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There seems to be a lot of negativity in the comments so far. Is this not the dream that is often touted on hacker news? Work at a FAANG and "retire" somewhere

• hoka-one-one 5y ago
  Your kids all else equal will be outsprinted by kids who live in more competitive cities. You can decide you don't care about any of that, but understand that type of that decision will ripple through to future generations, e.g. your grandkids will be less educated. The irony is that most educated people living in small towns want to get out, and a generation or two after they do they want to go back. Will the cycle repeat itself?
  • Cookingboy 5y ago
    >Your kids all else equal will be outsprinted by kids who live in more competitive cities But it won't "all else equal", there are so many variables at play here that it's meaningless to talk about a hypothetical "all else equal" scenario. Also there have been so many successful people who were born and raised in what you'd call "less competitive" areas. >The irony is that most educated people living in small towns want to get out, and a generation or two after they do they want to go back. What's ironic about people going to places chasing things they desire? Big cities and small towns offer different things, and those things value differently to different people. The people who are leaving small towns chasing after opportunities and the people who want to move back to small towns from big cities are obviously at different stages in their lives and value different things. >Will the cycle repeat itself? Probably? But why is that an issue?
  • jwilber 5y ago
    Maybe true of typical residents of said locations, on average. But tech transplants by and large should not be considered typical residents. What you say definitely does have elements of truth to it, but I’d wager the effects of parenting and income are, on average, much larger than your direct setting when it comes to succeeding beyond the median of their peer group.
  • DogOnTheWeb 5y ago
    There are pros and cons to growing up in a smaller metro. While having access to top tier culture and internships are great, there’s also a grueling competition to stand out. In SV, the pressure on kids and parents seems extreme even at the median. While there are less opportunities and resources overall in a small metro, it’s all available to an ambitious child. In the end, at least some small town kids are out-sprinting the “competitive city” kids and taking their loot back home. Otherwise we wouldn’t have all these articles about it.
  • solipsism 5y ago
    The irony is that most educated people living in small towns want to get out Doesn't seem like you know much about small towns. I grew up in one. The educated people are there because they want to be. That's sort of by definition, and follows from the fact that they're educated -- they have been somewhere else (you don't get "educated" in a small town, not in the way you mean), and they chose to go there. The ones who want to leave are the uneducated ones, who would love to have an opportunity to get "educated" in that sense. Your kids all else equal will be outsprinted by kids who live in more competitive cities Not everyone wants to be part of this rat race you're talking about, nor do they want their children to be. Having ended up at FAANG (despite my small town upbringing), I talk with a lot of young people (interns, new hires) who are products of this rat race. By and large my impression is that: 1. They haven't lived much. They haven't done many things. They've been too busy in their competitive classes in competitive schools trying to get into competitive schools. 2. They don't seem very happy. They tend to be high strung. Nervous seeming. Scared of failure. that decision will ripple through to future generations, e.g. your grandkids will be less educated. How would you even know this? How do you know parental education status isn't the real factor?
    • Eric_WVGG 5y ago
      You and I share some similar observations but come away with very different interpretations. "The educated people are there because they want to be" the parents, sure, but their children are there because the parents chose for them. "1. [children from big cities] haven't lived much. They haven't done many things." Are you seriously suggesting that there are more things to do in Boise than Manhattan? "2. They don't seem very happy." That certainly described everyone I knew who wasn't a cultist in Salt Lake City. In my experience, the ones who want to leave are the smart kids who find their surroundings culturally stifling and intellectually decrepit.
      • solipsism 5y ago
        Are you seriously suggesting that there are more things to do in Boise than Manhattan? It's not about how many things there are to do. It's about what life experiences you've had. I'm not talking museums here. I'm talking working tough jobs, dealing with addiction or death (in family or acquaintances, having a job, living on your own, etc etc. The kids I'm talking about have had very sheltered lives. That certainly described everyone I knew who wasn't a cultist in Salt Lake City. We may have different definitions of "small town". Salt Lake City is unique in many ways and not representative of rural or rust belt small towns.
