NYC Tech Sector Growing Faster Than City Can Keep Up 243
BioTitan writes "New York City's plans to build its tech sector have turned out like a party gone wrong — someone inviting 100 people expecting 10 to show up, but finding that not only did everyone come, but they also brought their friends. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg wants to build NYC into the second Silicon Valley. Dedicated spaces complete with 3-D printers, workshops, and computers with design software are being built — with the Brooklyn Navy Yard leading the way — yet there is far from enough space to meet demand. Tucker Reed, president of the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, said, 'Despite the presence of a considerable number of commercial buildings in downtown Brooklyn, longer term leases have tied up much of the current space over the next five years.'"
Yay more social startups! (Score:5, Funny)
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I can't wait before my social mobile app goes viral, using new media on tablet interfaces!
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Re:Yay more social startups! (Score:4, Funny)
Dammit, I just figured out how to re-synergize our core strengths by thinking outside the box, and they go and change all the buzzwords on me.
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It's like Facebook, for cats!
You, sir, are infringing on my patent. Facebook. For Cats. With a Computer. On the Internet!
Maybe Wall Street should have given them the memo (Score:3)
Seriously, it would have been less blatant if you just told Bloomberg that the whole recession hoax was just created to push wages down and that there isn't really a lack of money waiting for investment. Now look what you've done.
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As to the recession, what part of it was a hoax? The banks and investment firms failing? The incredibly bad decisions or ridiculous leverage? The substantial drop in house prices? The poorly thought out policy decisions that dug the hole deeper?
My take is that wages were going down even if that recession never happened. It's supply and demand. There's too much supply of labor and not enough demand for it.
that there isn't really a lack of money waiting for investment
It's waiting for opportunities like Bloomber
Re:Maybe Wall Street should have given them the me (Score:5, Interesting)
The part going on now where in one breath they tell us the recession is causing unemployment and wage freezes and everyone is working oh-so hard to get that fixed and in the next we hear about Wall Street rallies, now highs being reached and record corporate profits. OH, and we need more H1-Bs because there's not enough people looking for a job here.
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What's the appeal? (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless your tech company is providing services which require a physical presence, what's the appeal of NYC? Real estate prices alone are a very compelling reason to locate elsewhere.
Re:What's the appeal? (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless your tech company is providing services which require a physical presence, what's the appeal of NYC?
Network effects from being close to all those other tech companies. (Seriously. This is why cities are generally more economically effective, and why large cities tend to be more effective than small cities; the effect is super-linear.)
Re:What's the appeal? (Score:5, Interesting)
Well... Really good technology workers tend to be well-paid, for starters. But beyond just being paid well, such people also like to have enjoyable life experiences. In fact, I saw some fascinating coverage (which I was trying to look up to link you to but failed, thanks google) about the divergence in the fortunes of various cities, suggesting that places such as New York and San Francisco in fact can offer higher real wages for high-income people like software engineers when you use a high-income person's market-basket of goods and services, because they have a variety of goods and services (and opportunities for life experiences) which would be more expensive to get out in the middle-of-nowhere suburbs.
in summary... because that's where the cool kids want to hang out. and you want to hire the cool kids.
Re:What's the appeal? (Score:5, Insightful)
I saw some fascinating coverage [...] suggesting that places such as New York and San Francisco in fact can offer higher real wages for high-income people
Perhaps in some cases. But some costs make this comparison difficult. For example, in a smaller city around a university in a different part of the U.S. (i.e., a place with an available talent pool), you are very likely to pay 1/10th of the cost to buy an equivalent apartment or house in the central hub of the small city, compared to the middle of Manhattan. When your housing price is $2 million instead of $200,000, it can take a long time to make up that difference, even if you're earning double the salary.
Most people just live with the fact that you don't get a lot of living space if you want to be a big city. For others, they may have different priorities.
