[theophrastus]

A brief elaboration on "many people hostile to software engineers in general": the major source of this are the employers who have done a deal with the apartment owners to all but exclude anyone who doesn't work in the tech industry. The apartment owner simply doesn't rent to anyone who doesn't work for Amazon, Microsoft etc[1]. This makes people grumpy at the folks who apparently do the deal with the devil for this advantage. By the bye, there is a difference, at least politically, between Seattle and Bellevue, much like between San Francisco and Oakland

[1] http://www.thestranger.com/news/feature/2015/09/09/22831041/...

[pinewurst]

Reading this, the employers have nothing to do with it. The apartment owner/managers are deciding who is a "preferred" tenant on their own and should take the heat rather than some arbitrary employer.

[codyb]

I guess I understand the idea that someone might want to live in a building filled entirely with people in their own industry... but I never liked the idea. They asked me in college "Do you want to live in a building that's composed only of engineers?" No, no I don't. How am I suppose to expand my mind talking only to people who do the same things I do? I'm suppose to sacrifice the expansion of my mind because English majors party or something?

And that is the primary reason I'm in NYC now instead of Silicon Valley. Of course there is proximity to family and my love of this city in general, but the main reason is that at the end of the day, I go back to my block in Bushwick and spend hours almost every day just sitting with my Puerto Rican neighbors who have lived vastly different lives from mine. And I love it.

The other option would have been to be a in a heavily white and asian male dominated situation with a bunch of people just like me, and i understand the appeal of not having to deal with things that are "different", but for me that's the best part of life.

I'm happy to have lived with whites, blacks, latinos, asians, men, women, straight and gay people throughout my life. And I'm much more comfortable in working class neighborhoods than middle and upper class neighborhoods.

So to me, it sounds like Seattle has a helluva uphill battle if it has to compete with the likes of entirely tech worker dominated buildings and wants to maintain any sort of culture at all besides whatever uniform culture that situation imposes upon an area.

[eropple]

You've nailed the weirdest thing about tech to me. The insularity is horrible. I had the same question posed to me in college and even then I was like "but...tech people are mostly boring." English majors party? Good. Means I'll get out of the house.

I'm lucky in that a lot of my social circle is non-tech right now, but a lot of the keep-to-yourself aspects of Boston's culture don't sit really well with me. I've thought about NYC more and more lately. Might be worth another look, if I can figure out how to generate a client base down there before I make a jump. =)

[steve-howard]

The only break I ever got from one of these programs (I work at Microsoft) was that of the various payments required on move-in (fee, refundable deposit, first month's rent) I was exempted from the refundable deposit. I didn't really get why that was the case, because I was still liable for damages, but I'm surprised that there are more aggressive versions of this and I'd agree that even the break I got wasn't really deserved.

[OrwellianChild]

This is most likely a form of "credit-check" on the part of the landlords... They see stable, well-paying job, and trust that you'll stick around, pay on time, and generally not be a hassle. Has nothing do do with the apartment owners "sponsoring" employees of a certain company.

[mattress]

Oh, I wasn't aware this was happening. Totally makes sense, although this is not the case in my instance.