  • austhrow743 5y ago
    You know their kids can just move to a big city again right?
  • robbiep 5y ago
    > Your kids all else equal will be outsprinted by kids who live in more competitive cities That’s absolute horse shit. And whilst I don’t have any evidence to sprout, I think that those from more diverse and unusual backgrounds are better adapted for modern life. Growing up in a ‘competitive’ city is a licence for blandness (opinions mine)
    • frockington1 5y ago
      Agreed, being from a city is a replacement for a personality for some. If you've ever met someone from NYC you know it because they tell you about it within 2 minutes of meeting them.
  • dcolkitt 5y ago
    Shared family environment (which by definition includes where your parents choose to live) has near zero impact on long term adult outcomes. This has been confirmed again and again by countless twin studies.
    • CuriouslyC 5y ago
      And yet, we know anecdotally that certain places produce far more than their share of "talented" people, so I don't think those twin studies are complete or conclusive.
      • dcolkitt 5y ago
        That's just the genetic heritability of intelligence and other personality factors. High IQ, high achieving people are disproportionately attracted to certain job markets. Those people tend to have high IQ kids. Those high IQ kids tend to grow up and become high achieving adults. The outcomes would largely be the same whether those same kids grew up in Palo Alto or Peoria. Don't confuse correlation for causation. Similarly, I'd be virtually certain that children who grew up with a Tesla as their family car are much more likely to attend elite universities. That doesn't mean that Elon Musk has solved the problem of getting your kids into Harvard. It's just that Teslas are expensive, and therefore rich, high-achieving families are more likely to own them.
        • CuriouslyC 5y ago
          You're not addressing the thing I was talking about. Take for instance the bevy of amazing mathematicians produced by early 20th century Budapest. That wasn't just genetics, it was the culture of the city and the teachers those people had. Likewise you could look at the rise of soccer greatness in Rio; that wasn't genetic, it was due to features of life in Rio and a culture of passion for soccer. IQ is less important and more malleable than you think. It should be called nutrition and nurturing quotient instead.
          • reducesuffering 5y ago
  • CuriouslyC 5y ago
    Or maybe people can take responsibility for their kids rather than forget them with an underpaid, under-motivated teachers. You can cram 12 years of public school bullshit in 4-6 years, and have 6-8 years to teach them useful things like programming and construction.
  • volkl48 5y ago
    All small towns are not created equal, imagining they are is going to lead you to invalid conclusions. Desirable towns popular with outdoor recreation enthusiasts are generally not suffering any sort of widespread brain drain issue (if anything, they have the opposite issue - too many highly educated people, not enough of the people to do the jobs lower on the ladder). They have about nothing in common with some rural town in the Great Plains that's been slowly depopulating for a century.
  • selimnairb 5y ago
    Have you heard of New England? Lots of educated people in small towns, and want to be there.
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • Taylor_OD 5y ago
    Gross. If I have to worry about my kids and their kids kids being overtaken by other more elite kids I'm doing something wrong.
  • hcurtiss 5y ago
    As a kid who graduated with a class of 28 students in rural small town America, I’d say we had a disproportionately high number of kids go to the Ivies, Stanford, or the Academies. I never once felt handicapped. Resumes look pretty good when you letter in every sport, star in every play, and run student government. And today I’m raising my children in small town America.
• cwp 5y ago
  Yup. I moved to SF because that's where the good jobs were. Now I can leave and keep my good job. Huzzah!
  • sakopov 5y ago
    This seems like a good deal, but isn't your salary going to be adjusted for the area where you currently reside?
    • cwp 5y ago
      Yes, it was. I took a 15% cut. It's still a financial win, given the lower cost of living, lower taxes, and cheaper real estate. I'm finally able to buy a house.
      • dont__panic 5y ago
        15% to leave SF and go somewhere rural in the US? That is quite the deal.
