[mtomczak]

Property values are significantly lower in Pittsburgh, which makes property ownership easier. And the top-quality colleges in the city continue to graduate excellent candidates for tech company employment.

Although a graduate can ship out west, the lower costs in Pittsburgh make the path to ownership shorter. I'll be interested to see if the economic downturn will give graduates pause when thinking about shipping themselves three timezones away into an expensive location, when the cheaper prices in Pittsburgh could offer a lifestyle with less debt.

[rwhitman]

Yea but who graduating college thinks about home ownership?

I left Philadelphia for CA shortly after college 6 yrs ago. I still rent here and I know that if I stayed in PA I would probably own multiple properties at this point. Honestly I would rather rent in California than own a mansion in Pennsylvania. My life is just infinitely better here.

[bmj]

I know many graduate students that buy homes during their stay in Pittsburgh rather than renting, and simply sell when they leave. Often, those homes end up in the hands of other graduate students.

[timtadh]

I mean I am about to do this (in Cleveland at CWRU instead of Pittsburg at CMU) but the principle of the thing is the same. These cities have some of the lowest costs of living to be found anywhere in the US. I would also note that Cleveland has the same problems mentioned in the article to a degree, but is managing to retain bio-tech firms. This is mainly due to the top notch institutions (hello Cleveland Clinic) which are in the city.

[146]

True, but remember that most startup founders are not just graduating college.

[thwarted]

It seems increasingly unlikely that the kind of person who is interested in real estate ownership, for the purposes of living in it, is not the same kind of person who values the flexibility and uncertainty of startup culture, two of the things that are attractive about Silicon Valley and the Bay Area.