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I'm getting so tired of every city claiming a Tech Boom, headlines like "[City X] is the next Silicon Valley", etc. All these articles are isomorphic ("here, ch

I'm getting so tired of every city claiming a Tech Boom, headlines like "[City X] is the next Silicon Valley", etc. All these articles are isomorphic ("here, check out this bunch of hip, trendy developers with an app that you haven't even heard of who live in our city"). This is insufferable. Here is a short list of cities on which I have read articles in the past 6 months claiming that they are the next Silicon Valley or something to that effect: -NYC -Berlin -Ljubljana -Chicago -Detroit -San Diego -LA -Toronto -Dubai -Tel Aviv -Nairobi ... This isn't news. Yes, believe it or not, most cities with a few hundred thousand people in them have a tech scene! (Especially the ones with a University housing a major CS department --- like Seattle!) Yes, it is 2014 --- the tech scene is mostly booming wherever you look, especially on a sufficiently long-term perspective. Really, articles of this sort are usually just self-serving advertisement for the city in question. The truth is, of course, that the tech scene in most of these cities is not really booming in the sense of the word. Developing strongly is often a better way to put it, and the growth rate is often non-linear (probably more toward the logarithmic side of things) because founders of successful companies have a tendency to move to the Bay Area.

odonnellryan 12y ago
What I like about the prospect of Seattle (when compared to NYC, being in that area) is: Cost of living: http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/city_result.jsp?country=United+States&city=Seattle%2C+WA http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/city_result.jsp?country... And it often (surprisingly because of the weather..?) gets better-than-most rankings in "happiness:" http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-10-happiest-and-saddest-cities-in-the-us/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-10-happiest-and-saddest-citi...
- donohoe 12y ago
  I didn't find the cost of living a huge difference in real terms (compared to NYC). I paid the same rent but got a bigger place (which was nice) but I found food prices more expensive overall and I had to but a car. Thats a limited subset of things but you get the idea. Your experience will vary.
  - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
    Were you living in the east side? If so, you aren't really living in Seattle, but Bellevue. I got by just fine without a car in the city, food is much cheaper than the east side also. Housing is smaller (for the same amount of money), however.
    - donohoe 12y ago
      I lived Downtown for a few months, then in Ballard.
      - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
        I see why you might need a car in Ballard.
- apathia 12y ago
  No state income tax is significant. An equal typical tech salary would be ~10% larger post-tax in Seattle than NYC. The trade-off is double sales tax and less funding for public services. Great city to live below your means in.
- potatolicious 12y ago
  I've lived in both, cost of living is deceptive. Non-housing cost of living is nearly identical between the two cities, and housing is really starting to get up there. There's still a good advantage to be enjoyed, but it won't last long. The 2BR I had for $2200 a couples of years ago is now going for upwards of $3000. Housing cost growth in Seattle is starting to hit a hockey stick curve reminiscent of the Bay Area. Tax rate is noticeably lower than California or New York though, so you've got that going for you (though the lower taxes can be felt in other, less awesome, ways - see the constant cutbacks to the already fairly anemic transit system). Side note: you're also going to need a car. Yes, even if you live in urban neighborhoods like Capitol Hill or Belltown. One of my big takeaways is that while you can get by just fine with transit and shopping locally, Seattle itself is a car-centric city. Trying to force a transit-only lifestyle on it means you'll simply be insulated into one of the few neighborhoods where that lifestyle is reasonable and never leave.
