Ask HN: Good Hacker Cities
What cities are good for hackers that don't require a car? Being a hacker I can be anywhere, but I'm tired of driving across country in a car.
It would be nice to fly somewhere that has good public transit. Good connectivity, inexpensive cost of living, and good people.
159 comments
[ 5.3 ms ] story [ 253 ms ] threadPortland has decent public transit, its cheap to live there, and you can find decent jobs. Although you may not find a wide variety of jobs that aren't corporate. On that note I will say there are a couple startup incubators in town but those jobs fill up quick.
I ended up moving to San Francisco. Great city. Expensive, but fantastic public transit and tons of jobs.
Here are my list of cities in no real order: San Francisco, CA Portland, OR Seattle, WA Boston, MA New York City, NY
Check them out. If you like a few, spend at least a week exploring and getting to know the city a little bit. Also try and go during the worst weather period so you really know you can live there.
Portland is way to proud of a middling effort at best.
The city has no immigrants (I make a habit of counting the number of non white people when I am there... High score was 15.)
Also the tech scene is middling at best, for example if you go to the 'tech' coffee shop downtown, everyone there is updating their myspace pages and playing counterstrike.
The last big thing to come out of Portland was upcoming. (Although Aboutus just did a round of funding. (Wiki company)). HP (Corvalis) and Intel have huge offices nearby...
In short if you want to have a nice life and be a hipster for your twenties-thirties, move to portland. If you want to try and hit it out of the park, pick someplace else.
As for legal and accounting, I'm lost: why isn't Chicago the second best city in the country for access to lawyers and accountants?
Having worked at a VC firm where a deal almost fell apart due to legal oversight, this is a huge, huge hobbyhorse of mine.
You do an LLC because it has no overhead and pass-through taxes; an S-Corp to issue employee equity and keep pass-through taxes, and a C-corp when you have to. That's not idiotic advice.
Although I've been through the funding process more than once, you really sound like you know it more than I do. But your take seems really biased towards term sheet negotiation. I'm not sure how relevant that is to most entrepreneurs.
Again, experienced startup lawyers would have alerted us to this. Mere corporate attorneys would not, and did not, contemplate the edge case I outlined.
Look, if you're happy to bootstrap forever, Chicago's great. But if you even have an eye on VC at any point, GTFO and go to the coasts.
The Funded says: http://www.thefunded.com
Follow http://techcocktail.com/ if you want to see the tech vibe in ChiTown.
I vote for Portland, OR.
I have been in Philly only some 48 hours or so, but my first impressions were quite negative. I saw way too many homeless people, way too much trash on the streets, and even walking in the so-called nice areas of downtown Philly after dark I was afraid I was gonna get shot any minute.
Honest question: what are the good things about Philly? Seriously.
I don't know where you went when you were here, but if you come back, you should check out Northern Liberties. It's a great little neighborhood.
It was started by another Hacker News member, epi0Bauqu. It started up a few months ago from a post here, and we meet up once a month.
What's worse, most people who work "in San Francisco" don't, and commuting to south bay is untenable without a car (and even with the car, a good half of the market is at least a 90 minute daily commute away from SOMA).
Muni cars run on clean electric lines, and their busses are now electric hybrids. Each is outfitted with a GPS that updates boards at each stop to let you know in real-time how long before the next bus arrives. They have a phone number and a website that has this real-time info too. Hell, that website even has an iPhone version!
It costs 45 bucks a month to go anywhere you want. It runs 24 hours a day with plenty of frequency and services pretty much every inch of the city. What more can you ask for?
Ever checked out Atlanta's MARTA system? The bus service is random and wait times are often 30 minutes to 2 hours. Without a car, you're basically screwed.
But then, GPS or no GPS, it's going to be hard to impress people from cities with real public transit systems with a bus; there's nowhere in NYC or Chicago you'd reasonably want to go that you can't get to on a train that runs every 5-15 minutes.
I agree with you, I wouldn't put Atlanta on my list of awesome public transit cities either.
Wait... you're complaining that you have to share the bus with other people who can't afford a car? Perhaps you'd prefer two separate systems, so we can reserve one for those who are just too cool to use cars? :/
The trains are fine. The big bus lines like the 38 are pretty good. Some of the other bus lines, like the 19 which goes through the tenderloin to SOMA are gross and can be unpredictable.
[edit] I'm thinking of Mission. Sorry.
Neither is exactly inexpensive, though. The problem with living in a tech hub is that tech people tend to make lots of money and bid the price of everything up accordingly.