If you happen to be one of the few lucky people who work their way up the ladder in jobs to get some managerial position that just doesn't tend to happen in a smaller city, you might earn enough money to justify the property expense. But that's not most people -- or even most tech workers.
But beyond just being paid well, such people also like to have enjoyable life experiences.
For young people just out of college, I completely agree. I've lived in everything from a small town to a mid-size city to a large city, and I definitely agree about the opportunities for entertainment, culture, etc. in large cities.
But some people also like to have other "enjoyable life experiences," perhaps the most important of which is called "having a family." Obviously lots of people raise kids in the middle of NYC and do great. But all of your costs for doing so are magnified greatly -- child care is expensive (which is huge if you actually want time to take advantage of all of those mostly adult-centered culture and entertainment activities that you're living in a city for), and unless you're living in the right place, you're looking at huge expenses for private schools, in addition to the housing costs I already mentioned.
Meanwhile, move to a small but respectable city like I mentioned above and you cut all of these costs by a huge factor, plus you can even afford a large house in the middle of town with only a 5-minute commute, along with a big yard for your kid to play in, and decent public schools (or even affordable private ones).
For people who are more than a few years out of school and actually have (or want to have) a family -- and yes, this does happen even for a lot of tech people -- there are significant advantages to get out of big cities, which is why you always hear about people with kids moving to the suburbs or whatever.
Except in a small city, you don't even need to move to the suburbs -- you could get all of that in town with a 5-10 minute commute, rather than taking an hour (or even two) each way to get out of NYC (and still often pay high prices).
And as for culture and entertainment opportunities, your appreciation changes with kids (unless you let someone else raise them, but that somewhat defeats the purpose of a "having a family"). Anyhow, you get some of these things in a small city (particularly a university town). And if you want something more, many of these cities are easily within an hour drive or a little more of a major city with all of those things... which you can take advantage of when you decide to take a night out with your spouse or a weekend with the family, all the while paying your child care provider a fraction of what you would elsewhere.
in summary... because that's where the cool kids want to hang out. and you want to hire the cool kids.
Exactly. Once you're no longer a "cool kid" and have your own kid, your perspective may change. "Cool adults" may have different priorities.
(Again, I'm not saying it's impossible or difficult to have a family in the city -- but I think it can potentially negate a lot of these positives in many cases.)
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You could find a smaller town/city than NYC that would still give you enjoyable life experiences (in fact in many ways better with less crime, traffic, etc).
While some of the options may not be as high known as in the city (say for example the Yankees there vs the Spikes here), not dealing with city life alone to me is more than enough of a reason for myself
Crime? If you're talking about the Cincinnati Spikes, you should know that Cincinnati has a higher crime rate than NYC. Cincinnati is #75 for highest crime rates - NYC doesn't even make the top 100. There are a lot of things that are far from wonderful about NY, including the crime, but it irks me when people assume NYC has a higher crime rate than other large (or even small) cities in the US. It's never been near the top, while many cities that people think are some sort of wholesome homeland places are.
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It's never been near the top
What about that time Isaac Hayes became A #1 Duke of New York and kidnapped the president in the 70's? I saw the video of Snake Plisskin infiltrating the city and it looked pretty bad.
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Not dealing with traffic or a car at all is even nicer.
Lots of people complain about NYC rent and real estate. Sure, its pricey. However keep in mind that we aren't paying car payments or car insurance or maintenance or gas. Nor do we have the stress of commuting to work on highways.
NYC is essentially crime free these days. Yes there are parts that have high crime and 99% of slash dotters would not be able to find there way there. Getting mugged in Manhattan or much of Brooklyn would require extraordinary e
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Network effects from being close to all those other tech companies. (Seriously. This is why cities are generally more economically effective, and why large cities tend to be more effective than small cities; the effect is super-linear.)
Or sublinear if you account more for crime, overcrowding, and corruption. It depends on what you value. I'm sure the companies who relocate get good people, but it's a certain type of good people.