  - chrismcb 12y ago
    I'm not sure what you mean by non housing cost. Food and going to the movies is right 25% more in NYC then Seattle. Wa doesn't have income tax either. Yes hosting in Seattle is going up. But it is no where near NYC rates
    - potatolicious 12y ago
      You also get paid substantially more in NYC. In the old days (like 2009-10-ish) Seattle's housing was cheap enough that, even accounting for the pay difference, you're still ahead of New Yorkers by a fair margin. In 2014 I wouldn't be so sure. Last time I checked I saw a lot of 1BRs going for >$1500 in Capitol Hill. That's a ~$1K a month difference from NYC rents, so if the New Yorker is earning ~$18K more (to account for tax) they'd be even already. As far as I can tell the pay gap is wider than this. And this rate is going up, seemingly faster than salary growth in the city. The advantage may still be there, but in any case it's being rapidly erased. The main thing Seattle has going for it financially now is the lack of state income tax, which genuinely makes a big dent compared to other tech hubs. A ~5-8% difference in overall taxation comes out to quite a bit. Housing in NYC is expensive, but it's less insane than most people know. The difference between a $1K apartment and a $2K apartment is 100%, but it's also $12,000 a year. Does the pay gap between the two cities cover the difference? Does it actually put you ahead? Side note: these "cost of living index comparison" sites are trash. I've lived in Seattle, SF, and NYC, and in all 3 places my food costs have been downright identical. The food costs between the cities are so close together that they're well within the error bars.
ghc 12y ago
And then there's poor, neglected Boston. No media coverage about being the next SV. No Silicon derived nicknames (instead there's Rt. 128, Kendall Square, and Fort Point). Sometimes, thanks to the lack of media coverage, Boston/Cambridge gets left off the list of tech scenes altogether, despite having whole areas dominated by startups and the second largest amount of VC after SF/SV. I wonder if Boston is doomed to be a cautionary tale about what happens when a culture of B2B startups (Digital, Wang, etc.) produces VCs who don't have enough vision to fund companies like Facebook or TaskRabbit.
- michaelochurch 12y ago
  Boston is a beautiful city with amazing seasons and probably the single greatest concentration of smart people in the world. It's also, at least historically, the spiritual capital of Lisp (thanks to MIT). All taken together, I'm a huge fan of the place. Unfortunately, my experience with Boston companies (I've interviewed with a few, and had the misfortune of being reverse-acquired by one) is that they're not progressive. One hiring manager told me (this was a couple years ago, I think I was 27 or 28 at the time) that I was too old to be a programmer (wat?) but too young to be a manager. Another tried to give me a position with "junior" in the title-- this was in mid-2013, so I had 7 years of experience. (I know that titles are bullshit, but if they're going to exist, I'll take an inflated one rather than a deflated one.) Boston is a beautiful, under-appreciated place. Its climate is ideal (cold, snowy winters, perfect springs and falls, mild summers). I like the people a lot. But I see a culture where there is too much deference to authority and too little "fuck it, let's do it anyway". While the Valley is too youth-obsessed and flighty and sociopathic, New England seems to take the other extreme: too seniority-bound and stodgy and prone to following rules. The ideal, for tech, is somewhere between the two.
  - ghc 12y ago
