Tony Perkins says Silicon Valley is back. Hey, just got back from there last night. Is it back? Well, the traffic is back. Even on weekends. Jobs (and not Steve, heh) seem to be coming back, but there's plenty of open space in lots of those big industrial parks. The dirty little secret is that there's still a huge amount wrong. There are still tons of people out of work. Many for a very long time. My brother in law has all but given up. There are still people trying to leave. Tons of "for rent" and "for sale signs." Housing prices there are still over the top expensive (Maryam and I couldn't afford a home there).
But, the valley is still a great place to be for a geek. If you're a geek there are really only a handful of places in the world you can live and meet lots of geeks. Silicon Valley is still on the top of that list.
The weather is still the best in the world.
That said, I'm very happy to not be living there right now. It's going to be very hard for anyone but the most expensive employees to live there. To buy a three-bedroom house in a decent neighborhood you'd need to be making $150,000 at minimum (980 square foot houses in Santa Clara now sell for $500,000). I don't make that. Most of my friends and family don't make that. Translation: the pressures to give up your personal life and work two jobs just to pay the mortgage are very extreme.
[
The Scobleizer Weblog]
