale and Tempe, definitely has been having a jobs/IT boom. And I'd say its that heat that has kept the cost of living relatively mild (as well as the sheer amount of buildable land in and around the city).
colek42 7y ago
I work remote this year I have - written a data science pipeline build on kube that improves our understanding on climate models - helped a fortune 500 company automate their reliability testing of equipment on their production lines - advise and impliment the production environment for space command - opened a new line of business for our company It has been the most productive year of my career and I owe it to my companies remote first structure.
souterrain 7y ago
In the “sunbelt dominates” graphic, the Maryland and Virginia portions of the Delmarva peninsula are highlighted, along with Western Maryland, but the remainder of Maryland is not. What’s up here?
api 7y ago
Superstar cities don't have and never have had a monopoly on talent. What they do have is a monopoly on capital. Try raising money in a non-superstar city. This monopoly may fade as younger angels, VCs, and other forms of investors who are comfortable with telework and therefore with tele-investing take over. I've already seen a bit of that, but it's still far easier to raise money in e.g. San Francisco / SV. Of course if you do raise money in the Bay you're just going to spend it all on real estate. VCs there should skip the middleman and cut checks directly to property owners.
scarmig 7y ago
The analysis is based on Emsi’s Talent Attraction Index, which is comprised of six key metrics: job growth, skilled job growth, net migration, annual openings for skilled workers (per capita), educational attainment growth (based on adults with associate degrees and above), and a broad measure of regional competitiveness. All of these (except the last, which is an ambiguous indicator) are based on flows, not stocks. Beyond that, as far as the reason the report names the top big county in the country as Jacksonville's... Duval County is the heart of the Jacksonville metro, a rising economic powerhouse that is consistently attracting new residents and growing its talent base. Its population increased 7% from 2014 to 2018. Jobs were up 11% over the same time, nearly twice the national rate. Notably, the largest industries in Duval County are restaurants and hospitals—the kind of industries that exist everywhere, and which do not usually involve the big manufacturing centers we tend to think of as job drivers. But over the past two years, the presence of both Wayfair and Amazon distribution centers has spurred 242% growth in the electronic shopping industry, an addition of over 5,000 more jobs than expected given national trends. I'd love to see a report that analyzed trends around changes in talent (the "Creative Class" jobs that Richard Florida identified back in the day), because I'd love to get more bang for buck than I do in one of the Superstar Cities. But this report is mis-advertised. Show me surprising or up-and-coming places where most people have college degrees or advanced degrees from good schools, cultural events, and the potential for high wages doing interesting work.
- aphextron 7y ago
  I moved from the bay area to Charlotte NC this year, and it's fantastic. A big brand new apartment in a walkable area downtown is $1200. I'm making the same salary and brand new houses can be had for $300k in a nice neighborhood. It's the number 2 banking capital in the US after New York, so there's endless growth potential for someone interested in fintech. We're on the same line of latitude as San Francisco so there's plenty of sun and the winters are extremely mild with little to no snow. I really can't think of any reason other than chasing FAANG positions why anyone would stay in the bay at this point.
  - scarmig 7y ago
    See, that's the type of thing that's intriguing! And it seems like it should be possible to capture in the statistics (at least so that Charlotte appears above Jacksonville), but it seems like this report is more about advertising for Emsi to try to make potential clients (municipal governments in currently unpopular places to live) feel like there's hope if they just hire the company to consult with them.
oarabbus_ 7y ago
I'll see it when I believe it. This isn't true in the bay area whatsoever. There's "talent" everywhere you look. The uber I took to the airport today was driven by a guy who just came to the US and is primed for a product manager role based on his entrepreneurship in his home country.
wil421 7y ago