Real estate and rent in Cambridge is substantially cheaper (2x?) than anything in Silicon Valley, and Somerville is even cheaper. Some of Somerville is rough, sort of like Oakland, but areas of it (like Davis Square) have all the benefits of Cambridge. Admittedly, you're a few subway stops (say, 5-10 minutes difference) further away from Boston.
The other major difference is the weather. If you don't like snow, living here sucks. But, if you like the winter, I think Somerville is a win.
Let there be no mention of Anna's. La Costena FTW!
The most adequate burrito I've found around here was at Super Burrito in Everett. Know of anything better?
But the best burritos (in my opinion) are at Tacos Lupita on Elm Street. The food is El Salvadorean; the burritos are delicious.
(El Pelon near Fenway was also quite good, until they burned down again.)
Have you tried the Blue Shirt right in Davis Sq? As far as cheap and easy food, pizza and bagels here seem like the burritos of SF.
The big difference is in cars: you don't need a car to get around most places in Boston, but you do need one in Silicon Valley. And if you live in places of Boston where you do want a car (like the Somerville/Medford border, or much of Waltham, or western Arlington), the rents fall by $200-300/month to compensate. So then you really are looking at close to a 2x difference with Silicon Valley.
(I should admit that I've never actually lived in Mountain View, but I did live over the line in Palo Alto, and I went to Mountain View a lot.)
I used to live in the Boston suburbs, with most of my friends in the Porter-through-Central area, and there's tons of stuff within 15 minutes of Harvard Square. It's just that that 15 minutes is all on foot. You don't want a car in Boston, as parking can frequently be as expensive as rent.
If you like driving, Silicon Valley is fine. If you'd rather walk, Boston is way better.
I'd also say that maintaining a car costs more than maintaining your feet, but compared to rent, both are small.
There are obviously lots of good reasons to live in SF/bay, but transportation really doesn't seem like one of them. What am I missing?
If you want to live in Oakland and don't like a 45-minute car commute, you don't take a job in Santa Clara or Sunnyvale.
Oakland to Pleasanton should be reasonable by BART.
The Bay Area can't compare to the USA's best train-centric cities (NY, Chicago, Boston) but beats most other domestic places for mass transit. Still, it's spotty, with some great corridors and some journeys that are really hard.
It was just a movie. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Electric#The_.22General...
Other factors that may have contributed to the decline of electric traction in the United States include [...] low revenues.
The plot of the 1988 movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit is loosely modeled on the conspiracy to dismantle the streetcar lines in Los Angeles.
Santa Clara County is car country.
Most hacker jobs are in the south bay, followed by the peninsula and the city. The commute from the east bay to the south bay is painful, much more so than from the city to the south bay.
If you work in the city, you can take BART, but the convenience of BART depends on how close you live to a station. Berkeley/Oakland residential areas are much more spread out than SF. It isn't unlikely that the station is a 30 minute walk from your house.
When I lived in the east bay and worked in SOMA I had to walk 30 minutes to BART, then BART for about 30 minutes, then another 20 minute walk on the SF side. Now I live in the city and work in the same area of SOMA and I can get there in 15 minutes on the train or a 40 minute walk. I don't even want to talk about when I lived in the east bay and had to drive to Cupertino. What a driving nightmare...
In summary, Oakland is NOT a great hacker city unless you can do your hacking on that side of the bay...
I think Dallas and Houston have Austin beat in terms of public transit. Dallas has plenty of rail, Houston has some rail with a lot in the works, and Austin has a commuter rail line that's about to open but doesn't actually get you anywhere without transferring to a bus that will be stuck in traffic. There's more to a good transit system than rail, but it's the best indicator I have since I've only used Austin's system in Texas.
I did see a coworking place is located on 7th street in Austin for only $350/month.
austin wins hands down. the bus system's a lot better. the houston rail line is mostly useless unless you work in the medical center.
besides it's possible to bike in austin.
You only really need a car if you live in the suburbs of Austin. Buses in central austin take you anywhere you need to go. And its a pretty small town anyways so if worse comes to worse you can just walk home.
IMHO, Austin's upside is the low cost of living (see above median house price, low taxes (no state income tax)) and overall livability -- lots of live music, universities, etc. I think the tech scene here is better than a lot of places, though no doubt it's not nearly as good as Silicon Valley. Still, there are few places I'd rather live.
On the other hand, you're probably sitting outside in the sun eating a tasty burrito.
The point is that living costs are lower in Boston than Silicon Valley. I suspect that most hackers don't care about money directly, but they do care about not having to worry about whether they can pay rent.