    I'm curious about where you interviewed, and how big the companies were. I've never had that experience with startups in Boston (only big companies out near Rt. 128). Engineers are in high demand here, so most "interviews" are really cap table discussions and salary negotiations over a drink. In fact, multiple startups over the past five years have used their VCs or EIRs to approach me; I can't imagine a situation where a company would look down on a 27 year old developer. I do know exactly what you mean by deference to authority, but outside of the MIT professor-run startup bubble, I think it's mostly dead (well, I can't speak for biotech...). I just hope it isn't replaced by ageism, as you suggest.
odiroot 12y ago
You forgot Krakow. I hear it's getting a lot of hype as of late.
atarian 12y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_places_with_%22Silicon%22_names http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_places_with_%22Silicon%... Silicon Alley — Lower Manhattan, NYC, NY Silicon Anchor — Norfolk, VA Silicon Bayou — New Orleans, LA Silicon Beach — Santa Monica, CA Silicon Bridge — DUMBO, Brooklyn, NY Silicon Canal — Seattle, WA Silicon Coast — Orange County, CA Silicon Desert — Chandler, AZ Silicon Forest — Portland, OR Silicon Harbor — Charleston, SC Silicon Hill — Washington, DC, MD Silicon Hills — Austin, TX Silicon Mountain — Front Range Urban Corridor, CO Silicon Prairie - TX, IL, KA, WY Silicon Shire — Eugene, OR Silicon Shore — Santa Barbara, CA Silicon Slopes — Utah Silicon Surf — Santa Cruz, CA Silicon Swamp — Gainesville, FL Silicon Valley — San Jose, CA
- will_work4tears 12y ago
  Huh, I think that list needs to be updated. I've seen an article on Omaha, NE being Silicon Prairie, as well as Kansas City (MO) and St. Louis. I'm sure if I noticed a few not on there, there's probably a bunch more.
- seanmcdirmid 12y ago
  Seattle is the Silicon Canal? I would have thought Amsterdam or some city with...you know...more than one canal, would get that title.
  - rybosome 12y ago
    I'm assuming because of the heavy concentration of tech along the canal near the Fremont bridge? Agreed that it might give an incorrect picture of the structure of Seattle. :-)
    - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
      There are only a few companies in that corridor. Heck, I remember when they were just warehouses (I would run by on the trail toward Ballard everyday); then there was Adobe and then Google but first...the ultimate troll. Seattle is more forested and green in color than Portland...I always thought we had that title (Silicon Forest). Maybe Silicon Lakes?
alphagenerator 12y ago
I like these articles when they're about my city. I still really have no idea what the true tech scene is like where I live. I lived in Silicon Valley briefly and the cost of living and work-life balance were poor. I left about 10 years ago. I dislike the idea that I'd have to go back there to be cutting edge or successful and would much rather achieve great things from, say, Montana, Nebraska, or Idaho.
- sjg007 12y ago
  Start up Silicon Prairie.
webwright 12y ago
You're right that this often is just PR... In the case of Seattle, it is an actual thing. YC is seeing it too ( https://twitter.com/sama/status/475658241167220736 https://twitter.com/sama/status/475658241167220736 ). Seattle saw $500M in venture funding last quarter, which was its biggest quarter ever. It was the fastest growing city in the country last year... though it still only has a metro area size 50% of SF, 15% of NYC, 30% of LA.
peterwwillis 12y ago
The whole article sucks. They mischaracterize products as just cloud products, people as just cloud people, companies as just cloud companies. They even completely bastardize the definition of 'cloud' itself as "lots of computer servers working together for various tasks." Holy shit, 'cloud' has been around since the 1980s?! (Incidentally they use the word 'cloud' 27 times in the article)
rybosome 12y ago
I see your point, but when the article cites companies such as Microsoft, Amazon, Google, HP, CenturyLink, Tableau and Chef, your complaint about "an app that you've never heard of" doesn't really hold up. Perhaps I'm just feeling defensive about my city, but I think that your fatigue with this format has lead you to an incorrect conclusion; things really are different in Seattle.

