After living in Florida (Orlando, Naples), CA (Santa Clara), Boston and DC, I like to apply "The Efficient Frontier" to locations I choose.
Essentially the efficient frontier is a finance concept that says that combinations of assets can be graphed and form a line called "The Efficient Frontier" where only portfolios of assets on that line should be considered.
When I consider where I live, I want to optimize to make sure I am on that frontier. Instead of risk and return on the axises, I think of a multivariant optimization, but essentially what I am saying is that many cities do not make it on the efficient frontier when looking logically.
For example, is there anyway that Louisville has as rich of a history as NYC, or DC, Boston or even SF?
Does Louisville have better night life than any other big city (DC, NYC, SF, Boston?)
Does Louisville have better skyline than any other big city (DC, NYC, SF, Boston?)
Does Louisville have better live performances than any other big city (DC, NYC, SF, Boston?)
Does Louisville have better museums than any other big city (DC, NYC, SF, Boston?)
Does Louisville have a better hipster scene than any other big city (DC, NYC, SF, Boston?). Its probably better than Boston's, but I don't care whether hipsters are part of the culture or not.
And the OP's biggest point, that he likes to drive to rural areas in 15 minutes. Its more like 20 minutes from SF, but some of the best mountain biking, trails etc. is right there. Boston has the same thing 20 minutes away. IMO DC and NYC are harder to get to rurual areas.
Liking Louisville is completely understandable if you just like being familar and don't want to move and have to make new friends etc. but it should be 100% understandable why a recruiter cannot imagine someone wanting to stay when viewing the opportunity as an outsider.
[ADDED] I reread what I wrote and it seems like I'm bashing Louisville, more my intention was to put out the efficient frontier concept for selecting a location.
[To unalone and the OP] Sorry for coming off as pompous. It does read a little that way, but I used the OP's criteria, not my own. The OP could have made a much better arugument by specifying what he likes about the criteria, but he didn't do that so I just asked the questions rather than making an assertion about them. Notice that I didn't specify whether DC does have better nightlife than Louisville? I instead just asked the question which the reader can answer on their own.
> it should be 100% understandable why a recruiter cannot imagine someone wanting to stay when viewing the opportunity as an outsider
What? This is absurd! A city's qualities cannot be pared down to such an easy evaluation. "Better night life" is itself a complex and multifaceted value; "better skyline" is hardly worth caring about, "better live performances and museums" suggests you think culture is so precious, so rare, that it can only be found in the biggest cities in the country. Lemme tell you, I spent my early life growing up in the remote mountain suburbs of New Jersey, and even there it is quite easy to find things to do. In any city of even moderate size you will never be left wanting for options.
The "efficient frontier" is a pompous way to describe what every single person does when they're deciding where to live: weigh the various advantages and disadvantages against each other, and decide which place seems like it would work best for you. I mean, that's what the entire goddamn post was about: hell Ernie described Louisville so persuasively that now I'm curious to see what it's like for myself.
It's odd that you felt the need to tell the OP he's wrong to value Louisville over your completely weird set of values. You might say you weren't out to bash Louisville, but your entire comment was just a justification to talk about how Louisville might not be as good as OP says it is, and how therefore recruiters are completely justified to think people want to live in fucking New York City. Which, eeesh, I get why some people do, but... eeesh.
Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man. I may not always love my job, but the beauty of the mountains in the morning ride/drive in always makes me smile. The only other place that comes close is my previous residence, where the Sandias were glorious for the ride home (go ahead, look up the definition of "sandia" in Spanish and imagine the colors).
You're right, though: everyone does the evaluation of where to live (whether consciously or not), and everyone has different values. Me, I like being able to ride my bike to work and be able to go bouldering or climbing after work almost year round. "Better night life" is hardly worth caring about to me.
Does Louisville have a better cost of living than any other big city (DC, NYC, SF, Boston)?
As of 2006-2010, median price of a house in Louisville is $48,300. The median sales price for homes in San Francisco CA for Sep 12 to Nov 12 was $750,000.
Well housing costs are just one part of cost of living but sure, it costs less to live elsewhere. Generally salaries in the SF Bay Area are higher in part of offset that cost. Wikipedia [1] claims Louisville has a median salary of $36,484.
So a question; "If you wish to work at a remote location, are you willing to take a salary that is commensurate with the median salary at that remote location?"
I find people are somewhat split on that question.
I've never actually encountered an employer who set job offer salaries to reflect where remote candidates live. People point that out as a benefit to companies hiring remote employees (it'll save them money!), but does that actually happen?