Apparently one of the big apartment leasing companies there, Woodlawn Arms or something, that he leases from, has been facing legal action over some practices that involve shoving out older tenants so that they could reset the rents from ~700 to ~1100.
All the mexican places around here (downtown at least) are hoity toity and expensive.
Also some great burritos at La Bamba on Old Middlefield in MV. The new location on Castro is pretty tasty too.
Anna's at MIT definitely holds its own though.
Negatives...corn fields galore. And flatness. And long winters.
(This is not a joke. But most will think that it is.)
Forget Champaign. Go to Ann Arbor, MI. You have all the same benefits as Champaign --- a walkable/bikeable city, a huge reservoir of engineering talent, a reasonable cost of living --- but you also have Detroit Metro if you need to pick up freelancing work. Detroit Metro has plenty of BigCo employers outside the big 3.
I lived in A2 for 4 years, and while I think Chicago is a better place to start a company, I have lots of good things to say about the place. I have almost nothing good to say about Champaign, which is a bleak, depressing place vindicated only by its proximity to Chicago.
On a more serious note, I am not basing my opinion on employer choices...even though I argue that there are plenty.
This is just off the top of my head.
Anyway, I do not want to enter a piss fight with you. I like C-U. If you don't, great. No one is forcing you to live here. I was merely suggesting it.
I don't doubt that there's a small constellation of UIUC-affiliated tech startups around Champaign, though the same thing exists in A2, in Austin, and in RTP. The benefit of A2 over Champaign is that you are almost guaranteed freelance (or FTE) work outside the school. I don't think Champaign is a safe career choice compared to A2, RTP, or even Pittsburgh.
Sorry, it's a message board, I didn't mean to piss at you.
we're trying to get a bit more organized around here, and be better neighbors to our startup friends in the area (publicizing our events, and partnering with others in the region - e.g. hosting a TechCocktail.com event here in March, and supporting the TechNow09.com event in Royal Oak in April).
thanks for the boost, Tom. Zingerman's Roadhouse on me, the next time you're in town. :-)
If you want great Metro Transit, this is it, and each city within LA has its own metro line. like the blue bus in santa monica/venice. south bay transit in the south bay.
Plus tons of employment opportunities in the IT field with great pay. i make 90K as a front end developer.
No doubt LA is the greatest
I agree that Metro is actually good, but LA is huge and so the coverage isn't as tight as more condensed cities. There is also a heavy car "culture" here, so socially-speaking you won't meet many others without cars.
You need to live in very specific areas to benefit from existing public transit, and the inflexibility of the existing systems (and city sprawl) will not make you happy in those occasional situations you need to go to some kinda event that is way out of your way. Other than that, yes, maybe Metro itself is pretty awesome. Also, I have to mention that the flyaway service is awesome too, public transit from westwood to lax in the same time as a shuttle only paying 1/4 of the price? Yay!
I wish car sharing were more popular in this area, but flexcar/zipcar sort of fucked us over in that aspect.
It's a relatively low-profile area, very clean, very safe, very nice people, and modern infrastructure and appliances. A great place to live and work, though I wouldn't want to raise children here.
The only issues are the lack of people and VCs. You can always do contract work for the government though!
SBIR programs are available, which are almost free $$ (you dev a product they need, they'll help pay for its development, and then buy lots of them from you). $70k instead of millions, but they don't take any part of your company in return.
There are apartments by metro stations, but you also have ZipCars http://zipcar.com which you rent by the hour ($9.25/hr weekday in DC, $11/hr weekday in NYC).
I grew up in DC, and now live in NY. If you prefer a suburban life, go DC. If you like the city, NY. One benefit of both places to The Valley is the gender ratio here -- slightly biased for more single educated women than men. I've heard the valley's a sausage party. Although I've heard really good things about LA in this dept.
Another point for Boulder Colorado, some friends enjoyed the tech startup culture there, too.
[1] http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/Hacker_Spaces
If you want to incorporate we just got a reformed company law that gives us the "Unternehmergesellschaft." It's like a LLC oder Ltd., you can start it with 1 EUR and it's made esp. for startups. You have to accumulate 25% of your profits until you reach 25,000 EUR and become a "real" limited liability comp. (here GmbH). Foreigners can incorporate, too. Taxation is the "Koerperschaftssteuer" (corporation tax) which is flat 15%, then you have the local "Gewerbesteuer" (business tax) which (in Berlin) costs you also around 15%. Dividends are taxed flat with 25%. If you don't have good advisors you pay a bit more taxes with a company than as a natural person alone, but you have the limited liability, you can more easily hand out shares to investors, have more possibilities with financing, a.s.o.