odonnellryan 12y ago

What I like about the prospect of Seattle (when compared to NYC, being in that area) is: Cost of living: http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/city_result.jsp?country=United+States&city=Seattle%2C+WA http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/city_result.jsp?country... And it often (surprisingly because of the weather..?) gets better-than-most rankings in "happiness:" http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-10-happiest-and-saddest-cities-in-the-us/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-10-happiest-and-saddest-citi...

donohoe 12y ago
I didn't find the cost of living a huge difference in real terms (compared to NYC). I paid the same rent but got a bigger place (which was nice) but I found food prices more expensive overall and I had to but a car. Thats a limited subset of things but you get the idea. Your experience will vary.
- seanmcdirmid 12y ago
  Were you living in the east side? If so, you aren't really living in Seattle, but Bellevue. I got by just fine without a car in the city, food is much cheaper than the east side also. Housing is smaller (for the same amount of money), however.
  - donohoe 12y ago
    I lived Downtown for a few months, then in Ballard.
    - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
      I see why you might need a car in Ballard.
apathia 12y ago
No state income tax is significant. An equal typical tech salary would be ~10% larger post-tax in Seattle than NYC. The trade-off is double sales tax and less funding for public services. Great city to live below your means in.
potatolicious 12y ago
I've lived in both, cost of living is deceptive. Non-housing cost of living is nearly identical between the two cities, and housing is really starting to get up there. There's still a good advantage to be enjoyed, but it won't last long. The 2BR I had for $2200 a couples of years ago is now going for upwards of $3000. Housing cost growth in Seattle is starting to hit a hockey stick curve reminiscent of the Bay Area. Tax rate is noticeably lower than California or New York though, so you've got that going for you (though the lower taxes can be felt in other, less awesome, ways - see the constant cutbacks to the already fairly anemic transit system). Side note: you're also going to need a car. Yes, even if you live in urban neighborhoods like Capitol Hill or Belltown. One of my big takeaways is that while you can get by just fine with transit and shopping locally, Seattle itself is a car-centric city. Trying to force a transit-only lifestyle on it means you'll simply be insulated into one of the few neighborhoods where that lifestyle is reasonable and never leave.
- chrismcb 12y ago
  I'm not sure what you mean by non housing cost. Food and going to the movies is right 25% more in NYC then Seattle. Wa doesn't have income tax either. Yes hosting in Seattle is going up. But it is no where near NYC rates
  - potatolicious 12y ago
    You also get paid substantially more in NYC. In the old days (like 2009-10-ish) Seattle's housing was cheap enough that, even accounting for the pay difference, you're still ahead of New Yorkers by a fair margin. In 2014 I wouldn't be so sure. Last time I checked I saw a lot of 1BRs going for >$1500 in Capitol Hill. That's a ~$1K a month difference from NYC rents, so if the New Yorker is earning ~$18K more (to account for tax) they'd be even already. As far as I can tell the pay gap is wider than this. And this rate is going up, seemingly faster than salary growth in the city. The advantage may still be there, but in any case it's being rapidly erased. The main thing Seattle has going for it financially now is the lack of state income tax, which genuinely makes a big dent compared to other tech hubs. A ~5-8% difference in overall taxation comes out to quite a bit. Housing in NYC is expensive, but it's less insane than most people know. The difference between a $1K apartment and a $2K apartment is 100%, but it's also $12,000 a year. Does the pay gap between the two cities cover the difference? Does it actually put you ahead? Side note: these "cost of living index comparison" sites are trash. I've lived in Seattle, SF, and NYC, and in all 3 places my food costs have been downright identical. The food costs between the cities are so close together that they're well within the error bars.

ghc 12y ago

And then there's poor, neglected Boston. No media coverage about being the next SV. No Silicon derived nicknames (instead there's Rt. 128, Kendall Square, and Fort Point). Sometimes, thanks to the lack of media coverage, Boston/Cambridge gets left off the list of tech scenes altogether, despite having whole areas dominated by startups and the second largest amount of VC after SF/SV. I wonder if Boston is doomed to be a cautionary tale about what happens when a culture of B2B startups (Digital, Wang, etc.) produces VCs who don't have enough vision to fund companies like Facebook or TaskRabbit.

michaelochurch 12y ago
Boston is a beautiful city with amazing seasons and probably the single greatest concentration of smart people in the world. It's also, at least historically, the spiritual capital of Lisp (thanks to MIT). All taken together, I'm a huge fan of the place. Unfortunately, my experience with Boston companies (I've interviewed with a few, and had the misfortune of being reverse-acquired by one) is that they're not progressive. One hiring manager told me (this was a couple years ago, I think I was 27 or 28 at the time) that I was too old to be a programmer (wat?) but too young to be a manager. Another tried to give me a position with "junior" in the title-- this was in mid-2013, so I had 7 years of experience. (I know that titles are bullshit, but if they're going to exist, I'll take an inflated one rather than a deflated one.) Boston is a beautiful, under-appreciated place. Its climate is ideal (cold, snowy winters, perfect springs and falls, mild summers). I like the people a lot. But I see a culture where there is too much deference to authority and too little "fuck it, let's do it anyway". While the Valley is too youth-obsessed and flighty and sociopathic, New England seems to take the other extreme: too seniority-bound and stodgy and prone to following rules. The ideal, for tech, is somewhere between the two.
- ghc 12y ago
  I'm curious about where you interviewed, and how big the companies were. I've never had that experience with startups in Boston (only big companies out near Rt. 128). Engineers are in high demand here, so most "interviews" are really cap table discussions and salary negotiations over a drink. In fact, multiple startups over the past five years have used their VCs or EIRs to approach me; I can't imagine a situation where a company would look down on a 27 year old developer. I do know exactly what you mean by deference to authority, but outside of the MIT professor-run startup bubble, I think it's mostly dead (well, I can't speak for biotech...). I just hope it isn't replaced by ageism, as you suggest.

