Do most engineers end up living in the suburbs?

College Majors Engineering Majors
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<p>Just looking at the various locations where engineers of this forum are living, I've realized a lot of them are usually in areas I've never heard of. Is that common for engineers? Is more work available out there or within an urban center? </p>

<p>As a New Yorker, it's become a necessity to live in a city with an efficient public transportation system which, IMO, only leaves Chicago, Boston and NYC. I don't even have my license yet and it wouldn't bother me if I never learned to drive a car. No offense to those that do, but I'd hate having to drive everywhere I want to go to. I just want to avoid the car.</p>

<p>This probably isn't realistic as projects are located in different areas I'll have to commute to these different locations by car.</p>

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<p>I know three engineers well. Two live in Chicago, one lives in Washington, DC. One of the Chicago ones doesn't drive. So it's definitely possible to live in the city and be an engineer. I imagine it also depends what kind of engineering you do.</p>

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<p>I think that's more of a personal choice rather than something that comes with the territory.</p>

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<p>Easton, I think what you are asking for is pretty tough because a lot of the tech centers in the country are basically suburbs. Silicon Valley, for example, is just one big sprawling suburb. </p>

<p>For example, here's what Paul Graham had to say about it.</p>

<p>"For all its power, Silicon Valley has a great weakness: the paradise Shockley found in 1956 is now one giant parking lot. San Francisco and Berkeley are great, but they're forty miles away. Silicon Valley proper is soul-crushing suburban sprawl. It has fabulous weather, which makes it significantly better than the soul-crushing sprawl of most other American cities. But a competitor that managed to avoid sprawl would have real leverage. "</p>

<p><a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/siliconvalley.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.paulgraham.com/siliconvalley.html&lt;/a>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/caterina/34637/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.flickr.com/photos/caterina/34637/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>I think maybe you should learn how to drive if, for no other reason, it would give you employment negotiating leverage. After all, if a company thinks that you might reasonably take a job in Silicon Valley, they might offer you more money to stay and work for term. But if they know that you can't even drive, then that threat is not credible, so they can screw you on pay.</p>