I was born and live in Georgia and went to college for a bit in South Georgia. My parents also grew up in South Georgia. Macon and Waynesboro are places people talk about leaving unless they have strong family ties. There are some IT jobs in Macon but nothing like Atlanta and nothing like the North/South suburbs of Atlanta.
soulnothing 7y ago
I have this constant internal argument of where do I go to live. I work in a city with an outdated tech scene, and very little vertical growth. The local tech managers and developers are trying. But the local government is raising taxes, making it a non lucrative way to start or run a business in the city area. As someone who has been primarily remote for the past four years, part of this seems like an unnecessary argument. On the other hand my roles are largely short term contracts. So when ever my contract ends I think about moving to another city. But I'm only looking at a very minor pay bump in the range of 10 to 20k. While rent doubles at the lowest option, and regular expenses increase by ~15%. The other trend I'm seeing is the rise of reverse commuting. Due to the aforementioned tax issue in my area. A lot of companies are moving out to the suburbs. I've seen really interesting job opportunities. But the distance/travel is an issue. I'm not traveling four hours a day to job, and having to walk several miles along an interstate to get to work. As someone who can't drive for medical reasons. I feel I have a very limited number of cities in America I can live in. I prefer walking, and transit. Going out several times a week. I'd love to live in NYC. But fiscally it doesn't make sense right to me. Only 10k more than my current role, but double the rent and higher cost of living. Of the cities with transit. NYC hands down wins in regards to better opportunities to my current city. But at the cost of work life balance, and fiscal independence. So I can see this. I know a number of old co-workers who have moved to a more rural environment. From a big city environment to reduce cost of living, or stress of city living. Or move outside the city to a nearby suburb. Being a general short term contractor. I've worked in a few of these super star cities on site. Trying to help boot strap a new team. They have an issue finding "talent", paying well below market rate with really hard work and long hours. I try and sell them on partial remote, or full remote. Which isn't a stretch because they have a full staff-aug team in another time zone. But the hire has to be on site. I also know a number of co-workers adhering to fatFIRE. There are a number of people who are tired of this rat race, and just want to be done with it. It's something that needs to be addressed, but there isn't an easy solution. http://money.com/money/5241566/vicki-robin-financial-independence-retire-early/ http://money.com/money/5241566/vicki-robin-financial-indepen...
bane 7y ago
You can see this in the recent selections of places like Amazon HQ2. Under the headlines there are big companies, huge organizations, doing extraordinary technical work that exist in places like Columbus Ohio, Oak Ridge Tennessee, Tri-Cities Washington, Northern Virginia, etc. The pay is good for the areas, the work is incredibly challenging and interesting, and the quality of living can be much much better than squeezing out living in a box in the Bay Area or NYC. In fact, Amazon HQ1 is in a more or less underserved city (Seattle) and Portland, OR ain't bad if you're on the West Coast.
EpcOandG 7y ago
Noticing that some of the cities are actually just small energy counties : Denton=hydraulic fracturing Cameron County=LNG facilities new builds and expansion. A few poly plants Pecos= hydraulic fracturing and some wind and solar Ohio= PTTGC plant plant being built within the next 2 years still in planning. Talent is shifting to 2-5 year energy/EPC related projects but will most likely only retain a few people for over 10 year. Talent will erupt from the energy market in particular Houston as the hydraulic fracturing boom comes to end. As profitability is not being met and PE money is drying up. 27 bankruptcies so far this year. Retaining top engineers at some of the largest service and oil and gas companies. The cities you have cited will not be on your report in 2 years. With more than enough reserves in the world for LNG and crude and the cost of extracting either LNG or crude. Countries like Mozambique, Guyana, our pals in the Middle East... This shift will be smaller intl countries vs cities
Finnucane 7y ago
This is good. Having everyone try to live in the same few places is not sustainable. There's plenty of room still in this country, we should use it.