odiroot 12y ago

You forgot Krakow. I hear it's getting a lot of hype as of late.

atarian 12y ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_places_with_%22Silicon%22_names http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_places_with_%22Silicon%... Silicon Alley — Lower Manhattan, NYC, NY Silicon Anchor — Norfolk, VA Silicon Bayou — New Orleans, LA Silicon Beach — Santa Monica, CA Silicon Bridge — DUMBO, Brooklyn, NY Silicon Canal — Seattle, WA Silicon Coast — Orange County, CA Silicon Desert — Chandler, AZ Silicon Forest — Portland, OR Silicon Harbor — Charleston, SC Silicon Hill — Washington, DC, MD Silicon Hills — Austin, TX Silicon Mountain — Front Range Urban Corridor, CO Silicon Prairie - TX, IL, KA, WY Silicon Shire — Eugene, OR Silicon Shore — Santa Barbara, CA Silicon Slopes — Utah Silicon Surf — Santa Cruz, CA Silicon Swamp — Gainesville, FL Silicon Valley — San Jose, CA

will_work4tears 12y ago
Huh, I think that list needs to be updated. I've seen an article on Omaha, NE being Silicon Prairie, as well as Kansas City (MO) and St. Louis. I'm sure if I noticed a few not on there, there's probably a bunch more.
seanmcdirmid 12y ago
Seattle is the Silicon Canal? I would have thought Amsterdam or some city with...you know...more than one canal, would get that title.
- rybosome 12y ago
  I'm assuming because of the heavy concentration of tech along the canal near the Fremont bridge? Agreed that it might give an incorrect picture of the structure of Seattle. :-)
  - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
    There are only a few companies in that corridor. Heck, I remember when they were just warehouses (I would run by on the trail toward Ballard everyday); then there was Adobe and then Google but first...the ultimate troll. Seattle is more forested and green in color than Portland...I always thought we had that title (Silicon Forest). Maybe Silicon Lakes?

alphagenerator 12y ago

I like these articles when they're about my city. I still really have no idea what the true tech scene is like where I live. I lived in Silicon Valley briefly and the cost of living and work-life balance were poor. I left about 10 years ago. I dislike the idea that I'd have to go back there to be cutting edge or successful and would much rather achieve great things from, say, Montana, Nebraska, or Idaho.

sjg007 12y ago
Start up Silicon Prairie.

webwright 12y ago

You're right that this often is just PR... In the case of Seattle, it is an actual thing. YC is seeing it too ( https://twitter.com/sama/status/475658241167220736 https://twitter.com/sama/status/475658241167220736 ). Seattle saw $500M in venture funding last quarter, which was its biggest quarter ever. It was the fastest growing city in the country last year... though it still only has a metro area size 50% of SF, 15% of NYC, 30% of LA.

peterwwillis 12y ago

The whole article sucks. They mischaracterize products as just cloud products, people as just cloud people, companies as just cloud companies. They even completely bastardize the definition of 'cloud' itself as "lots of computer servers working together for various tasks." Holy shit, 'cloud' has been around since the 1980s?! (Incidentally they use the word 'cloud' 27 times in the article)

rybosome 12y ago

I see your point, but when the article cites companies such as Microsoft, Amazon, Google, HP, CenturyLink, Tableau and Chef, your complaint about "an app that you've never heard of" doesn't really hold up. Perhaps I'm just feeling defensive about my city, but I think that your fatigue with this format has lead you to an incorrect conclusion; things really are different in Seattle.