Topic: Would you recommend moving to your state?

[micah]

I've mentioned it before on here: I'm willing to move to another state.  My wife is on board now too.  Connecticut ranks last of the continental states for cost of living and its killing us.  The problem is that the business economy sucks here too so there's no competition in my field which means I can't find a better paying job in this state.  I've been looking quite a bit.

So the question is, where do we go?  I know more than one person who recently moved to North Carolina.  My father-in-law lives in Virginia and my brother is in Indianapolis.  Those are sort of our current three areas of focus.  Deep south and west coast are out of the picture because we'd like to still be a drivable distance back to the north east.

So would you recommend where you live?  Whats the job climate like? if you lived somewhere else, would you move to where you are now or are you wishing you could get out too?

Discuss.

[Mike]

California is great so yes.  I haven't lived in another state since I was 5.  As far as job climate I'd say it is pretty good.  If you can pass yourself off as a server programmer I know that a lot of people are looking.

[hans]

While I don't know that I'd actually recommend moving to Minnesota unless bizarre weather excites you, we do have a pretty healthy IT ecosystem in Minneapolis/St Paul area (more so in Minneapolis). I think we're somewhere in the 3% unemployment rate area. We have lots of heath care and banks and a pretty good number of startups and agency style shops too. Cost of living I think is pretty good too and housing is pretty pretty cheap the further out from the city you get. And I believe one of the south west suburbs was ranked best place to live in America.

Bunch of MN cities (just outside the Twin Cities area).
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/best-places/2012/top100/

[charlie]

California is great so yes.  I haven't lived in another state since I was 5.  As far as job climate I'd say it is pretty good.  If you can pass yourself off as a server programmer I know that a lot of people are looking.

I don't know much but I agree with this. Except I've lived here all my life. And I don't know anybody looking for a server programmer. And I don't really know the job climate. And the cost of living can be high here as well. But otherwise I'm pretty happy in California.

[ober]

Our weather (cleveland, ohio) isn't quite as harsh as it is in Minnesota, but it ain't great.  We get less sunshine because of the lakes but otherwise I'd bet it's not that much different from where you are now.  I don't regret moving here.  It's pretty cheap to live in general and there is a lot of medical/tech stuff in Cleveland... probably more than you realize.  The city isn't huge but has stuff to do and you're not far from the east coast.  It's also not far from other major cities.  I can be in detroit in about 2 hours, Chicago or Indianapolis in 5/6.  I'd say you could probably get a decent job here fairly easily.  My father-in-law said that being forced to move here from Long Island because of a job was the best thing that ever happened to him.

[Mike]

California is great so yes.  I haven't lived in another state since I was 5.  As far as job climate I'd say it is pretty good.  If you can pass yourself off as a server programmer I know that a lot of people are looking.

I don't know much but I agree with this. Except I've lived here all my life. And I don't know anybody looking for a server programmer. And I don't really know the job climate. And the cost of living can be high here as well. But otherwise I'm pretty happy in California.

Want me to forward my recruiters on to you?

[charlie]

Want me to forward my recruiters on to you?

Ha ha...


No.

[Perspective]

Canada is a short drive to the north Our economy is in good shape and there's lot's of tech jobs in the Toronto and Ottawa areas. Health care here is significantly less than what you're paying

[Mike]

And they have maple syrup!

[Jake]

I would not recommend moving to Chicago - I've expressed the reasons many times before. [long pause] However, job market is pretty good at this time. If you can't find a job in Chicago you're not looking very hard. Housing is starting to pick up as well.

I would recommend moving to Colorado though! Boulder and CO Springs are big IT hubs. HP is right around the corner in Fort Collins. As you know, I would move to CO in a heartbeat...

[JaWiB]

I would recommend moving here, but it's the west coast, so....

I also enjoyed living in CO but as I recall the cost of living is not exactly low in Boulder, so you'd need a good job lined up first I'd imagine

[drakkenkorin]

TX - no state income tax, low property values, low cost of living, lots of incentives (tax breaks) for business and we've been growing in the IT & healthcare/IT fields in Central & South Texas.

But all your family will be required to own guns and be able to use them periodically to demonstrate they work ;-)

But it's really far to the NE, but plenty of airports!

But it's really hot.  Like boardering on hell hot.  In the summer we've averaged over a 100 days with the high over 100F.  Winters are mild (in S TX) and it only really gets cold for a couple of week around Jan - Feb then it's summer again.

All the hipsters and liberals are in Austin, the rest of the state is pretty much as red as you can get.

[webwhy]

Northwest Arkansas (i currently live in bentonville)

Pros:
lots of (traditional) jobs in IT with companies that satellite Wal-mart's headquarters. Java and C# are still primary skills, but that is changing. Small start-up scene (live everywhere these days) that seems to be gaining traction. These start ups and agency jobs are where PHP, Python, Ruby and Javascript are wanted. Decent pay for Senior devs (85K to 100K) range. Cost of living is super low. New homes can be found in surrounding communities can be purchased for as little as $70 a square foot! Very low crime. generally family friendly highly professional communities. Near a center of learning/college town (Fayetteville). Nice environment with plenty of outdoor activities. Decent weather (compared to TX or central AR). Very clean (everything's mostly new)

Cons:
no professional sports teams so college is king...religious (bad for me anyway), no diversity (no black people. latinos are prevalent, but still seem marginalized. small asian, which seems to be growing). air travel can be a pain. very few direct flights out of XNA especially to the east coast. occasional exposure to "real" arkansas (that's just as scary as it sounds). oh yeah...it's in arkansas...

overall: Day to day life is very good. A senior dev salary goes very far with small mortgages and lower food costs. Lots of smart people from all over the country reduces the exposure to "real" arkansas, which helps a lot.