167 points by jseliger 7y ago

Most of us cannot afford superstar cities: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-broughel-hamilton-overregulation-housing-california-20190703-story.html https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-broughel-hamilto.... Or, if we can afford it, we choose not to.

JohnFen 7y ago
Indeed. I'm in the "choose not to" camp. "Superstar cities" offer me nothing of serious value, and come with a great deal of cost (not just money).
- zdragnar 7y ago
  I'm in a similar camp. The things I value about a place of residence simply are outweighed by the downsides of these cities. I work remotely for a medium-big tech-related company, based out of one, and had to visit HQ for a few days. The weather was much nicer than where I live this time of year, but otherwise was not my cup of tea.
cheese4242 7y ago
Yep. For me it would be too hard going back to living in an apartment after having my own house.

AWildC182 7y ago

Really? I totally wanted to spend my best years mindlessly lurching through eight solid lanes of traffic just to make someone else filthy rich.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

diogenescynic 7y ago

A lot of tech companies seem to be regularly laying off teams from the Bay Area and moving the jobs to Austin, Chandler, Raleigh, Omaha and other cheaper cities. I know I've seen this where I work and heard about it at other big tech companies.

m463 7y ago
I've seen this when a company switches from startup/growth to maintenance.

welder 7y ago

I personally don't see this happening in San Francisco, at least not with top-tier companies. The only workers I've seen leaving SF have moved to NYC for adventure, or moved back to China.

softwaredoug 7y ago
Or leaving because they’re really good in their field and can work remotely for their job of choice. Seems to be a natural path for senior devs that care more about their craft than the Valley startup ecosystem
hellisothers 7y ago
Agreed, I can’t tell if the Bay Area is an exception to this trend or if this trend is just wishful thinking by those who have left/want to leave.
synaesthesisx 7y ago
Or to LA, which has all the perks California has to offer (but with better weather and better affordability than SF, while being a world-class city with more to offer than the Bay). In terms of quality of life SoCal is pretty hard to top.
- Apocryphon 7y ago
  Isn't traffic even worse than in SF?
  - neonate 7y ago
    Much.
- undefined3840 7y ago
  I’ve done the math and not really sure how LA is more affordable than SF if you factor in time value of money (things spread apart = commuting) and cost of keeping a car. Also as a single person housing is flexible for most. If you rent a room in a house in SF (most apartments are houses) you’d most likely be spending less than if you rented a 1 bedroom in LA.

throwaway713 7y ago

The jobs may be spreading out but the compensation sure hasn’t been. The best paying jobs with the most interesting, cutting-edge work are still located in just a few cities. I keep hoping some more opportunities will appear in the southeast near my family, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen, so for the time being I will be staying in the Bay Area.

sieabahlpark 7y ago
Right? If these companies could stop being so reliant on in person meetings they could save money on office space and just pay me more for being remote where I want to live.
- momokoko 7y ago
  If those companies didn't need people on-site, the jobs would, and typically do, go overseas to lower-wage countries. There are tons of companies using remote work. It's called outsourcing.
  - munk-a 7y ago
    There are plenty of remote employment opportunities that are stable career paths. So I don't think it's fair to say that as soon as remote work is a possibility the job will be sent overseas. I think the early 2000s burned a lot of companies for trying to cheap out on dev costs by offshoring - offshoring is a valid choice in some situations and will probably become more and more competitive as time goes on... but there still is quite a lot of value in hiring out of the four year uni grad pool.
  - thebean11 7y ago
    You think the only barrier to outsourcing white collar work is the physical location of workers?
- hellisothers 7y ago
  The companies are also signaling that they find random in person collaboration more valuable than heads down efficiency. I imagine there is a correlation between novel/interesting ideas that generate new revenue and being immersed in an environment of peers that you collaborate/chat with.

daenz 7y ago

If it every becomes status quo to work remotely at a tech company, what will that do to the housing markets? Will people flood out of the cities and towards cheaper parts of the country?

semiotagonal 7y ago
I don't believe it will happen, but if it did, I think cities and outlying areas would return to a division according to desired excitement level, instead of who can afford what.
trophycase 7y ago
Probably nothing because most people don't work at a tech company and couldn't/wouldn't work remotely regardless. Also the city has plenty of other benefits.
bdcravens 7y ago
I suspect people will live where they want (which may be where they already are) - I think it will have a bigger impact on tech company turnover than on housing markets. (Very few markets are SF - there are very large cities like Dallas and Houston that really aren't tech hubs)

ulber 7y ago

In other news counties with the highest incidence of kidney cancer (very rare) have few people [1] and surprisingly many of the best schools are small [2]. In any noisy metric small samples tends to be overrepresented at the extremes. Emsi (the company behind this article) should note this where appropriate. [1]: https://dataremixed.com/2015/01/avoiding-data-pitfalls-part-2/ https://dataremixed.com/2015/01/avoiding-data-pitfalls-part-... [2]: https://caroljacoby.wordpress.com/2015/04/13/are-small-schools-better/ https://caroljacoby.wordpress.com/2015/04/13/are-small-schoo...

