Denver isn't gaining 10K people a day - that would be insane!

This article says 13K people in a year to Denver city & county: https://www.denverpost.com/2017/03/28/denvers-growth-spurt-s...

It looks like Colorado's population is around 5.7 million with an annual growth rate of 1.4% - so about 80K people per year for the state.

http://worldpopulationreview.com/states/colorado-population/

Do you know why is housing in Denver so expensive ?

It seems to have good density. Even small towns in Colorado look expensive.

Colorado has grown increasingly affluent. It has a GDP per capita above Australia, Sweden and Denmark. It's a very desirable location to move to. Simultaneously like a lot of the US, they haven't been building up new housing inventory very aggressively since the great recession.

Partly because most of the builders went under during & after the great recession. They don't quite need decades to come back, but it definitely leaves a ripple.

Nice small mountain towns, especially those near ski areas, are expensive. But towns and cities on the plains (e.g., Ft. Morgan) are pretty inexpensive. And southern Colorado cities like Pueblo and Colorado Springs are also a lot more inexpensive. Denver and Boulder are quite expensive.

Uh, there's nothing out in the eastern part of Colorado that qualifies as a city. Sterling, is like 10k people, if that. But anything east of Greeley is still relatively affordable.

Anything along the Front Range, Colorado Springs, and north, all the way up to Fort Collins, have seen huge increases in housing costs in the last 5 years. Denver and Boulder are expensive, yes, but the commuter (bedroom) communities, like Fort Collins, Longmont, Brighton, etc, have seen huge spikes in housing costs. Rentals in these areas, throughout my college career, were more than manageable. My rent TRIPLED when I moved out of my last college apartment. I moved from Greeley, to Fort Collins, which is consistently rated as like the best place to raise a family too. These communities have been relatively affordable until the last few years, when things have suddenly gotten a little out of control.

There's not enough new development, a huge demand for single family homes, and an influx of population has driven the housing market up and up. The Oil and Gas industry seemingly started the trend back in 2013-2014, but now, all sorts of businesses are opening up, there's just more demand. It's unfortunate for those of us just getting started in our careers, and definitely creates disdain for all the new-comers.

> Uh, there's nothing out in the eastern part of Colorado that qualifies as a city. Sterling, is like 10k people, if that.

You realize that both Ft. Morgan and Sterling call themselves cities? But I get your point. They are small in population compared to Front Range municipalities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_and_towns_in_Co...

I didn't realize that. I thought the term City was used mostly for places with larger populations. Thanks for the insight!

Foreign Investment is driving this.

The money got sucked out of the US economy (foreign manufacturing, high oil prices back in the '00's) - and now that wealth is consolidated, and they're investing in property all over the place; especially in US suburbs (and Canada), and it's jacking up demand so bad, that even very high-paying white-collar jobs can't realistically finance a house anymore. Oh- people can BUY the homes. They will have to stretch to pay for maintenance, save for kids' college, and their own retirement.

Only people who bought before the last bubble are really able to afford these homes. Or Doctors and Lawyers and executives.

The only way to beat this game, seems to be; if you're a rock-star, and can work out a remote gig, you can live in a cheap area, and still make "expensive area" money.

(and if you go for a company that's expanding to an area of low housing demand: they'll pay you less. AND. In 5-10 years when the economy hits a low spot, they'll shut your site down and lay you off. In any case, the GOOD projects, the kind that will boost your career, are not going to come to your backwater site. You would need to relocate to their main headquarters. Territorial battles are a real thing)

I've read about the foreign investors, but really want to believe that's only happening in places like CA, but I know that's not true.

Housing in Colorado isn't necessarily un-affordable, yet, it's just way over priced. Plus the demand continues to go up, causing pricing to rise. I know that in Northern Colorado, it sort of peaked back in 2016, and the rate at which prices are going up are slower than they were, but housing still isn't cheap.

(Luckily, I am fortunate enough to work in a developer role for a company, in an industry that is pretty rock solid, so I think getting laid off isn't a huge threat. I got laid off last year from HPE and managed to land on my feet. I have been working with a mortgage broker to try and buy something instead of paying sky high rents, but being a twenty-something, even with a decently high salary still makes this way harder than it would have been a few years earlier, even with a lower salary. )

FANG = Facebook, Apple, Netflix, Google? (Just based on https://www.acronymfinder.com/FANG.html - I hadn't heard that one before)

Yes though A is Amazon. It’s been used by the investing media to describe their ezcellent stock performance in recent years. Sometimes it’s FAANG to include Apple.

Google kind of ruined it by rename the parent company Alphabet though!

Yeah, FAAAN doesn't have quite the same ring to it :)

Try imagining William Shatner shouting it.

South Koreans are especially wary of that, due to FAAAN death.

This. You also have Pitt which has a pretty decent CS degree. People are friendly. Sports is great. I believe Apple and Google already have fairly significant offices in Pittsburgh.

If I was more liquid I'd be buying property in Pittsburgh.

Eh, as a Pitt graduate I can't really vouch for our CS degree. Most people I've talked to about it think it's actually getting worse recently, as we've hired more teaching professors who aren't good at teaching and not had too many upper-level electives. The program is also stuck in the Arts & Sciences school which puts a bit of a limit on how many CS classes you get to take. Where we really shine is biotechnology/medical devices.

Sports have been good, but the Pirates won't be anything to watch now that McCutchen's gone.

I love Pittsburgh and now is really a great time to invest in real estate here. Lots of places just outside downtown are really sprucing up like uptown, the North side, and Lawrenceville/Bloomfield.

Serious question: is 200 top level CS grads really all that significant? Seems like a pretty small number, given what is possible at larger state schools.

Even at a larger state school, only the top few percent would be comparable to CMU CS grads.

But CMU has been producing world class CS grads for decades now, and some % do stay to start their own ventures, and yet Pittsburgh is not (yet) in the same league as even the "Next Silicon Valley" list cities. (Seattle, LA, etc)

First, there will never be another "Silicon Valley". It's one of a kind.

Second, categorizing Seattle or LA as some kind of "up and coming" business area is disingenuous. Seattle has always had Microsoft, now also Amazon, and I'm sure many companies spun off from former employees of those.

LA is the second biggest city in the US, with all kinds of businesses and industries there. It's not trying to be the "Next Silicon Valley", it has it's own firmly established identity.

I note that all three points you make:

1. I agree with and 2. Don't contradict anything I said

The question at hand is whether there is reason to believe that Pittsburgh's future growth will outperform its past growth because of CMU's output.