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So wait, you're telling me that all these game-changing social media startups telling me I don't need physical presence anymore want... physical presence? Is this supposed to be ironic?
I guess that means all those social media startups are the hipsters of the IT world.
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So wait, you actually believe that the majority of startups in NYC are social media related? Is this supposed to be an intelligent comment?
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One might think a tech company would have the savvy to figure out how to communicate effectively without physical proximity. Perhaps some sort of inter-connected communications network?
Re:What's the appeal? (Score:5, Insightful)
If real estate prices were the primary consideration, tech companies would be starting up in rural Oklahoma, not Silicon Valley. Companies need to access to a concentration of talent, and professionals like to live in places where they have multiple career opportunities. A good place to locate your tech company is near other tech companies.
Personally, I think for tech companies to be located near universities is also an advantage, because it gives them access to interns and makes recruiting easier.
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I think for tech companies to be located near universities is also an advantage, because it gives them access to interns and makes recruiting easier.
No shortage in NYC. Columbia, NYU and a host of smaller but often very good schools.
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Quite a few tech companies have started to move from Silicon Valley to Texas. In a mushrooming market, you'll get these tight network effects but as things have matured other factors come into play and people start to want to not pay seven figures to live in a tiny box.
Then again other networking effects come into play. Here in TN, the medical market is pretty big which supports its own subset of IT. Nissan American moved its HQ here a few years ago too.
Re:What's the appeal? (Score:4, Insightful)
Your tech company won't get far without employees and there's plenty of those in NYC. Also, investors won't enjoy having to go to Bumfuck, Iowa to talk to you and see the operation.
Re:What's the appeal? (Score:4, Interesting)
. Also, investors won't enjoy having to go to Bumfuck, Iowa to talk to you and see the operation.
Another indication that investment is an entertainment sector industry, not a financial one.
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They might enjoy a drastically reduced burn rate.
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Unless your tech company is providing services which require a physical presence, what's the appeal of NYC? Real estate prices alone are a very compelling reason to locate elsewhere.
The same is true of Silicon Valley or San Francisco, but they're "the" places. VC's only seems to recognize things within a short range of their offices, or on the other side of the planet.
I know the standard argument for SV or SF is that there's a lot of talent there, but that doesn't jibe with those who complain about how hard it is to hire people. Which is it folks? There are some very good talent pools in places like Pittsburgh, South Florida, etc., but they're not the cool places, dontchaknow.
Re:What's the appeal? (Bingo!) (Score:4, Interesting)
I may not be fortunate enough to own a big tech company myself, but if I did? NYC would probably be one of the LAST places on my list where I'd consider an expansion or a move.
Real estate is insane, obviously ... but you're also dealing with the transportation headaches. Where I work now, we already have some big problems with that, and we don't have NYC's density. (Everyone's pushed and prodded to use public transportation since cars are impractical with high daily parking costs, traffic jams, etc.) But with public transportation, you're really limited in what you can carry. Any kind of office outing requires renting an expensive bus to shuttle everyone to or from the event, too. And if the subway has a problem, you may as well shut the place down until they get things fixed. Additionally, your employees who might otherwise be happy to work late or odd hours to finish some project are constrained by the hours the bus or metro runs. So you lose some potential productivity there too.
You also have to figure that in many ways, the tech market there is saturated. It's not like all the Wall Street traders don't have any contacts to work with to provide their network bandwidth or computer maintenance. If you move out to NYC, it sounds to me like a tough, uphill battle if you want to establish yourself as a contender?
If the physical presence makes no difference (software development, for example) -- then you want the CHEAPEST place you can build an office and still be able to hire good talent. I think what many companies would find if they actually thought "outside the box" a bit, is that there's a LOT of great computer talent in the small, rural communities. Kids growing up there don't have as much to do, so many gravitate towards the home computer and the internet, and spend a lot of time with it. The technical minded who don't envision themselves working the family farm like their parents did constitute a good hiring pool that's neglected.