james_s_tayler 7y ago
Which also means some of the worst schools are small.
- joker3 7y ago
  And counties with the lowest incidence of kidney cancer are small.

flipgimble 7y ago

My experience is that “talent” in a superstar city jumps around between major companies every year or three in search of better salary. There is an expectation then that each new hire is immediately put to work and depending on your level, you are coding almost 100% of the time. I’ve now lived in a much smaller city for the past 5 years. My company hires both senior developers tired of the mercenary treadmill as well as many recent grads that stay for longer than three years since we invest in their career growth and provide much more mentorship. Also the biking distance commute to work are a big selling point. I loved living in a big city in my 20s but don’t regret moving away in my 30s. my quality of life and financial freedom is immeasurably improved. This regularly surprises my acquaintances that stayed.

threwawasy1228 7y ago
This seems really dependent on finding a good company with openings, which is not always the case. I tried to stay in the Midwest as a recent cs grad with an internship under my belt, but after spending 4 months doing job search I just gave up and went coastal. 1. The offers I got were abysmally small and out of touch with the market even when adjusting for my experience and local cost of living. 2. Most places were either extremely poorly reviewed on glassdoor, or were not hiring junior/midlevel developers. 3. Places I interviewed at were using ancient software stacks from 2000-era that would have hampered my professional growth. Until all these things are fixed and accounted for there is no way brain drain is going to stop. I literally spent 4 months interviewing, fully willing to relocate in the general Midwest to stay in a smaller more affordable town within reasonable driving distance of my family. If people want to keep smart people around, give them reasonable offers in line with the global market, and take risks on junior developers.
- Grzegrzolka 7y ago
  It's very easy to explain. Even very weak companies that are located in "hot" cities have chance to catch really experienced and knowledgable talent. One good guy employed for 6 months can be an amazing catalyst of great changes, you can very quickly modernize process and technologies if you have passionate people on board. It does not matter that they will all leave in couple months, the know-how will stay. The "less popular" places are the polar opposite of this mindset. If talent is not easily available, you will find companies with no proper culture, stupidly old technologies and "old guard" not wanting to change much if anything.

davidw 7y ago

I wrote about that some: https://journal.dedasys.com/2018/07/27/fight-or-flight-yimbys-and-the-exodus-to-smaller-towns/ https://journal.dedasys.com/2018/07/27/fight-or-flight-yimby... I think it's an open question. My recollection is that Moretti's research still shows people being pushed towards cities.

40acres 7y ago

There is this constant hope out there that somehow someway workers will move away from cities at a critical enough mass to reach an equilibrium regarding affordability. Why? Humans converge on cities for many, many reasons. Even if remote work is ubiquitous there are many other reasons why living in a big city is advantageous. Even now the cities that people are moving to are those that can provide similar services to the larger cities, and with enough time those cities will become just like their larger counterparts with all the issues of a modern city.

smt88 7y ago
> will move away from cities That's not what this article is about. The key word is "superstar". The trend its describing is how different cities (though still certainly cities, with 1M+ metro areas) are now the most attractive to talented workers.
- bdcravens 7y ago
  Exactly. Houston is far larger than SF or Austin, and is definitely not a tech hub, but you can buy a 4 bedroom single-family home here cheaper than a 1 bedroom condo in SF.
eloisant 7y ago
For many people the hope is not that big cities become more affordable, but that you can get more freedom to live whenever you want. Currently too many people would want to live in a smaller city but are forced to live in megalopolis because that's where the jobs are.
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  Perhaps it’s impossible to have the job security and income levels that people desire in smaller cities.

undefined3840 7y ago

I feel like the decision is very different if you’re gay (speaking as a gay male). Urban centers are pretty much the only places with gay culture, and the idea of moving outside of one of those centers is hard to imagine. It’s tough because I also want the lower cost of living of living away from SF/LA/NY but feel like it would be especially lonely to move to a small or even mid-sized city that has a small or non-existent gay scene.

