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Cost of living in Silicon Valley is high because highly paid people are competing over a limited supply of housing. If large numbers of Silicon Valley engineers

Cost of living in Silicon Valley is high because highly paid people are competing over a limited supply of housing. If large numbers of Silicon Valley engineers move to other places and continue to earn Silicon Valley salaries, those places will also see their costs of living increase. It has already happened in Austin to some extent, and people in Portland have been unhappy for years because Californians move in and bid up prices.

cratermoon 6y ago
In which case the cost of housing will level out across the country and again you end up with people being paid roughly the same amount no matter where they live.
- twblalock 6y ago
  The problem is, in most parts of the country that will mean cost of living will increase. People who can't do their jobs remotely will suffer because of that.
  - sammorrowdrums 6y ago
    That would depend on whether or not local pay ended up increasing more generally or not. It makes sense this would actually lead to greater spending in localities that didn't have it before. Admittedly that could lead to the more toxic gentrification form that you mention, but it could make it more possible for local people in an area like that to start businesses due to the larger local economy. Really depends on so many factors it's hard to be confident.
- sammorrowdrums 6y ago
  Which doesn't seem bad. That would massively increase people's freedom to move around and to work for different employers based in different regions and probably work out well for everyone in the long run. Very rich hub cities seem to draw so much money away from less wealthy cities. Certainly in UK London has much greater spending and better public transport than basically the entire rest of the UK. It might be a first step to more equal competition for labour (and naturally for jobs) around a country.
  - erik_seaberg 6y ago
    I’ve found the high concentration of opportunities in the Bay Area to be very valuable, enough so to relocate once and take full advantage for half my career. Spreading them thinly around the entire country (or the world!) will add a lot of friction and leave more people stuck in poor fits. If everyone goes fully remote permanently, this isn’t an issue, but I don’t think a temporary pandemic will lead to that.
    - disgruntledphd2 6y ago
      OTOH, I made a different trade-off by staying in my home country, which has some but not that much tech. Now it looks like this move towards remote will mean that I won't have to sacrifice all the interesting jobs for the sake of lifestyle choices. Seems like a win to me, at least.
zaphirplane 6y ago
I think the premise of your argument is people move in large clusters, obviously if people are spread out across multiple states, then the original argument stands

cratermoon 6y ago

In which case the cost of housing will level out across the country and again you end up with people being paid roughly the same amount no matter where they live.

twblalock 6y ago
The problem is, in most parts of the country that will mean cost of living will increase. People who can't do their jobs remotely will suffer because of that.
- sammorrowdrums 6y ago
  That would depend on whether or not local pay ended up increasing more generally or not. It makes sense this would actually lead to greater spending in localities that didn't have it before. Admittedly that could lead to the more toxic gentrification form that you mention, but it could make it more possible for local people in an area like that to start businesses due to the larger local economy. Really depends on so many factors it's hard to be confident.
sammorrowdrums 6y ago
Which doesn't seem bad. That would massively increase people's freedom to move around and to work for different employers based in different regions and probably work out well for everyone in the long run. Very rich hub cities seem to draw so much money away from less wealthy cities. Certainly in UK London has much greater spending and better public transport than basically the entire rest of the UK. It might be a first step to more equal competition for labour (and naturally for jobs) around a country.
- erik_seaberg 6y ago
  I’ve found the high concentration of opportunities in the Bay Area to be very valuable, enough so to relocate once and take full advantage for half my career. Spreading them thinly around the entire country (or the world!) will add a lot of friction and leave more people stuck in poor fits. If everyone goes fully remote permanently, this isn’t an issue, but I don’t think a temporary pandemic will lead to that.
  - disgruntledphd2 6y ago
    OTOH, I made a different trade-off by staying in my home country, which has some but not that much tech. Now it looks like this move towards remote will mean that I won't have to sacrifice all the interesting jobs for the sake of lifestyle choices. Seems like a win to me, at least.

zaphirplane 6y ago

I think the premise of your argument is people move in large clusters, obviously if people are spread out across multiple states, then the original argument stands