Re:What's the appeal? (Bingo!) (Score:4, Insightful)
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I can't speak to the experience of living in NYC as well as you, having never tried it. I've visited and been fairly impressed, at least with everything other than the century or so of grime on every building.
That said, there's a lot to be said for those of us living in the hinterlands (also known as "places beyond the Hudson"). I'm here in Upstate South Carolina, which is noticeably different from Upstate New York, which does not begin at Poughkeepsie! The labor rates are certainly cheaper than in NYC o
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Yes but you live in South Carolina. A state that still flies the Confederate flag over the capital. A state where many people are not yet sold on this whole union thing and who reminisce about the good parts of slavery.
I've been to South Carolina. The next time I go back it will hopefully be a re-enactment of Sherman's march.
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If your business isn't like that it's another matter and sure, go for cheap programmers, have fun, I won't be working there :D
I find where you want to work is irrelevant since there are more IT workers than just you.
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Some people have a really limited idea of what the tech community consists of. Everyone forgets about companies like Bloomberg.
Consider this. Do you think that the financial services industry, headquartered in NYC, controlling some $14 TRILLION dollars in assets has been sitting on its ass ignoring technological innovation for the last 15 years? If they have, can you think of a better place or industry to start a new company?
If not, do you think you may have missed it because you were too distract
Transportation is not a limiting factor here! (Score:5, Insightful)
But with public transportation, you're really limited in what you can carry. Any kind of office outing requires renting an expensive bus to shuttle everyone to or from the event, too. And if the subway has a problem, you may as well shut the place down until they get things fixed. Additionally, your employees who might otherwise be happy to work late or odd hours to finish some project are constrained by the hours the bus or metro runs. So you lose some potential productivity there too.
Or you could have to drive, only to find that some idiot cut off some other idiot and caused a massive accident that has the expressway backed up for miles, and you have to wait around for hours until they clear the accident. Constrained by the hours the bus or metro runs? Do you have any idea how many public transportation options there are in NYC? There are 24 subway lines that run all night. There's the Metro North, Long Island Railroad, New Jersey PATH trains, New Jersey Light Rail, and Amtrak if you don't like the subway. There are scores and scores of bus lines, dozens of express buses from Staten Island and the like, and those are just the MTA buses; and they run all night. There's Greyhound, Trailways, and about 30 other lines that go into Port Authority on 42nd. There are ferries and water taxis. There are yellow cabs, car services, gypsy cabs, and peddle-cabs. There's a freaking gondola if you live on Roosevelt Island. Or you could rent a bike with CitiBike or ride your own around the extensive network of protected bike lanes.
In short, transportation without owning a car is not even remotely a problem in this town. It's also why you want to locate your startup here instead of somewhere else where the options are limited.
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I live in NJ, across the river from Manhattan. Public transit inside Manhattan is not bad: it's very fast, as the subway trains run very frequently. It's not cheap though: it seems to have skyrocketed in price over the last 10 years. I think the current price is $2.25 per ride; back in 2000 it was $17 for a weeklong unlimited ride pass, which doesn't seem to exist any more.
However, public transit outside of Manhattan sucks. Yes, there's a light rail that goes to NJ (there's a stop just a couple miles fr
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A 30 day unlimited ride pass costs $112. $112 a month for one's commute is pretty damn cheap. Also, which is better for the environment? Also many companies in NYC can have HR buy your pass for you before taxes. This makes my monthly commute roughly $70 a month. How much does car insurance + car payments + gas cost? Which is cheaper?
Yeah, I pay a lot of money for my apartment. I also save $500-$800/mo by not owning a car.
Metro North runs trains to CT something like every 10 minutes. LI is the same thing.
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Or you could have to drive, only to find that some idiot cut off some other idiot and caused a massive accident that has the expressway backed up for miles, and you have to wait around for hours until they clear the accident.
Dumbest post here.
Apparently you haven't been to LA...