Some more info there: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_Germany
http://www.paulgraham.com/start.html
"[5] A friend who started a company in Germany told me they do care about the paperwork there, and that there's more of it. Which helps explain why there are not more startups in Germany."
And i'll throw Karlsruhe into the pot. It's called the internet capital of Germany, has lots of companies (especially web companies) and one of the best universities for computer science (and other technical fields). Living costs are relativly low.
In Denmark people in general prefer cars even though they are taxed very aggressively. And public transportation is subsidized very aggressively.
If you "can be anywhere" being a hacker, why do you drive around in a car if you don't like it?
So, you left Denmark? Where are you now?
Rent is expensive, though.
...Per square foot. However, Tokyo has micro-apartments available, right? 60 sqft?
If you're willing to share an apartment (having your own bedroom), you could get by with about U$600 in central Tokyo, and as low as U$400 in the suburbs.
I'm still having a hard time "getting" the whole "hacker city" question, which comes up every now and then and always ends up with SV / SF / CA as the only reasonable options.
If you're plannign on hacking away most of the time, possibly even bootstrapping product development, you need:
1. transport -- so-so is already good enough, you're not meant to be out and about all the time 2. connectivity -- so-so is already good enough, you're not meant to be online all the time (since most of the time, its not research you're doing but distractions like HN) 3. inexpensive cost of living -- thats what really matters unless you made it big already! But then SV / SF / CA is a no-go. 4. "good" people -- they exist everywhere, just like the "bad" ones
Originally from Berlin (which is pretty friggin cool for a German city), I almost exclusively live as an Expat in Cairo, Egypt now, to combine drastically lowered costs with perpetual sunshine.
I highly recommend it. There's a small and very nice expat scene here, not much of a "hacker" scene. Well, it depends. I gather, like in other emerging economies, there's hundreds of thousands of people here in this 20 million metropolitan area who happily "hack" away on C++, C#, Java, basic web stuff. They just don't care much about Web 2.0 or Hacker News, Macs or even the whole "GNU hacker ethic" etc. They're "just" into programming (but then, isn't that "pure" interest more what we're looking for anyway?...) Sure, they all use pirated commercial rather than open source software and sure, many of them often work on outsourcing gigs found at rentacoder, but: it's not like there are no "hackers" here.
I don't need a huge social scene since I wanna get stuff done, not talk about it and I don't need a VC or angel scene since the only money I will ever take is that of paying customers. I don't trade futures, particularly not my own. Granted, I'll keep my German passport for setting up the formal company there at some point and I'll keep my German health insurance, too. I'll keep my German consulting clients and I'll keep paying taxes to the German state. But we're talking about locations to live-and-work here...
Now, what else do we have in store. A hugely different culture and a strongly religious one but if you don't speak the language, you don't get most of it anyway. It's a different pace of life that's fascinating to watch. Crackling infrastructure, although hey my ADSL has been up uninterruptedly for a couple of days now! Transport: depends. There's a vast oversupply of Really Cheap Taxis here, more than making up for the relative lack of a public transport system. Basically you can get wherever you want 24/7 at minimal costs. But I prefer biking which gets you through the perpetual jams more quickly and also that's the only exercise I get so I keep riding it. Get a mountain bike though, to cope not with mountains but with dirt and the quality of roads and pavements.
It all depends on your individual priorities. Mine were and are: climate, cost structures, cheap flight availability to mainland Europe (to Berlin from here: 4 hours and EUR 140!), peace and stability, low crime level and a certain basic safety. Smog, Islam, dust, pollution, noise and crowdedness I can live with, these aren't so high on my list of priorities.
I guess it's about making the trade-off that fits you personally. And I guess the equivalent for a US person would be some minor, warm Latin American country within cheap-flights reach that also is or is being kept peaceful.
There's also the generally high cost-of-living, the shitty broadband connectivity (as in the companies are crap, expensive, and bandwidth-limited), and a near-universal hatred of bicycles. Also, it's cold and gray 95% of the year.
You got wireless, snacks & drinks, relative quiet and if you take one of these all-you-can-travel (Germany: Bahncard 100) deals you just bought yourself an office in every German city for about 3500 euro / year. If you want first-class it'll be 5900 euro.
I doubt I could work on a train all the time. But I really could live almost anywhere as long as I had a net connect.
Plus, it's easy for even totally unattractive social misfits to obtain intimate companionship, with no strings attached.
;>
Thriving tech community, really beautiful place and a great transit system.
I ride my bike 80% of the year.
http://www.boulder.me for more info (calendar there too).