• watwut 5y ago
  > Is this not the dream that is often touted on hacker news? Work at a FAANG and "retire" somewhere more affordable? Practically, probably not. Few people talk about that, most dont. Most will move for affordable, but wont necessary like abrupt change from FAANG and big city to small city and not much to do. They will need to adjust to different culture, new hobbies, find new friends, everything. And that is not even speaking about those whose partners dont want to move, whose partners have jobs, friends and social networks they like/need. And that is not even speaking about the "what with kids does this makes sense to them" topic.
  • giantg2 5y ago
    What would a small city not have to do that big city would? Or do you mean a small town. Also, what hobbies would have to be given up?
    • watwut 5y ago
      It is not fundamental difference between small vs big city. Options, people and culture are different in this city versus different city - no matter which one is larger. Say you liked boardgames with friends. The new city have different people, the play different games, you dont like either new games or new people. Say you liked swimming and the swimming pools in new city are too full or otherwise dont suit you. You liked going to local beginner art/dance club, but new place dont have equivalent. Moving to different place, especially when the environment changes comes with changes in lifestyle you may or may not welcome.
      • giantg2 5y ago
        I can see that somewhat. Maybe you like surfing or salt water fishing and move from the coast to the middle of the country where it just isn't geographically possible, or laws in one area prohibit it (homebrew, guns, etc), etc. But I don't really see location as a major factor in most hobbies. I grew up as a military dependent and can't remember giving up hobbies just because we moved. You can almost always find ways to continue them.
      • 5y ago
• _delibash_ 5y ago
  Your comment is indicative that you don't understand how healthy democratic societies should work. What you're describing is a third world paradigm. Where you're "lucky enough" to be born into a "good" family or go to a "good" college or live in a "desirable" neighborhood and on and on and on.
  • awill88 5y ago
    While the comment wasn’t scoped or composed empathetically towards identifying systematic socioeconomic forces, I don’t think this person deserves your assessment that they doesn’t understand the broken, upsetting world we all live in.
    • _delibash_ 5y ago
      Not the world, the U.S. And it's a fairly accurate assesment.
• MomoXenosaga 5y ago
  Grew up in a village. It's nice if you are a 10 year old boy. When you're a grown man you want to be surrounded by degenerates and atheists.
  • extraAccount 5y ago
    A lot of people grow up in an Urban environment, I don't really see any disadvantage to it. We get to meet a lot of people and there is always stuff to do. During COVID I am seeing a lot of talk about moving into the countryside with their children, as if their children are sheep which need a lot of open spaces in which to graze. But the will probably get bored and miss their friends, and probably force them to pack up and move back.
    • dagw 5y ago
      I raised a child in the middle of a city from age 0-8 and it was great. So much to do! Parks, botanical gardens, playgrounds, museums, swimming pools, fun fares, concerts and so on, all within walking distance or at worst a short bus ride.
      • bluGill 5y ago
        The things you can do in a city are different from the things you can do in the suburbs, are different from the things you can do in rural areas. There are pros and cons of each. Sadly in the US many dense cities have abandoned the things that kids like to do, leaving those who like city things to the suburbs as the best compromise. I know someone who started a children's museum, when she started the city tried to get her downtown with some nice incentives. She didn't though because there are zero kids who live downtown, and the next ring (in city limits) is either rich no kids, or too poor to afford a to visit. That means everyone who might go is going to drive from the suburbs and so a location with free parking in the suburbs was better able to attract visitors, even though it means half the potential customers will find it too far to drive, the other half will find it more convenient and thus come more often. I don't know how cities can solve that, but it is a problem repeated in most cities. It didn't used to be that way, cities used to have a lot of people with kids. In general cities have abandoned families as families moved out (you can find lots of people pointing blame as to causes here - I'm not going to speculate), and it will be hard to bring them back. Not all cities have done this as much as others.
• throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  You're seeing negativity because it's getting harder and harder to deny that this "dream" involves the locals getting screwed when tech monopoly money turns their local economy upside down. Sure the guy who had the foresight to start a brewery wins but everyone else loses. You know what the end game of this looks like? It looks like Vail CO, Cape Cod MA, coastal Long Island and CT, the Hamptons, wealthy retirement areas of FL, etc. What industry is there? What opportunity is there? Well unless you want to sell your soul to the tourism industry or run some business that entertains richer people in exchange for their money (best leave your moral compass at the door if you want to succeed in those endeavors) or work in the supporting industries thereof there is exactly squat. Everyone who doesn't stand to inherit a business either gets out or gets addicted to something. It's not unreasonably negative to not want that for ones' community or want to inflict that on some other community.
  • throwaway6734 5y ago
    Locals wouldn't get screwed if they advocated for better zoning policy and allowed more housing to be built. This doesn't happen because those same locals that are homeowners love the value of their house exploding upwards
    • throwaway0a5e 5y ago
      It has little to do with zoning and everything to do with economic incentives that drive out anyone high achieving or with a conscience and retain/reward swindlers and those who can't escape.
    • Spooky23 5y ago
      Honestly, no. Just because you have a hammer does not mean that every problem is a nail. Complete zoning and policy failure is a uniquely California problem. Nobody has a structural, and likely unconstitutional inequity in taxation that California does. Some rando Bay Area suburb being more expensive than Manhattan is not the same problem.
      • sjg007 5y ago
• danjac 5y ago
  > but at the end of the day I'm optimizing for my own quality of life. All well and good, but the economic and environmental effects of everyone "optimizing for their own quality of life" without regard for others means everyone loses out, don't they?
  • bufbupa 5y ago
    Only if it is indeed a zero sum game. I think most agree that on a sufficiently long timescale life is not a zero sum game, so everyone optimizing for their own quality of life increases the size of the pie for all.
• AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  > I understand this is not for everyone and I understand the negative perception of 'outsiders' pushing the price up for locals, but at the end of the day I'm optimizing for my own quality of life. I'm sorry, is that supposed to be an excuse? I mean, on the whole, some displacement of locals isn't that big a tragedy, but "it was good for me, so fuck you" isn't exactly the best moral reasoning I've ever heard.
  • throwaway2048 5y ago
    Its completely standard SV stuff, "I'm doing you a favor because I'm (getting) wealthy".
  • lotsofpulp 5y ago
    It’s a reason, and the same reason that everything happens in nature when there is inadequate supply of something compared to demand. Might makes right.
  • a3KEaWOcZr 5y ago
    For decades people from all over the country, many of these small towns moved to places like NY, Chicago, SF etc. and the respective suburbs in search for better jobs, opportunity etc. It didn't seem like it was a big concern then to anyone that the locals in these cities could be negatively affected by higher rents, home prices etc. Why is it different when the reverse happens? If its ok for a young person to leave their hometown, move to a city and call it home to make a better life without thinking about the locals, then it must be ok for a person with a small family living in a city to move to a smaller town and call it home to make a better life for his/her family.
    • Workaccount2 5y ago
      >If its ok for a young person to leave their hometown, move to a city and call it home to make a better life without thinking about the locals, then it must be ok for a person with a small family living in a city to move to a smaller town and call it home to make a better life for his/her family. The reason that theses two scenarios are not equivalent is so obvious I'm wondering whether or not I'm misinterpreting it.
• tarsinge 5y ago
  > I understand this is not for everyone and I understand the negative perception of 'outsiders' pushing the price up for locals, but at the end of the day I'm optimizing for my own quality of life. It's unfortunate that you phrase that as egoistic because I think that apart from real estate price (which is highly location dependent because it depends on zoning laws) locals are better with the influx of money. In my experience in France, some rural places with low real estate tension are very happy to see urban people coming, but in other (like small coastal cities) there is a huge resentment because real estate skyrocket in a relatively short time.
• RankingMember 5y ago
  > at the end of the day I'm optimizing for my own quality of life This kind of self-centered thinking, at scale, is what lowers the baseline quality of life for everyone.
