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One thing I've been thinking about lately is the commonalities in much of the "Rust Belt"... the urban planning decisions made at their peak, the housing stock, the general culture. It's interesting to think about the era when cities like Detroit, Buffalo and Cleveland were the Factory Belt, boomtowns driving American progress.
It isn't a leap to analogize those cities in their heyday to the Seattles and Austins of today, cities whose growth is predicated on employment opportunities in a handful of booming sectors. My question is, are those cities going to be caught up in the same cycle when new technology or (more likely) mass offshoring changes the dynamics of those industries? There really isn't a historical precedent for the impact deindustrialization has had on American cities, but could those cities serve as a future precedent for the kind of decline and decay that we can expect to see going forward in industry-focused boomtowns?
I think we are many decades away from a total bust in technology jobs. But I do think that we are getting near a more normalized industry.
In ten years, I see technology jobs losing their high paying/elite status as the industry grows. Companies will no longer need to be located in a tech hub, and existing companies will decide to move to places with a cheaper COL. Advances in programming and automation will reduce the need for a specialized work force. Programming will be the new "middle class/assembly line worker" of the modern age.
People want to live in San Francisco, Seattle, etc. That should stop any real serious outflow.
Boeing dropped 70,000 jobs in Seattle once in about 1970. With multipliers it was something like 20% of the local economy. I believe the number of households in the metro barely dropped for one year, and the 70s were a booming decade like any other.
When people want to live in a city, some people view any drop in its fortunes relative to where they are as an opportunity. Housing is suddenly on 30% more than it costs back home? Time to move.
There's also the retirement, second-home, and offshore factor. For example, Miami and Vancouver have boomed far more than their local job situations would suggest.
SF is a pretty diverse economy...it is still a fairly large financial hub and port. Seattle will probably(hopefully) diversify more in the next 10 years.
Austin is interesting though. I don't know if it's rapid growth is natural or solely because of a booming Tech industry. It's "cool" now but I feel like any Tech city is considered "cool" and if Tech does "normalize", the "cool" cities of today won't be cool tomorrow.
I think we are many decades away from a total bust in technology jobs. But I do think that we are getting near a more normalized industry.
In ten years, I see technology jobs losing their high paying/elite status as the industry grows. Companies will no longer need to be located in a tech hub, and existing companies will decide to move to places with a cheaper COL. Advances in programming and automation will reduce the need for a specialized work force. Programming will be the new "middle class/assembly line worker" of the modern age.
There are already many tiers of tech work, but we haven't even scratched the surface of what software can do with self driving vehicles, drones, etc. The best software developers (not programmers, those are the mediocre workers that you're thinking of) want to live in the Bay Area, Seattle, Austin, NYC, etc. That's not going to change anytime soon.
This is an interesting article, for those interested in the history of Seattle's struggle, in the early 70's.
It's almost unreal, compared to the Seattle we know today.
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