Best city in US to work and live for IT

[senthilis]

Which is the best city in US to work and live for IT professionals, in terms of Jobs available, Salary, Cost of Living (esp. Real Estate Cost), Weather, State Tax, Sales Tax etc.

Considering the RealEstate Cost in West/East Coast very high (some where between 0.5 to 1 million for a decent single family house), state income taxes (2 to 5% or more) and other costs, do you guys think it good idea to relocate to states like Texas, Florida where real estate is atleast 50% or less compared to CA/NY/CT/NJ and good weather, no state tax, less population density and lot more.

Any of you guys who live in Texas or Florida can give me some insight about the job prospects in your location, salary range, real estate cost, desi population.

[cool_r2i]

There are quite a few companies for IT professionals (if you are in telecom or related domain) in Dallas. I don't know much about the availability/market condition for job seekers.

[FreeSpirit]

I have lived in FL for the past seven years. Can't wait to get out of here. IT jobs are there mainly for developers and analysts. But salary is far lower than CA or NY. Also don't be fooled by lower house prices. For example in S. Florida median single family home price is above $350,000. But insurance and taxes will be astronomical. Typically taxes will be 7K and insurance will be atleast 4K for 350K house. Add to this higher cost of Auto Insurance. Also FL has one of the worst schools in the nation.

[bujjipandu]

We live in Florida and lived in North East for 5 years before moving here in 2002. We couldn't take the cost of living and long winters there.
No regrets for moving here.

If you are in healthcare always there are openings.
For IT even though the openings are limited in comparision with the big cities, if you have latest skills OR on the DB/SQL side there are good openings.
QA is flurishing now.

Most places I heard about they pay between $70k - $80k for 5 years exp.
For health care/Pharmacy it is in $100k range.
Miami, Tampa, Clearwater, st.petersburg, Orlando, Jacksonville are the cities where you find most of the jobs.

I found schools are getting good funding. Education entirely depends on where you choose to live. No waiting lists for daycares/after school pgms or magnet schools.

Advantages:

* Weather is good through out the year, feels closer to India.
* Outright You can save (5%) state tax on your earnings.
* Real estate: Still you can find a good house for less than $300k. Now is the best time to buy as it is a strong buyer market.
* On long run you can live here with little money.

Disadvantages:

* Not much Indian population as in big cities.
* Seasonal Hurricanes with increased property insurances.
* You will miss good Indian Restaurants.
* It takes 4 hours to travel to any other state, weekend trips are limited.
* General public is not well educated in comparision to north.
You have to choose a good locality when you settle.
* If you choose to live in a small town, people are not warm/friendly to foreign faces as mostly you find retired/old people in towns.

These are my personal experiences, hope this helps.

[Tweedledee]

No takers for the Raleigh/Durham area? It has good jobs & schools, educated population and low house prices.

[desihometown]

This is the only city in US where there is a Taj Hotel (yup Taj Palace Hotel group bought out the historic clocktower in Boston and converted this to a Taj Hotel!!)
[/quote]

Taj has 3 hotels in the US. One in San Francisco ( The Campton Place) and another in New York, apart from the one u mentioned.

[restlessdesi]

I beg to differ on the northeast. The 4 seasons stuff is a load of bull. It has only 2 kinds of weather, cold and very cold. And the 6 weeks of sunshine that passes of as summer, is when it is too warm to snow, so it rains. And the people of new england are the rudest I have ever met in the US. Most americans will agree. Perhaps it has something to do with the weather. I have lived for 8 years in Boston, and another 7 in several other parts of the country.

Living in Boston as a student is fun. If you are working, you are flung far away from boston, somewhere off I-28, or worse, off I-495. You need another plane ride to get to one of the airports (providence RI, manchester NH, or boston logan) IMO. Going to Boston then becomes an event by itself.

I have tried every weekend from May to August to get into the water at cape cod. Maybe I am a wuss but its never warm enough for me to truly enjoy the beach. New England is great if you are a serious ski fan. Otherwise, its just way too close to the north pole as far as I am concerned.

And show me a city with a population greater then 10000 in America and I will show you indians and indian restaurants in it. Yes, new england has IT jobs. But all you need is one. Try california, or north carolina or even colorado instead.

My 2 cents.

[RRS]

We lived in NE boston area for over a decade too. Job opportunities are good at mid and entry levels and some degree of difficulty exists for senior level positions. That was our POV and someone's mileage may vary.Also tech world is small in IT and telecom/networking space unlike silicon valley, so it's natural to develop groupism because of limited opportunities at the top and seems to overrule than meritocracy.

Indians have formed several associations like IAGB(GreaterBoston),IANH (very big Indian crowd in Nashua NH) but the assimilation with local populace is limited for majority and if one is not friendly/outgoing, the newcomer may confuse NE snobbery as subtle racism.They are not called 'Boston Brahmins' for nothing:-).Also except snow sports, there is not much you can do outdoor from Oct-March and except capecod beaches, beaches in NH/Northern MA are good only to see.

After moving to Bay Area, we have realized that public school education was much better and widespread in Mass suburbs and opportunities to get into good colleges are very high too as the whole NE belt has lot of good schools to apply for after high school.But my kid has assimilated very nicely with his school and kids in Bay Area and seems to be more happy relatively speaking and seems to think why we wasted so many years in spite of all the problems(his words)! That forces me to rate bay area higher than NE in spite of all the usual cons like high RE cost, higher state tax etc. Nothing beats the sublime weather ,Desi crowd everywhere and lots of choice for restaurants and jobs and no guilt in packing Indian cuisine for kid's lunch and the usual placement of kid's own happiness above ours :-) and believe me it took some time to join the bandwagon of bay area cheer leaders but now personally it seems moving away from NE was a blessing in disguise.

[Tweedledee]

I have lived in Florida, Texas and New Jersey. I believe

Now live in beautiful NorthEast!

I would not trade a day moving out of NorthEast (i.e., Boston). Living is expensive, it is cold (sometimes too damn cold) but hey the changing weather keeps you on your feet. Depending on the state you live in, taxes can be high or low. Massachussetts is also referred to as Taxachussetts. Then there is New Hampshire - the live free or die state, where there is no state income tax (if you live and work in NH) and no sales tax. In NH there is no State capital gains tax as well, though you pay dearly on property taxes.

[/quote]

because you have lived in NE for a while does not mean a new person will like it there. it is like saying I love chicago because I have lived there for a while. That is fallacious. if you compare bay area to NE, NE is only 10% cheaper than bay area, and has horrible weather. all this spirit of america stuff is ok for a few, not for most. desis will always be outsiders no matter where they live.

[VS007]

N.E sucks with the exception of NY city.