At my previous job, after acquiring a company that had a mostly-remote workforce, everyone eventually moved away from our home area (DC) to cheaper parts of the country. No one took a pay cut to reflect the fact that they now were living somewhere cheaper (and everyone new we hired was in the same range regardless of where they lived).
Also, having lived and worked in Boston, the Bay Area, and now the Beltway, I was surprised to find that salaries weren't any lower or higher in any of those places, despite the costs of living being all over the place. It's possible that my particular corner of the industry (infosec) is just less geographically-dependent.
Not to nitpick, but Intel does have a 10% salary supplement for California employees, to offset the cost of living (or at least the difference in taxation) wrt OR, AZ and NM employees.
Generally, there are some differences but the differences for a given job don't usually reflect the magnitude of cost of living deltas between high-cost and low-cost areas. All three of the areas you mention are fairly high cost (although somewhat dependent on where in those areas). So, all other things being equal, people will usually be able to, most notably, buy/rent more house/apartment in a cheaper area than a more expensive one.
From the company perspective, limiting discussion to US only, the benefit of remote workers is much more about hiring talent rather than being able to save a few dollars.
It is really the other way around. Costs in the valley are high because people generally have more money to spend, not because there is an intrinsic reason why it costs more to live there.
> are you willing to take a salary that is commensurate with the median salary at that remote location?
Salary is just a function of supply and demand. If a bunch of people with amazing talents in Louisville are willing to do it for $36K, then that will push down the wages in California too. The only thing that has really kept SF developer prices as high as they are is that even the skilled people of Louisville want $100K+ to do the job.
And the average house isn't as nice, doesn't have year around nice weather, and isn't in a walkable neighborhood. I'm not arguing the cost isn't an issue, but the OP's standard of living numbers made a lot more sense here (2x)
> ...but it should be 100% understandable why a recruiter cannot imagine someone wanting to stay when viewing the opportunity as an outsider.
I honestly don't see why this would even come up. It's not the recruiter's job to understand why someone wants what they want. The recruiter just needs to know what they want. If I want to do X, then they need to work with that, either by accommodating it, or figuring out what compensation I'd need to do not-X. They don't need to understand the rationale, and there doesn't even need to be a rationale.
FWIW, I didn't take it that way (Louisville-bashing).
I get what you're saying, but I don't think it's as important that Louisville be the "best" in any one of those categories so much as "sufficiently good".
It's like Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Satisfaction at one tier opens up the others.
It is also worth pointing out that you can fly to DC and NYC in under 2 hours from Louisville. You can fly to Chicago and get there before you took off thanks to the time change. So you have access to pretty much any of the "best" of those things listed here in about 3 hours including the time it takes you to drive to the airport, get through security and board.
Essentially the efficient frontier is a finance concept that says that combinations of assets can be graphed and form a line called "The Efficient Frontier" where only portfolios of assets on that line should be considered.
Sorry for the link to wiki, but this is a really short article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficient_frontier
When I consider where I live, I want to optimize to make sure I am on that frontier. Instead of risk and return on the axises, I think of a multivariant optimization, but essentially what I am saying is that many cities do not make it on the efficient frontier when looking logically.
For example, is there anyway that Louisville has as rich of a history as NYC, or DC, Boston or even SF?
Does Louisville have better night life than any other big city (DC, NYC, SF, Boston?)
Does Louisville have better skyline than any other big city (DC, NYC, SF, Boston?)
Does Louisville have better live performances than any other big city (DC, NYC, SF, Boston?)
Does Louisville have better museums than any other big city (DC, NYC, SF, Boston?)
Does Louisville have a better hipster scene than any other big city (DC, NYC, SF, Boston?). Its probably better than Boston's, but I don't care whether hipsters are part of the culture or not.
And the OP's biggest point, that he likes to drive to rural areas in 15 minutes. Its more like 20 minutes from SF, but some of the best mountain biking, trails etc. is right there. Boston has the same thing 20 minutes away. IMO DC and NYC are harder to get to rurual areas.
Liking Louisville is completely understandable if you just like being familar and don't want to move and have to make new friends etc. but it should be 100% understandable why a recruiter cannot imagine someone wanting to stay when viewing the opportunity as an outsider.
[ADDED] I reread what I wrote and it seems like I'm bashing Louisville, more my intention was to put out the efficient frontier concept for selecting a location.
[To unalone and the OP] Sorry for coming off as pompous. It does read a little that way, but I used the OP's criteria, not my own. The OP could have made a much better arugument by specifying what he likes about the criteria, but he didn't do that so I just asked the questions rather than making an assertion about them. Notice that I didn't specify whether DC does have better nightlife than Louisville? I instead just asked the question which the reader can answer on their own.