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I may not be fortunate enough to own a big tech company myself, but if I did? NYC would probably be one of the LAST places on my list where I'd consider an expansion or a move.
Real estate is insane, obviously ... but you're also dealing with the transportation headaches. Where I work now, we already have some big problems with that, and we don't have NYC's density. (Everyone's pushed and prodded to use public transportation since cars are impractical with high daily parking costs, traffic jams, etc.) But with public transportation, you're really limited in what you can carry. Any kind of office outing requires renting an expensive bus to shuttle everyone to or from the event, too. And if the subway has a problem, you may as well shut the place down until they get things fixed. Additionally, your employees who might otherwise be happy to work late or odd hours to finish some project are constrained by the hours the bus or metro runs. So you lose some potential productivity there too.
You pretty obviously don't live in NYC...
Transit runs 24 hours a day 365 days a year, any time they do maintenance there are alternatives routes, if there's no nearby train they will set up shuttle service, and there's an extensive bus network too. Beyond that, the infrastructure for taxis and cars for hire is better than anywhere in the world that I've been. This place does NOT shut down due to transit issues. Even after Sandy came by and completely flooded a bunch of tunnels, service got restored quick
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Real estate is insane, obviously ... but you're also dealing with the transportation headaches. Where I work now, we already have some big problems with that, and we don't have NYC's density. (Everyone's pushed and prodded to use public transportation since cars are impractical with high daily parking costs, traffic jams, etc.)
No one that can avoid it drives in NYC, out of my company of 60+ people only one drives. Most take the train or bike.
But with public transportation, you're really limited in what you can carry.
What are you carrying?
Any kind of office outing requires renting an expensive bus to shuttle everyone to or from the event, too.
You walk to events in NYC because everything is within walking distance. I don't think there's been a company event that wasn't within walking distance.
And if the subway has a problem, you may as well shut the place down until they get things fixed.
Unless your office is in the middle of nowhere there's a half dozen separate subway lines near it and even with the main lines delays don't happen very often. That's like saying you can't drive anywhere because there migh
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Mod this shit up.
There's also quality of life factors to consider: big cities are great for the young and accomodating ("Sure I can work through the weekend."), but as for the rest of us schlubs, there are other things to keep in mind, like family, and life outside the office...
So, in one breath you're stating there are quality of life factors, and yet you imply that the young and/or single can and will work day and night, tolling away.
Single, married, divorced, kids, pets, I don't care what your situation is, I grow tired of the "young and accommodating" being assumed as slave labor. And the sad reality of that is they truly feel they have to kill themselves working 80 hours a week just to impress someone.
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You should come work for my company, or the company I worked for last year. You won't have to work 80 hours per week (or even 50 or 60) to impress us. I don't think I've ever worked more than 45.
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I would think the appeal for tech companies wouldn't be too far off from the appeal for a lot of businesses. The short answer is, there's a lot there.
It's not a small thing that there are a lot of people there. This means a large talent pool to recruit from. It also means that there's a certain draw for recruiting people from elsewhere, if we assume that NYC is considered a cool and desirable place to live. It also means that there are a lot of potential business contacts nearby, lots of potential busi
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california is expensive as well but they have ridiculous tax breaks for R&D which make starting a tech company profitable. i bet NYC and NY State have similar tax breaks.
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NYC and other big cities are really big because there's a lot of people there. And there's a lot of people there because a lot of people want to live there, despite the high cost of living. Small places are small because they have few people; few people want to live there despite the low rents and open spaces.
And while "people" includes developers and engineers of course, it also includes startup founders. People will start new companies where they already live, or where they want to live. Which, for the ma
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NYC and other big cities are really big because there's a lot of people there. And there's a lot of people there because a lot of people want to live there, despite the high cost of living. Small places are small because they have few people; few people want to live there despite the low rents and open spaces.