jimmaswell 7y ago
There are gay people everywhere, you might just have to use a dating app or something. There are also lots of smaller towns with a progressive atmosphere like New Paltz, New York for one specific example I'm aware of. It's not the wasteland out there beyond the city limits you might think it is.
- ixtli 7y ago
  It's not so much that there aren't gays in those places its about whether or not someone is in a place in their life where they want to be a "trailblazing gay," ya know? The guy that cuts my hair was in Bend, Oregon in a nice store and got called a 'faggot' a month or so ago. There are definitely gay people and maybe even a community in Bend, but those types of things just don't happen in that way in NYC and when they do you can expect passersby to be absolutely reviled.
  - MiroF 7y ago
    absolutely. i can't imagine someone dropping the f*g slur in a store in a core urban center and not being called on it almost immediately.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
onlyrealcuzzo 7y ago
I think this is the same for any community: Jews, Armenians, Female Body Builders, etc... It's part of the benefit of a big city. By virtue of being big, there's bound to be people like you.

ryanthedev 7y ago

I have been talking about PHX having a mini boom of IT jobs. The cost of living has taken a hit though. Just gotta stand the heat.

Ancalagon 7y ago
PHX, and more specifically Scottsdale and Tempe, definitely has been having a jobs/IT boom. And I'd say its that heat that has kept the cost of living relatively mild (as well as the sheer amount of buildable land in and around the city).

colek42 7y ago

I work remote this year I have - written a data science pipeline build on kube that improves our understanding on climate models - helped a fortune 500 company automate their reliability testing of equipment on their production lines - advise and impliment the production environment for space command - opened a new line of business for our company It has been the most productive year of my career and I owe it to my companies remote first structure.

souterrain 7y ago

In the “sunbelt dominates” graphic, the Maryland and Virginia portions of the Delmarva peninsula are highlighted, along with Western Maryland, but the remainder of Maryland is not. What’s up here?

api 7y ago

Superstar cities don't have and never have had a monopoly on talent. What they do have is a monopoly on capital. Try raising money in a non-superstar city. This monopoly may fade as younger angels, VCs, and other forms of investors who are comfortable with telework and therefore with tele-investing take over. I've already seen a bit of that, but it's still far easier to raise money in e.g. San Francisco / SV. Of course if you do raise money in the Bay you're just going to spend it all on real estate. VCs there should skip the middleman and cut checks directly to property owners.

scarmig 7y ago

The analysis is based on Emsi’s Talent Attraction Index, which is comprised of six key metrics: job growth, skilled job growth, net migration, annual openings for skilled workers (per capita), educational attainment growth (based on adults with associate degrees and above), and a broad measure of regional competitiveness. All of these (except the last, which is an ambiguous indicator) are based on flows, not stocks. Beyond that, as far as the reason the report names the top big county in the country as Jacksonville's... Duval County is the heart of the Jacksonville metro, a rising economic powerhouse that is consistently attracting new residents and growing its talent base. Its population increased 7% from 2014 to 2018. Jobs were up 11% over the same time, nearly twice the national rate. Notably, the largest industries in Duval County are restaurants and hospitals—the kind of industries that exist everywhere, and which do not usually involve the big manufacturing centers we tend to think of as job drivers. But over the past two years, the presence of both Wayfair and Amazon distribution centers has spurred 242% growth in the electronic shopping industry, an addition of over 5,000 more jobs than expected given national trends. I'd love to see a report that analyzed trends around changes in talent (the "Creative Class" jobs that Richard Florida identified back in the day), because I'd love to get more bang for buck than I do in one of the Superstar Cities. But this report is mis-advertised. Show me surprising or up-and-coming places where most people have college degrees or advanced degrees from good schools, cultural events, and the potential for high wages doing interesting work.

aphextron 7y ago
I moved from the bay area to Charlotte NC this year, and it's fantastic. A big brand new apartment in a walkable area downtown is $1200. I'm making the same salary and brand new houses can be had for $300k in a nice neighborhood. It's the number 2 banking capital in the US after New York, so there's endless growth potential for someone interested in fintech. We're on the same line of latitude as San Francisco so there's plenty of sun and the winters are extremely mild with little to no snow. I really can't think of any reason other than chasing FAANG positions why anyone would stay in the bay at this point.
- scarmig 7y ago
  See, that's the type of thing that's intriguing! And it seems like it should be possible to capture in the statistics (at least so that Charlotte appears above Jacksonville), but it seems like this report is more about advertising for Emsi to try to make potential clients (municipal governments in currently unpopular places to live) feel like there's hope if they just hire the company to consult with them.

