scrubbedexpat091

Very similiar happening in Vancouver with tech companies moving it, great for tech workers, not so great for everyone else due to the increase in housing and general cost of living, your average Vancouver worker doesn't make tech level wages.

Cost of living and low wages seems to be an issue up and down the west coast of North America.

Moses2013

At least with Covid many tech workers can work from home and it will probably become the norm in the future. These tech companies might reduce office size or actually question if it makes sense to stay in expensive cities. This also means they can reduce wages in the future and many employees want to move out of the city anyway. It seems the suburb is becoming the new centre. I was watching an interesting programme about New York and since Covid many no longer see the advantage of staying there. Here also an article

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/30/n...ng-demand.html

markonline1

Have to say, I freakin love my little part of California. I have world class Motorsport and golf on my doorstep (2 of my biggest passions), amazing scenery just down the road with Big Sur and the Pacific Highway, weather is great (rarely gets below 50 or above 75, although everyone is panicking as it’s forecast to hit a balmy, for here, 85 LOL). There is a bit of entitlement, which gets on my tits. And the cost of housing here is skyrocketing. With C19, and people starting to work from home, possibly permanently, people are moving down from the Bay Area in droves. I think if we lived in any other part of the US, we’d be living like bloody kings!!!

scrubbedexpat091

Hopefully it helps Vancouver a bit if work from home becomes widespread.

Vancouver is the "cheaper" alternative for tech companies in part because well people will work for lower wages in Vancouver and the exchange rate with the US dollar helps companies, why pay someone 140k US when you can pay someone 90K CAD to do the same job.

Amazon has leased basically an entire office building in downtown Vancouver, something like 5,000 people will work there, how many are locals and Canadian's who knows.

johnwoo

I'd would have thought housing in Monterey would be comparable to the Bay Area. Carmel way higher.

username.exe

I wish I was wealthy! My wife and I work in the public sector, we worked our arses off for years, made sensible decisions and have done okay.
I agree, a society needs folks at all levels to participate and function, but what exactly counts as a 'true local'?
(Perhaps my wife, who is born and raised from here? But her family migrated to California - much like everyone else's...)

This is by no means a 'California' problem. I'm a Londoner and never had a snowball's chance of owning a decent place in a nice area. By the way, never considered myself a 'true local' there, either, even though I was born there and lived there for 30 years. London, like many parts of California, attracts talent and ambitious folks from around the world - and has prospered accordingly.

Moses2013

There's nothing wrong with that and by making sensible decisions you deserve what you achieved today. Your wife would certainly be a true local if born there and what I mean is those people who came with nothing and basically made the place what it is today. Not everybody was lucky to be able to buy a property and I can understand their frustration when suddenly in their eyes wealthy people come and price them out + many in the tech industry just live their life and don't care about culture, heritage etc.
As you say, this is not only a problem in California and you can even see the same in Spain. We are also far from wealthy but managed to buy a plot and build a small holiday home there, so maybe some locals aren't happy. At least in the area there is still enough cheaper land and tourism is the only real industry, so most people don't see us as a threat. This is different in cities like Barcelona or islands like Mallorca, when locals are priced out completely (A bit like London maybe).

Steerpike

The reason the Bay Area is so successful from a 'tech' perspective is due to some weird elements of 'critical mass'. There are so many tech companies and tech-heads here, they spin off new companies all the time. I've experienced it myself. When a new company with a great idea starts up, they locate themselves smack in the middle of the most expensive place on earth ... why? Because that's where they can hire the best, most experienced people, and also people they already know and worked with at other companies. Not long ago Walmart decided they wanted to compete in the online marketplace space, so they opened a huge tech office in Sunnyvale (part of Silicon Valley). This is a company headquartered in Arkansas ... possibly the definition of 'affordable'. Facebook started on the east coast, but moved to SV because of the need for talent.

If, indeed, Covid causes everyone to start working from home, the whole 'critical mass' thing could change.

markonline1

It’s expensive down here, but I don’t think we are at Bay Area levels, at least not the nicer areas. I guess areas like Concord and Pittsburg are a little cheaper.

scrubbedexpat099

Long way north, looks like I will be going to LA sometime over the winter but direct route is though 4 Corners and Las Vegas, not as far as I thought, never been South of Hurst Castle so will be interesting to see if the reality matched the hype.

Certainly will be significantly warmer, first snow due Tuesday.

S Folinsky

Shortest route from Denver area is I-70 East and then I-15 South. Around San Bernardino/Riverside connect with appropriate eastbound road (I-210, I-10, CA 60).

Good midway stop is in Cedar City or St. George UT.

Going via 4 Corners is longer but avoids Las Vegas.

scrubbedexpat099

I am south west of Denver so skews the numbers slightly, probably the weather will determine which route, getting over the passes.