[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by brian_b

1. The tech scene in the city of Chicago is way too clubby and provincial. When I started 20 years ago out at Motorola in the undiverse suburbs, there were an order of magnitude more women and PoC working as engineers and engineering managers than I see now, in the diverse city and downtown. Instead of trying to lure more tech bros from Texas, these companies should be hiring talent that already lives here.

2. Taxes are not a real issue for people with tech worker salaries. In Texas, property taxes are every bit as obscene as Illinois, except that they are far more uniformly bad in Austin. If you choose to pay $20k in property tax in Illinois, well, that was a choice you made. Chicago taxes are half those in the suburbs, and each suburb is very different. I live in a suburbs that doesn’t even charge a property tax (just the base county and base school rates). And ask any tech worker in California making $250k+ if they’d like to trade their income tax for the 4.95% flat tax only on their federal AGI. LOL

Italian beef is best with a nice side cup of Au Jus and plenty of hot giardaniera peppers, on this point I agree