oarabbus_ 7y ago

I'll see it when I believe it. This isn't true in the bay area whatsoever. There's "talent" everywhere you look. The uber I took to the airport today was driven by a guy who just came to the US and is primed for a product manager role based on his entrepreneurship in his home country.

wil421 7y ago

I was born and live in Georgia and went to college for a bit in South Georgia. My parents also grew up in South Georgia. Macon and Waynesboro are places people talk about leaving unless they have strong family ties. There are some IT jobs in Macon but nothing like Atlanta and nothing like the North/South suburbs of Atlanta.

soulnothing 7y ago

I have this constant internal argument of where do I go to live. I work in a city with an outdated tech scene, and very little vertical growth. The local tech managers and developers are trying. But the local government is raising taxes, making it a non lucrative way to start or run a business in the city area. As someone who has been primarily remote for the past four years, part of this seems like an unnecessary argument. On the other hand my roles are largely short term contracts. So when ever my contract ends I think about moving to another city. But I'm only looking at a very minor pay bump in the range of 10 to 20k. While rent doubles at the lowest option, and regular expenses increase by ~15%. The other trend I'm seeing is the rise of reverse commuting. Due to the aforementioned tax issue in my area. A lot of companies are moving out to the suburbs. I've seen really interesting job opportunities. But the distance/travel is an issue. I'm not traveling four hours a day to job, and having to walk several miles along an interstate to get to work. As someone who can't drive for medical reasons. I feel I have a very limited number of cities in America I can live in. I prefer walking, and transit. Going out several times a week. I'd love to live in NYC. But fiscally it doesn't make sense right to me. Only 10k more than my current role, but double the rent and higher cost of living. Of the cities with transit. NYC hands down wins in regards to better opportunities to my current city. But at the cost of work life balance, and fiscal independence. So I can see this. I know a number of old co-workers who have moved to a more rural environment. From a big city environment to reduce cost of living, or stress of city living. Or move outside the city to a nearby suburb. Being a general short term contractor. I've worked in a few of these super star cities on site. Trying to help boot strap a new team. They have an issue finding "talent", paying well below market rate with really hard work and long hours. I try and sell them on partial remote, or full remote. Which isn't a stretch because they have a full staff-aug team in another time zone. But the hire has to be on site. I also know a number of co-workers adhering to fatFIRE. There are a number of people who are tired of this rat race, and just want to be done with it. It's something that needs to be addressed, but there isn't an easy solution. http://money.com/money/5241566/vicki-robin-financial-independence-retire-early/ http://money.com/money/5241566/vicki-robin-financial-indepen...

bane 7y ago

You can see this in the recent selections of places like Amazon HQ2. Under the headlines there are big companies, huge organizations, doing extraordinary technical work that exist in places like Columbus Ohio, Oak Ridge Tennessee, Tri-Cities Washington, Northern Virginia, etc. The pay is good for the areas, the work is incredibly challenging and interesting, and the quality of living can be much much better than squeezing out living in a box in the Bay Area or NYC. In fact, Amazon HQ1 is in a more or less underserved city (Seattle) and Portland, OR ain't bad if you're on the West Coast.

EpcOandG 7y ago

Noticing that some of the cities are actually just small energy counties : Denton=hydraulic fracturing Cameron County=LNG facilities new builds and expansion. A few poly plants Pecos= hydraulic fracturing and some wind and solar Ohio= PTTGC plant plant being built within the next 2 years still in planning. Talent is shifting to 2-5 year energy/EPC related projects but will most likely only retain a few people for over 10 year. Talent will erupt from the energy market in particular Houston as the hydraulic fracturing boom comes to end. As profitability is not being met and PE money is drying up. 27 bankruptcies so far this year. Retaining top engineers at some of the largest service and oil and gas companies. The cities you have cited will not be on your report in 2 years. With more than enough reserves in the world for LNG and crude and the cost of extracting either LNG or crude. Countries like Mozambique, Guyana, our pals in the Middle East... This shift will be smaller intl countries vs cities

Finnucane 7y ago

This is good. Having everyone try to live in the same few places is not sustainable. There's plenty of room still in this country, we should use it.