Ask HN: What Keeps you from moving?

All my friends and family are here, my whole life is here. The idea of moving away for money (given that I have a steady job) is completely alien to me.

I don't want to mingle with the rednecks in midwest.

I moved from Philadelphia to the Portland, ME area a few years back. My wife was relocating to work for an aerospace startup and I found a job working for an ed-tech startup. So my initial motivation to move was really for her. Aerospace is a very different field, people tend to move to where the jobs are, and the jobs tend not to be in big cities.

We ended up leaving Portland and returning to Philadelphia because both of the startups we were working for eventually ran out of capital and had leadership issues.

Why didn't we stay?

Well, we're both engineers and we both want to continue doing that for a while. There really weren't very good MechE jobs for women in Maine. So, that was a big part of it.

But we aren't entirely happy with big city life, either. Here's what we are looking for at the smaller towns we are evaluating:

1. Healthy, diverse economy. This is hard for a lot of small towns as they tend to be dominated by a single firm, institution or industry. It helps to be "on the border" or in-between a few things.

2. University or College. Having an institution of higher education nearby generally means you have access to cultural institutions (performing arts, galleries, lectures, libraries...).

3. Decent internet access. If you are going to work remote (and you're going to work remote in order to maximize your income) then you want decent internet access. A lot of smaller towns are now getting FTTH service at better prices than we are getting here in Philadelphia (home of the Comshaft). We've seen in this in Norther MN and WI, especially.

4. Within 2 or 3 hours (at minimum) of a decent sized airport. You will likely need to travel for work. Smaller, local airports are expensive and prone to cancellations.

5. Whatever other personal things you are looking for...

The weather, mostly. I grew up in Southern California, and moved to NorCal for college (and have been here ever since, so more than 1/2 my life now). Even the Bay Area gets a little too cold for me in the winter.

I love to visit the snow but most certainly don't want to live in it.

Pretty much the only place I'd consider moving to is San Diego, the only major California city I haven't lived in yet.

Manhattan is just my home now - I love the convenience of everything, and the "always open" nature of this city. I've been here for 18 years now, and thankfully it's no longer just a place for financial or agency jobs when it comes to the tech sector. I'm far enough in my career where I can afford to live here and not really worry about much.

I know I can get a lot more for my money elsewhere, and being in a position where I manage remote employees, with some buying nice houses, it still isn't enough for me to give up the conveniences I am used to.

This also rules out the west coast tech hubs - I love visiting San Francisco, but I could never live there. I don't want to have to drive somewhere.

im in a smaller city, if it can even be called that, in the UK, im still here because there isnt really anywhere in the UK i particularly like so i see little point in moving to another city and i lack the funds to leave the country and move where i would like to be.

I second what some other people say... my friends and family are here. I have also made it a point to be active in the community and the community is here too.

With that said, I already live in a second tier city (second largest city in my State with only 90,000 people in the city) that happens to be a 60 minute drive to the largest city in the region.

Finding, evaluating, and renting/purchasing real-estate is extremely difficult, and the current market makes concurrent evaluation basically impossible. This is similar to the job interview problem. Some move faster than others, and you end up having to either cut options early, or let good options expire. The situation is very "bird in the hand".

I need to be in a place where it is safe for me to hold hands with my husband.

I need to be in a place where my husband (who is not from the US) is not discriminated against for his accent or color of skin.

I'd like to be in a place where there are enough other gay people that form a community.

There needs to be a good food scene. (I'm missing that in Boston.)

The cost of living difference has to be more than the wage differential.

Most of my life was spent in Tucson, Arizona. I don't have the same fears of living outside the "it" city, but let it be said that a large problem in Tucson was that there were only so many places to work. That will be a problem in Boise, because relocating two people for a job is much harder than relocating one.

I've spent 15 years building up a network of friends and family and connections. Abandoning that support structure is hard to do, and harder now that I have a family of my own.

I'd love to move somewhere smaller, but you'll have to persuade the wife. I think that is a big issue - large cities allow careers for both partners, where smaller cities are less flexible. In the old days it was common to move around to follow the husband's career where now it isn't that easy.

OTOH one of the big differences in the old days more shops and services available to only large cities where now Amazon etc are everywhere.

