The U.S. Census Bureau recorded about 45,000 people who left the Bay Area from July 2016 to July 2017.

Many of these folks are making Reno their home. Why? The Reno Gazette Journal interviewed five Golden State transplants about why they were attracted to our area. They all work for tech startups and our quality of life was a major motivation to relocate. Many have been familiar with our region for years and witnessed the city’s RENOvation and improvement after the recession when some of the biggest tech names in the game came to the area.

Here are their stories.

Lindsey Dal Porto

Head of Talent, Bombora

A transplant from the Bay Area, Dal Porto couldn’t wait to escape her stressful lifestyle.

"A lot of people who work in San

More than 200 tech sector CEOs, executives and government leaders flock to Reno for the inaugural VentureBeat Blueprint event.

These tech superstars will examine Reno’s potential at holding the blueprint for emerging technology hubs at this invitation-only, three-day gathering. Their goal is to craft a plan for heartland cities and other areas that feel left behind by the ongoing growth of the industry.

After the 2016 presidential election, VentureBeat noticed an unusual trend with their website. Their traffic dropped by a drastic 20% for about two weeks. Their readers were more interested in knowing what was going on in the nation’s political realm. Along with the drop, Silicon Valley was under a lot of criticism. The west coast tech hub is

The Reno-Tahoe region has been on the rise in the media and housing is no exception.

While more jobs are being created in Northern Nevada, that means more people are coming to fill those jobs. While the median Reno housing market has been on the rise, what does that mean for the luxury market?

 Image courtesy of Dickson Realty

Only 3-4% of Reno-area home sales involve luxury homes with a price tag of $900,000 and up. That percentage is on the increase and there are predictions that the number of homes sales will double this year over 2017. Changes in the federal tax laws have already pushed up interest in the Reno market. Beginning this year, federal tax reform changes will cap interest rate deductions on mortgage debt up to $750,000 (down from

Northern Nevada has earned big headlines in the news as a major tech hub, but is it really the next Silicon Valley?

Image courtesy of the Reno-Sparks Chamber of Commerce

Particularly since Tesla began construction on its Gigafactory, Reno has had national headlines pegging it as the newest Silicon Valley. Lately, they’ve sounded something like this:

“For decades, the city was a gambling mecca. But when casinos fell on hard times, Reno struggled. The city has reinvented itself as a tech hub, thanks to recent arrivals like Tesla.”

That clip came from CBS This Morning as they touched on Reno’s economic improvements. And they are right – many big names in tech have moved, or expanded to northern Nevada in recent time including Apple, Switch

At the start of September, Amazon.com announced their plan to build a secondary North American headquarters.

The announcement has opened up a bidding war to be a second home for the online retailer.

“We expect HQ2 to be a full equal to our Seattle headquarters,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO, in a press release issued by the company. “Amazon HQ2 will bring billions of dollars in up-front and ongoing investments, and tens of thousands of high-paying jobs. We’re excited to find a second home.”

The state of Nevada has offered subsides, tax breaks and other incentives to land corporate footprints for Apple, Tesla, Panasonic, Switch and Google, along with others. The Amazon press release included a bulleted list of conditions for its new

Reno has been compared to Silicon Valley, however three successful startups explain why they favor the biggest little city.

Rising rents and crowded freeways have put tension on the American Dream in the Bay Area. Tech giants have staked their claim in the region and are enticing not only startups, but talented people who are striving for something more. U.S. Census data taken in the Bay Area showed an emigration in 2016. Educated tech workers are moving out of the area and many of them are coming here to Reno.

VentureBeat talked to three Reno startups about their growth outside of the tech metropolis of Silicon Valley.

TrainerRoad

Nate Pearson founded TrainerRoad on the simple idea that he was a broke college grad who couldn’t pay

Reno has repainted its image and now it’s challenging Silicon Valley with its attractive business structure.

“There was only one place to go, and that was up,” said Reno Mayor Hillary Schieve.

In 2011, unemployment peaked at nearly 14% when Governor Brian Sandoval signed a law aiming to diversify the state’s economy. He recognized that gambling wasn’t enough to support the state’s economy and a sustainable workforce.

Reno has scored some big wins, starting with a new, highly automated factory run by Ardagh Group SA. The factory produces 3.5 million cans of tomato paste and other food products in just one day. In 2014, Tesla chose Reno out of six other locations to build its greatly anticipated Gigafactory. The Gigafactory is the largest in

The world’s first high desert biome eco-district is planned for Reno, NV.

The initial phases have just been proposed by architect and developer Don J Clark Group in conjunction with the landscape architects Office of Cheryl Barton. A new $1.2 billion purpose-built neighborhood will transform West 2nd District in the heart of Reno.

By taking a series of underutilized lots, the project hopes to jumpstart an ecologically driven neighborhood with 1,900 housing units, 4,500 square feet of office space and 250,000 square feet of retail. Nearly 30 buildings will be included in the space and provide market-rate and workforce housing.

Courtesy of the Office of Cheryl Barton

Construction is aimed to connect to the surrounding nature by integrating

Apple has announced that they will double the size of their already massive data center just east of Reno.

Apple executive Mike Foulkes announced last week that the tech giant will invest an additional $1 billion in expanding its data center at the Reno Technology Park. The park sits in the Truckee River canyon to the easy of Sparks and is host to Apple’s existing data center along with cloud services company Rackspace.

“We’re excited to announce Apple will be increasing our investment by an additional $1 billion,” Foulkes said, stressing that it will bring “hundreds of jobs in operations and construction.”

Northern Nevada is becoming a familiar home to the booming data storage industry. Demands for iCloud storage has been on the rise and

Google, Inc. has purchased 1,210 acres of land at the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center.  

Per the documents filed last week in Storey County, the Silicon Valley tech giant spent nearly $29.1 million on the land in the same industrial park as Tesla. Governor Sandoval welcomed the high-profile company’s expansion into the state.

“Google is an internationally recognized and respected brand and one of the premier technology companies on the planet,” Sandoval said. “As with all businesses, the state stands ready as a willing and friendly partner in the development of this site.”

Several parcels of vacant land at the TRIC, just east of Reno, were snatched up by Google. One parcel is a whopping 662 acres and the other its slightly smaller