[carsongross]

> If you’re trying to bootstrap, being based in San Francisco is awful.

Especially if you have a family. I rented a four bedroom house in a great neighborhood in Sacramento that was a bike ride from Midtown for $2900/mo. We ended up buying a bigger house in the same neighborhood for even less per month. No commute, food is cheap, etc. The cost savings are enormous, and I'm sure it's more expensive than St. Louis...

Yep:

http://www.bestplaces.net/cost-of-living/sacramento-ca/st.-l...

The trick outside the Bay Area, if you are consult-strapping, is keeping the contracts coming in. Probably better in areas like St. Louis than in Sac.

[jlgaddis]

I live in the Midwest. My monthly expenses are roughly half of your monthly rent.

(And I have fiber coming into my house and can get 1 Gbps.)

[carsongross]

Yeah, man. I'd move in a heartbeat if it weren't for family in the area.

[mjn]

Having grown up in the midwest, one of the main things keeping me from moving back (besides particularities of jobs/etc.) is the weather. Really really cold winters, hot & humid summers. Nice springs and autumns, though, if I could arrange to be somewhere else Dec-Feb and June-Aug. I'd pay a premium to live somewhere with a longer "nice to be outdoors" season, though how much of a premium is a good question.

I actually live in Scandinavia now, and the winters here are warm in comparison!

[colanderman]

To SomeCallMeTim: you useful comment shows up dead for me. Perhaps you have been unfairly hellbanned?

[doorhammer]

I moved from St. Louis to Atlanta and I kind of miss having a cold winter with snow (though Atlanta's gotten pretty frickin cold this winter)

Humidity sucks though, heh.

I actually really miss St. Louis

[nextos]

Oh, really? I'm living in Scandinavia and looking to move elsewhere. Midwest was one of my options, and I had never thought winters were so bad over there!

[gaoshan]

I've lived in Finland and spent time in Sweden in the winter and I grew up in Ohio (went to college in Michigan) and I can tell you that the winters in the midwest vary greatly depending on which part you live in. Finland and Sweden both had longer, colder, winters than Ohio does, for example. Chicago will get super cold and windy but the winters still aren't as long as in Scandinavia.

Basically, much of the midwest has shorter winters but some parts of it have equally harsh or even harsher (the Dakotas, for example) weather. Northern Michigan is quite a bit like Finland, for example, while the lower portion of Michigan is nothing at all like Finland.

Totally depends on where you go, even within the midwest.

[mjn]

Winters are shorter, but the temperatures drop much lower than in Denmark, anyway (perhaps not colder than Finland). Here are the nightly low temperatures in Chicago for the next 5 days: -17 C, -20 C, -25 C, -22 C, -13 C. I have never seen temperatures like that in Copenhagen!

Granted, in an average week Chicago won't be quite that cold, but in general its winter weather is pretty harsh. People bike to work all winter in Copenhagen, which would be unthinkable in Chicago weather (even if the city had better bike infrastructure). I actually like it being moderately cold and snowy, but -5 C is about my limit.

[doorhammer]

Good idea of what it looks like in St Louis:

http://weatherspark.com/averages/31697/St-Louis-Missouri-Uni...

Humidity was always the killer for me. I remember flying from San Diego to St. Louis. It was 75 degrees and dry in San Diego, and 102 degrees with 94% humidity in St. Louis. I wanted to die, heh

That said, I always liked the variety.

It means that I have pretty strong, nostalgic feelings associated with the seasons changing.

[fractalsea]

That site is a brilliant resource. Thanks for sharing.

One of my main considerations when moving somewhere is the climate.

It would be cool if the site had links to places with similar climates (could be calculated with some kind of distance metric from all the variables). I loved the climate in Sydney, so it would be nice to see a list of places in the world where it's similar.

[nextos]

Oh, variety is good. Weather here in Denmark is so plain and boring. The only remarkable season is May-July, thanks to the long days and relatively warm weather.

I totally agree humidity is horrible. I've stayed a few summers in The Hamptons, Long Island---and humidity was a killer. I cannot imagine coping with 102 F / 94%.

[slm_HN]

I know this isn't exactly the best metric, but the demand for programmers in St. Louis seems very low. When I look at Craigslist I see a couple Java jobs, a couple PHP jobs and even one godforsaken VB.net job. Even Jeff Atwood doesn't use VB.net.

So I'm doubtful that it would be easier to keep the contracts coming in while in St. Louis.

[thecoffman]

As a coder living in St. Louis, I can say that this hasn't been my experience at all. There is an exceptionally high demand for coders around here. Barely a week goes by without someone trying to poach good programmers. Its not necessarily all sexy startups, but there is an excellent market for programmers in general.

We have a fairly good startup scene (though obviously nothing on SF) and a large number of more traditional corporate employers of programmers like Express Scripts, Monsanto, Wells Fargo, Scottrade, Ameren, Charter, Anheuser Busch, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman. There is also an exceptionally active biotechnology scene here.

[doorhammer]

I'm hoping this is the case in a year or so, when I plan on moving back to Stl from Atlanta. I know a few guys doing C# and f# work in stl. They seem to think prospects are pretty good.

[bzalasky]

Craigslist doesn't hold the same clout outside of the Bay Area in my experience. Almost never the best place to look for anything.

[icantthinkofone]

This is true. Craigslist posters are typically looking to get someone dirt cheap here. The real job listings for here are on Monster.

[excid3]

Not quite. We've got about 5000 programming jobs or so available here. Of course they're not all with the latest technology, but things like http://launchcodestl.com are working to help fill these open positions.

[hlfshell]

I haven't commented on a Hacker News item for a long time. As a programmer who's constantly looking to expand his team with someone I can trust to do good work, we can't hire them fast enough. The tech scene here is rapidly growing and it's not hard for a good programmer to land a spot in a tech company here.

[geerlingguy]

It seems if you're half-good at just about any language, you'll get an email a week from a recruiter from a decent company. Definitely not as many startups, but many interesting projects to choose from. And remote work while living in a (comparative) mansion in the Midwest is a good selling point :)

[emidln]

St. Louis seems to be one of the more attractive places if you can swing security clearance. A lot of defense contractors in the area due to being a larger city plus having a couple large bases nearby.

[NDizzle]

I did the same thing but I skipped past Sac to Yuba City.

13% cheaper housing here according to the same site.

I'm renting a 4/3 2500 sq ft house on an 8k sq ft lot 3 blocks away from an 8/10 greatschools.org K-8 (I have 3 kids.) for $1600/mo.

I telecommute to my Bay Area job.

[joshAg]

As someone who grew up in roseville, I am really, really glad for your kids' sake that you bought a house in midtown.