Family, and despite 8 years spent in the midwest, Seattle and the Bay Area, not finding a better place to live (views, the people are friendly, and there's more here to do outdoors than you can do in the time allotted).

Montana is just so damned beautiful.

I honestly can not ever imagine living in what I'm guessing you'd call a first tier city.

The traffic, the people, just the non stop hassle of every day life would just totally grind me down. for me what you're calling First Tier is really just not something I would ever want to do, and I'd never consider that Tier One.

You'd probably consider my home here a Third Tier city, but I have non of the drawbacks and all of the positives here. It's maybe not quite as dynamic, maybe that flywheel here is a bit smaller, but everything else is easier, it's livable and easier to live here. I don't make $200/k a year, but I don't need to make that, or anywhere near that to afford a life that would never exist for me elsewhere, with money left over to go visit those Tier 1 places a few times a year.

So for me at least, family keeps me here more than anything, but if it didn't I'd still stick to 2nd or 3rd tier cities, life is so much easier here.

Having lived in NYC all of my life, it was hard to imagine places where I could consider living. After visiting, Paris, London, Seattle all seem viable though they would seem like lateral moves at best in terms of culture and quality of life so I stay here.

That said, I don't like the trend of gentrification, classism, disparity, and the overall sterilization of the city so I would certainly go somewhere with some remaining personality that doesn't consist of the finding the latest "hidden gem" restaurant.

I would really love to find a place that is safe, near a beach with clear water that I can swim in daily. I crave it. But I can't uproot my family. I have young children and depend on my family for help with caring for them. Moving would mean separating them from the people who love them and are invested in their lives and that would seem like a selfish move.

So I stay here.

10min from the beach. Great schools. If not here, somewhere in the mountains.

I don't like cities. I've lived in San Diego and Sunnyvale for a while and didn't enjoy either. When I visit other cities, they all seem dirty and too crowded for me. Now, I work remotely in a small town. It's cheap, the people are friendlier, I don't feel packed in like a sardine, and the outdoors are only minutes away from my front door.

The money was good enough to make me hide my hate for living in NYC somewhat. Also, finding jobs in Dallas from NYC was surprisingly hard (they either didn't want to pay for relo, or they thought I was joking). I did have an opportunity to move earlier, but I met a girl around that time that I didn't want to leave (we are engaged now).

The hate overcame eventually, so I got serious with my search and moved once I found a job that kept my NYC salary in Dallas. It took me about three months, >35 applications and a few LinkedIn messages. That was in May 2016.

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We had to go back to visit my family for the week. It was awful (my family wasn't!). The trains were gross, the streets were gross, the air smelled terrible, and the weather wasn't great.

I didn't realize how much cheaper eating and drinking out is in Dallas until I took a friend to a crab roll place in Grand Central. I spent $70 on two crab rolls and two mainstream domestic beers; I believe they were $8 each.

SEVENTY. DOLLARS. They weren't even that good.

In contrast, when my fiancée and I go to our favorite Thai restaurant in Southlake (an upscale Dallas suburb), we are able to get three beers made in house, two spring rolls and two main dishes for under $50.

I spent most of that trip wishing I made it three days instead of seven.

For me, it's a fantastic metro that hooks right into the high speed rail, an expansive network of parks and paths for biking and hiking, four hour delivery times, 24-7 conveniences and crazy fast internet service.

Moving somewhere smaller would mean giving up at least the metro. I wouldn't give up much more than that and there would have to be something really significant I was gaining in exchange.

As somebody who has been moving every year or two since I was 10, I am trying to force myself to stay in the same city/country for at least 5 years. Being in the same location enables you to develop a social network. Most of your basic needs are already solved (housing, job, visa, friend...), and you get to spend time focusing on other issues or hobbies. Moving places is an exciting thing. But you get lots of advantages by sticking somewhere.

The biggest thing is: I don't know where. I moved to US 3 years ago, and while I find Bay Area to be very expensive, and not necessarily perfect for family life, I have no idea how would I like living in other places.

I guess I'm one of the few people who stay in San Francisco because my family was here before tech was.

What keeps me from moving out of NYC? Inertia mostly. A little fear of change. A little indecision.

What would it take to move to a smaller city? Good weather. Good job market. Decent level of diversity and multiculturalism. True walkability. Great public transit. Ocean views.