I disagree; it's not necessarily that simple. Lots of people would like to live elsewhere, but they live where they do because that's where their work is. Companies (in their industry) tend to cluste
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Re:What's the appeal? -- you need to RTFA (Score:3)
What's the appeal? -- you need to RTFA
You need to read the fine article. The locations in Brooklyn are subsidized, both through actual rent subsidy, and temporary tax exemptions being extended to tech companies: NYC wants these businesses moving in, and they want it in a rather large way, since they don't see bodegas, taxi companies, or a lot of other non-tech businesses as being a growth industry for increasing the tax base.
Without a huge investment in a redevelopment effort to knock down buildings and gr
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Why is it bad to give them real estate subsidies? Real estate taxes are not the primary revenue generator of city income.
I'm not sure you realize how important it is that NYC diversify its economy. 20% of our tax base comes from wall street. Not simply the corporate taxes, but the salaries and bonuses. When they take a hit, the city can face some very real financial trouble. The goal of these tax breaks are not to attract one or two big companies, but to foster a community of startups by reducing capital r
Doesn't centralizing IT firms seem just a bit... (Score:2)
stupid?
In a day and age fairly decent telecommuting options are available, it appears that the IT industry is heading in exactly the opposite direction, towards physical concentration into technological hubs in a misguided attempt to recreate Silicon Valley.
Am I the only one who finds this ridiculous?
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There seems to be a trend now of eliminating telecommuting. Yahoo infamously banned all telecommuting when Marisa Meyer took over as CEO. I was a telecommuter at my last company, and they were bought out by a much larger company that seemed to be quietly pushing out all the telecommuters and not hiring any new ones. Companies like the ability to have teams in disparate geographical locations, but they want all the workers in boring cubicles in corporate offices, where managers can watch over them.
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Bloomberg is the best mayor in the history of NYC.
Not a fan of his soda stchick, but the man has done so many great things it was tolerable.
What Startup in the Right Mind... (Score:3)
...would set up shop in a locality that is designed to increase your cash burn rate by orders of magnitude?
What does that say about the management?
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I work for a wonderful company that isn't anywhere near any other major tech company, and while we can't hire people fast enough because the allure of living where we are isn't exactly superb, you can't beet a 5 minute drive to a place that pays you extremely well.
There's more than one reason you can't hire enough people: 1) lots of people probably don't care for your particular location. Where exactly are you located anyway? and 2) if you're the only tech company in the area, that's a stupid place to rel
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Silicon Valley is not just a place with a bunch of nerds working in an internet factory, its an ecosystem of cultural diversity built around technology, art and science.
Cultural diversity? You mean that not everybody in SV is white bread? Somewhere I heard a rumor that it's not the only place in the US like that.
Pray tell which art you speak of. I think there's a museum in SF. NYC's rumored to have more than one. Any other use of the word is hype.
Science is also not a biggie in SV. Tech yes, but not much science, other than what you'd expect to find at a couple of highly rated universities. Again, rumors abound of those places outside the province of SV.
P.S. This [wikipedia.org] is an eco
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Silicon Valley is not just a place with a bunch of nerds working in an internet factory, its an ecosystem of cultural diversity built around technology, art and science.
Sure it is. Here's what I heard when I was there. "Silicon Valley is a great place to work, but you wouldn't want to live there." That matches my experiences with the place.
San Francisco apparently has some sort of culture (since that keeps getting talked about on Slashdot), but the rest of the Valley is standard urban sprawl and copious office space though with unusual opportunities for used high tech equipment.
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I've been 'everywhere'. The 'burbs are the same everywhere.
Sydney or Kansas City...same. Boring.
What are they chasing (Score:2)
The dot-com bubble, at least, was understandable: a "gold rush" in a new frontier. But what is everyone chasing now? Is it a bubble for its own sake? Or is it a legitimate unleashing of capital pent up from the 2008 global financial crisis?
I'm guessing the former. From xconomy.com [xconomy.com] (emphasis added):
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I couldn't even find a list of Brooklyn startups.