• ghaff 5y ago
  I honestly don't get a lot of the comments on this thread. So, say I can work remote or retire and live basically anywhere I want. Is the suggestion that I have some moral obligation to live somewhere that's already expensive?
  • bumby 5y ago
    I think the sentiment is about how it can create perverse incentives that may be good for a small subset but bad for the population in the aggregate. I think it’s about a host of different systemic issues beyond just where one person decides to live. I.e., income inequality, housing policy, class disparities etc. It just manifests itself in the problems raised in the article. Edit: The Indicator recently had an interesting podcast that demonstrates this effect.[1] https://www.npr.org/2021/03/15/977533022/please-sell-me-a-home https://www.npr.org/2021/03/15/977533022/please-sell-me-a-ho...
    • calvano915 5y ago
      And destroys many aspects that made moving appealing in the first place.
      • deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      • Itsdijital 5y ago
        Largely what made moving appealing in the first place was romanticizing the hell out of it while browsing lifestyle instagram feeds all day. You never thought about your addiction to 2nd day shipping and international cuisine rotation via uber eats.
        • calvano915 5y ago
          I was thinking more along the lines of "small and quiet town living" with no traffic or crime but still has Costco. Hiking trails that are never packed and with no trash abandoned. Quite suddenly, you lose the quietness while gaining the traffic and crime. Trails become packed and not well respected. All that remains the same is Costco except busier.
• nonameiguess 5y ago
  It's not just the locals being impacted. This was my parents' plan, too. My dad retired a few years back after 40 years of working for LA County and seeing the house I lived in as a child tremendously appreciate in value. Unfortunately, they found out in retirement that any small town worth actually moving to has also seen prices tremendously go up, they're on a permanent fixed income, and now instead of living the dream, they live with my sister.
  • lotsofpulp 5y ago
    > any small town worth actually moving to This is the crux of the matter. There is a lot of demand for less humid, mountainous regions with lots of outdoor recreation nearby. And it’s easier than ever to scope (due to internet) out the nice locations from wherever you are in the world. So people are taking advantage (or already have) of an arbitrage opportunity to go where they want to that they previously may not have known about, or been able to go. The population of the world also exploded in the last few decades.
    • ghaff 5y ago
      Yep. There's no shortage of small towns in the US. If I threw a dart at a map of the US, I'd probably hit near one. (OK, a lot of the West is federal land but there are a lot of them.) There are a lot fewer that: - Are in a climate you prefer - Have recreational options you like - Are perhaps gentrified to the degree they have food/cultural options you want - Are perhaps at least reasonably accessible to major city/airport - Aren't too susceptible to natural disasters - etc.
• itsoktocry 5y ago
  >but at the end of the day I'm optimizing for my own quality of life. Have you considered that this is the mentality that people take issue with? It's the root of many of today's ills.
  • lotsofpulp 5y ago
    I don’t know anyone who doesn’t optimize for their quality of life. Should people living in high demand areas get to be there because they were there first and others relegated to less desirable areas? I don’t see any better way of allocating resources in short supply.
• orasis 5y ago
  The problem is that you overpay for real estate driving prices through the roof and leaving legacy locals homeless.
• wyoawayd 5y ago
  I'm honestly appalled that a comment that unironically says "fuck you, I got mine" is so upvoted. You have a responsibility to society (the same society that put you in the position you are in, able to move/work remotely and pay you these exorbitant sums) to not ruin your community. If you moving to a place would cause the community in that place to suffer, it is your responsibility to not move there. The fact that SV/tech has forgotten any sense of personal responsibility and apparently thinks it is perfectly okay to trample on the lives of others is exactly why non-tech people have such disdain for FAANG workers.
• PostThisTooFast 5y ago
  Whatever "FAANG" is...
• silent_cal 5y ago
  Probably because they resent liberals for ruining their own cities, running away from them to smaller towns, and then having a condescending attitude towards the more conservative locals who have been there longer, while proceeding to push liberal politics, turning their new home into a liberal hellhole like the one they just left.