Pacific Standard has a short article about the possibility that America’s tech companies and the financial sector will move out of expensive hot spots like Silicon Valley and New York move headquarters and workers to Rust Belt cities like Cleveland and Pittsburgh.
Those wealthy metropolitan areas have simply become too expensive. Real estate and the average worker salaries are much lower in other areas of the country. Also, the older cities have mass transportation and walkable downtowns. So, the author speculates that Silicon Valley will be become Detroit, and Cleveland will become New York.
When Steve was working as a consultant last year, he briefly worked for a major investment bank that was moving its support staff from New York to Delaware. However, his new job is directly across the street from the World Financial Center. There are only plans to expand downtown, not move elsewhere.
Of course, I love the idea that technology and bottom-line concerns will lead businesses to move to under-utilized areas of the country. Cleveland could sure use that boost. And, here in the Northeast, the cost of living is ridiculous. I’m not sure that it’s really happening.
Apt. 11d 
There’s all kinds of people around here with New York and New Jersey plates. I think they’re mostly students. They drive really badly in a different way than the locals here drive really badly. More of a “I’ll risk death to save five seconds” than the local attitude of just not paying attention to anything.
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I really wish this would happen on a large scale but I’m doubtful. If you are a tech firm hiring people out of grad programs at Berkeley/Stanford or a financial firm hiring Ivy League grads, you have a strong employee base that is rooted to the area and willing to pay the cost of living. I can see more back-office stuff going in that direction, though.
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Pittsburgh is actually not that crazy because it’s a big college town and has Carnegie Mellon. The Rust Belt generally, though–no way.
It’s much more realistic to think that a trendy warm weather city like Austin would draw a tech company. Once you’ve gotten to like 70 degree winter days, it’s pretty hard to go back to the rigors of the Northern winter. I grew up in WA, and I don’t think I could ever go back to the 10-month winter (not a cold winter, but literally 200+ days of rain).
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Pittsburgh is running out of cheap houses that aren’t crap. I don’t know about finance companies coming from the Northeast. I’m worried about after California runs out of water and what happens if we get an influx of people who expect constant warm, sunny weather.
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“I’m worried about after California runs out of water and what happens if we get an influx of people who expect constant warm, sunny weather.”
In my family, one of my great-uncles and his wife sold out of CA and moved up to WA and bought a house. I’m not sure they lasted much over a year.
This sort of thing happens a lot to Californians.
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Just looking at this today: http://www.flypittsburgh.com/route_map.
Compare it to:http://www.pvdairport.com/flights/airlines/airline-route-map.
And:
http://www2.monroecounty.gov/airport-airlines.php#NonStop
I don’t think Pittsburgh qualifies as “rust belt.”
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If Pittsburgh doesn’t qualify as “Rust Belt” then the term doesn’t mean anything. There aren’t many places that went through as big of a loss in the manufacturing sector.
I’m not sure what you mean to show by the airport maps. We do have a few more flights than Providence and places in New York where the Political Science-Riker used to live. But that’s not a very good measure of how connected we are. For one thing, we don’t really have much train service. For another, because of various legacy issues having to do with U.S. Air’s former hub, flights are pretty expensive.
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Flights everywhere are expensive. It costs as much to fly round trip from Boston to Houston, with a stop in Philadelphia, as it costs to fly round trip from Boston to Philadelphia.
Pittsburgh offers flights to and from Texas and California. The other airports don’t.
This is likely to be tech-driven?
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I doubt it is tech driven. It seems to me like a function of population (the Pittsburgh metro area is far larger than Providence or Rochester) and distance from other metro areas. By google maps, Providence is only an hour’s drive from Logan airport. For comparison, I’m 45 minutes from the Pittsburgh airport.
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That’s another issue with Pittsburgh. The airport is on the moon. Or in Moon Township. It’s a $40 cab ride to downtown and $60 to my house.
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I’m not debating that Rochester and Providence don’t suck. I’m sure they do. I’ve never been to either, but I’ve seen other places in outstate New York. Still Pittsburgh had 10% of its workforce in steel as recently as 1980. Today, the percentage of the workforce in manufacturing is below the national average. Pittsburgh came through it better than some regions, but it seems pointless to argue that it isn’t “rust belt” because you can fly to Texas directly. It experienced a very rapid, complete deindustrialization and I don’t know what “rust belt” means outside of that.
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It’s an hour at midday, if 95 and 128 are merciful. It’s significantly longer during rush hour(s). It can be more convenient for people outside of Boston proper to fly from Providence or Manchester, depending on destination.
Pittsburgh’s a long way from anywhere, but there are a lot of flights to and from it from, like, civilization.
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Which is civilization? Texas or California?
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In the aggregate, Texas, California, the East Coast… it adds up.
I’m just cranky from college travel planning. I want to return to the happy state of mind I was in previously, when I didn’t care whether you can get from College Town A to College Town B.
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We have 5 tech companies opening up shop in downtown raleigh. Building, expanding, moving into town, the fact that Raleigh has a population of well over 50% college grads and our universities help. It is much more affordable than NE/NY/NJ but in no way “cheap” anymore. 15 years ago when we moved, sure, you could get something decent near town for 250k. That price is now more 500k++. Most folks moving here are from Chicago, Ohio, NJ, California and most folks moving away are going to CA, TX, ATL.
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Here, the complaint is that it now costs $250k to get anything decent.
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as like everything, here is, public school in a giant county…houses are priced for your school assignment. Now 250k (in the city) is maybe a college rental investment/1st home that is maybe 800sq feet or 1400sq ft in a crap school district.
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