Cause we don't bother telling the rubes. If ya ain't in da neighborhood, ya ain't worth talkin' to.
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With AR picking up steam, there's lots of room for innovation. You may find incremental improvements on old ideas in the internet landscape, but finding new ways to blur the lines between the digital and real is the upcoming frontier.
Not sure if that's the kind of company they want to attract, but if there is a new bubble to spring up, it's likely that unless it's something built around the 3D printing they mention. I did hear an NPR story recently about a guy working on prosthetics for kids using 3D printi
say thanks to the bail outs (Score:2)
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If they didn't get the huge subsidy they got, they'd be forced to consolidate the floors and rent out the half of the floors in those buildings
Who is subsidizing their rent?
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Who is subsidizing their rent?
Their subsidies are not earmarked for rent. They are general-purpose subsidies. But they allow them this kind of wastefulness of (essentially public) resources.
NYC Energy (Score:5, Insightful)
Another poster pointed out that access to a robust talent pool is a key reason why you'd want to locate a startup in NYC. There is another reason, too. It's not just the tech talent pool that factors into the success of your venture, it's the talent pool in other, closely related industries like design. In New York there's a lot of cross-over that leads to surprising and creative solutions. In every discipline you have the best professionals in the world pushing the envelope, and that both drives and inspires you beyond what you'd be capable of in a sparser, thinner environment. New York has an energy that I have never felt in any other world city, not in Paris, not in Tokyo, not in Shanghai.
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You're just getting stronger coke in NYC.
slight logical problem (Score:2)
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I know when I think of the best way to start a new company or open a new branch or expand my new business, the first thing that comes to mind is open it in the most expensive area of one of the most expensive states with the most expensive rent and property costs.
So you're opening it in SV or SF?
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No cutting edge tech person wants to work in Brooklyn when they can work in Manhattan.
Manhattan is where we send the rubes that don't know any better. Ed Norton got it right when he told a reporter where he lived: the garden spot of the world, Brooklyn USA!
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Brooklyn is a jail. And every inmate is just taking pride in their own cell block.
No, everybody who doesn't live in Manhattan is a bridge-and-tunnel person. Or maybe it's really bad, and you're from Staten Island. Might as well be in Joisey!
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Have fun cow tipping.
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NYC hicks.
If you think the world ends at the border of your home town you are a hick. Even if your 'home town' is NYC.
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NYC hicks.
If you think the world ends at the border of your home town you are a hick. Even if your 'home town' is NYC.
No offense, but your geography is lacking. See this map [wordpress.com].
Re:Fuhgeddaboudit (Score:4, Informative)
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You forgot about everyone who lives above 14th st. Oh, and those below Canal. All B&T :)
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Its gotten much better and is clearly next on the gentrification list. Its completely safe now but could use some better restaurants.
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Williamsburg is much more expensive then SOHO now.
Even better you don't need to take the F or A. 5 minutes to USQ.
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wants to work or live in NYC?
Me.
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Yep. Its really great.
Love the west coast too, but I hate being in cars.
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Actually the second "Silicon Valley" is Boulder Colorado.
Sure it is, everybody knows that.
Everybody seems to have some place they like and claim it'll be the next SV because there are a few tech companies there. But here's a hint: it ain't gonna be Boulder. I don't think it'll be NYC either, or certainly not the full scope of SV. NYC is a good place for various business service startups and related software - there is actually nothing new about that. Maybe it's good for social networking garbage as long as that bubble lasts, since NYC is a place to find cool kids
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never heard of the Brooklyn Navy Yard before. didn't know New York City had a navy base. i've heard of the Battery fort but not the Navy Yard.
The Brooklyn Navy Yard [wikipedia.org] was actually a naval shipyard rather than a regular base.
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There are no unions in NYC tech startups. Reducing RE taxes is just that. Bloomberg is just trying to encourage as many new companies to form here as possible.
Its had a tremendous effect across the city.
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No thanks?