[maxsilver]

This is also my experience. The "cheap" cost of living in the Midwest is vastly overstated.

Once you factor in the absolute requirement to own two expensive cars + insurance, the extremely high cost of home maintenance, the extreme high cost of any urban property (which forces you to buy in a far-flung suburb), the lack of any meaningful public transit, and the extreme weather conditions (with extreme utility costs)

That all adds up. You'll loose almost all of money your supposed to be saving.

Add in the fact that 8 years of technology experience here, pulls in wages lower than an intern or fresh graduate at any coastal city, and you can clearly see why there's a "brain drain". And the kicker is exactly what the person above said -- almost no one in the Midwest sees it. Most of the people actually out here in the Midwest either are blind or act blind to the obviousness of what's happening.

(Full disclosure : I am a born-and-raised urban midwesterner from Michigan, trying to relocate my family to a place like Portland or Seattle).

[HeyLaughingBoy]

I have to disagree with that pretty much completely.

I moved to Minneapolis from the Northeast 15 years ago and from the very beginning I felt I should have done it 10 years earlier.

The real estate is lower by far. Even with higher heating & cooling costs in my first, poorly insulated, house (built in 1951) in a desirable area in Southwest Minneapolis, the total cost was less than living in Connecticut. Although I didn't use them often, I had buses two blocks from my house. My commute to work in the outer suburbs averaged 25-30 minutes.

There is simply no way "you'll lose all the money you're supposed to be saving." At one point I had two car payments and even all that combined with my housing costs, the total was still less that I would be paying in Connecticut for a small house. Of course real estate in Mpls has gone up, but it's also increased in all those other places people are looking at.

Could I make more money in the Bay area, or Seattle, NYC, etc? No doubt about that, but my quality of life would be far lower. I lived in NYC for years: I'd much rather be here. And I think that's really the key.

More than cost, it boils down to "where do you want to live?" For some, it's worth the astronomical costs to live in coastal cities, for the rest of us we prefer a slower paced life and get the benefit of lower cost of living along with it.

[kaitai]

But that's the nice thing about Minneapolis: with only a modicum of planning where you'll live, you can bike or take public transit year-round, and it's not that expensive. I can walk/bike to two neighborhood grocery stores and a Whole Foods (all within a mile or so), three coffeeshops (blue-collar/hipster/coffee snob), etc. I only drive a few days a week because I work evenings and just want to get home at 9 pm instead of waiting for a bus transfer, and the high-frequency buses are concentrated around rush hours. (We can take a direct bus to the opera and delicious cocktails, fortunately.) Our house was not cheap but not expensive and the utility prices are not high because it's reasonably insulated, even though 90 years old.

My friends in Ann Arbor have the two cars and the high utility costs, but here in MSP we've got the one ancient car, non-expensive house in the heart of the city, and unremarkable utility costs (and we cover our year's electricity with solar panels).

[ashark]

I'm another Midwesterner thinking of taking my family to a coast. My biggest concern is that, being well past college-age (but a bit under where people usually start hitting age discrimination) I may have waited too long.

I lack a top university pedigree, and I have a fair bit of experience but it's all of the typical Midwestern sort—nothing exciting, nothing you've ever heard of. I reckon I'm somewhere between the top 25% and 5% around here talent-wise, but I fear I may be so far down in the bottom 50% anywhere near an ocean that I'll be unemployable, especially without a household-name university on my résumé. I haven't put hundreds of hours in to open source so my GitHub is unimpressive. I've never had an employer who paid me to contribute to open source. (Damn do I envy the people who get paid for that! No agonizing over whether to spend time with the wife or kids, do any of a hundred other things that aren't programming and I also like to do, or try to log some unpaid commits to impress prospective employers!)

