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Comment by vec | Hacker News Reader

Two years ago I moved from Albuquerque to Denver, explicitly for work related reasons. The difference in available engineering jobs is night and day.

ABQ is a starkly beautiful midsize city with an unusually high number of nuclear physicists. That's necessary but far from sufficient for being a tech center. And as far as I could tell, the city's ideal is for a relatively small number of relatively large employers, not in hundreds of 5-20 employee firms.

Besides, if you're interested in working for one of those firms, let alone starting one, Denver's only six or seven hours north.

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That's why I think Abq could be a budding tech hub with relatively few changes. There are some phds in the neighborhood and at least one good, affordable engineering college (Socorro/NMT). I'm guessing it's governmental policies (or lack of tax incentives) and a lack of at least one tech billionaire that likes the place keeping it down.

I mention that last part as I think Zappos being in LV has pulled some tech interest into LV.

Albuquerque does have reasonably good Internet infrastructure and the cost of living is low. But most of the tech employers are government contractors that require a security clearance, which is a turnoff for some. (If you lose your startup job and you don't have a clearance, you're screwed.)

We also have this good news/bad news airport situation: The airport is in the middle of town and it's VERY easy to get in and out of quickly. OTOH there are few direct flights anywhere -- the Bay area being a notable exception.

How is it possible they have few direct flights? It's an international airport. Anyway, that's the sort of thing that would change if it became a tech hub. I imagine that's all supply/demand. The infrastructure is already there.

Supply and demand. There are plenty of direct flights to hub cities (Dallas, Houston, Denver, Chicago, etc) but Albuquerque itself is not a hub city. So a trip to e.g. Boston from Albuquerque is an all-day slog.

As for the "international" aspect of ABQ, that's mostly wishful thinking. There might be a few flights to/from Mexico, but that's about it.

EDIT: Here's the list of nonstop destinations. Looks like there aren't any direct international flights, period. http://www.abqsunport.com/flightsairlines/destinations/

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