Anyone in a similar position had any luck getting offers on the coasts? How about remote positions with coastal companies? Frankly, I find my résumé so embarrassing compared to what seems to be the "typical" applicant in SV or Seattle that I'm not sure it's worth the hours it takes to submit to a few positions. Is this just the HN effect where it seems like everyone's really amazing all the time except me, or will the rest of the stack truly be full of MIT and Harvard grads with three years at Google and numerous international awards for building cancer-curing, firefighting, baby-kissing drones that also make a mean cup of coffee?

[justinph]

Is this just the HN effect where it seems like everyone's really amazing all the time except me, or will the rest of the stack truly be full of MIT and Harvard grads with three years at Google and numerous international awards for building cancer-curing, firefighting, baby-kissing drones that also make a mean cup of coffee?

In my experience, this is just perception. When people discuss their work, here or elsewhere, they generally don't talk about the mundane minutiae and un-glamorous failures that went nowhere. It makes people sometimes look superhuman, which is a false perception.

I'm in a similar situation (live in MPLS, want to move to a coast), but I don't think it is quite as bad as you think. Most decent employers shouldn't give a shit about where your degree came from, or if you even have a degree, so long as you can do the work.

[beachstartup]

i noticed that you only mention seattle and silicon valley, and you only seem to talk about top schools and companies (i.e., household names). you're probably right - you'll never work for those companies, or in silicon valley. but is that what you really want? i mean have you actually gone to the middle of, for example, mountain view, and looked around? it's a bunch of generic office parks and shitty suburban tract homes that cost $2M+.

LA, portland, new york, south florida, va/nc are all on the coasts and have strong tech job markets and hiring all the people like you, but you're sitting here moping about silicon valley. seems a bit like you're missing the point. the boom is happening everywhere and if you want in, you gotta find your way in.

[ashark]

Oh, yeah, those were just examples. No way I'd move a four-person family to SV, or anywhere near :-)

Portland, Seattle, VA/NC? Maybe. Or remote work.

Nice to know that the SV "Ivy, MIT, or GTFO" standards don't necessarily apply in other tech hubs.

[beachstartup]

for what it's worth, we have a lot of remote guys that live in texas, midwest, etc. we're in LA and pay those guys LA salaries.

[Phlarp]

>the absolute requirement to own two expensive cars

This is no more a requirement in the midwest or Minneapolis than it is anywhere else, and by that I mean not a requirement at all. I know plenty of devs here that drive $4,000 cars (or ride the bus!) and have no problem getting steady work with great wages.

As someone who does occasional work for the auto industry though, thanks!

[mzs]

Public transit is pretty good in MSP. Rent for homes is also reasonable. Schools are decent. And the commutes are not terrible if you do need to drive.

I moved from Sunnyvale to Chicago suburb cause I could not afford it anymore with a second kid on the way. Yes I do make less, it goes way farther though.

I'll bite my tongue about the perceived skill gap. It's been eye opening to read what some of my peers think on HN today.

[michael_h]

Your complaints apply to the suburbs of everywhere (needing cars, home maintenance, no public transport, etc). I think you might be inflating your experience in Michigan's metropolitan areas with the entirety of the midwest, judging by 'extreme weather conditions'. My total gas/electric bill this month was $140, which is on the high end for me.

There are tons of places in the midwest where urban property is well within reach and public transport is available, obviating the need for two vehicles, much less two expensive vehicles. No one in the midwest sees the 'brain drain'? It is talked about constantly.

[michaelochurch]

You don't need 2 cars if you live near work. You'll probably need 1. If you live in a city, you might not need any. Heating is not that expensive unless you have far more space than you need. It's true that a quality urban lifestyle is not cheap in the Midwest (I've heard people on the coasts say that 3000 SF houses in Chicago cost $100k, which is not true... more like $700k) because it is not cheap anywhere in the US, but it's cheaper than in NYC or SF by about 40%.

In practice, most people end up spending only slightly less on housing when they move out here, but take a quality-of-life bump. I'm paying (in Chicago) what I was in NYC, but I have 800 SF and a pool in the building, and I can walk to work.