Haha, as someone who would prefer to live on the west coast for getting my career started (but ultimately wants to settle down in the South since family is near

Haha, as someone who would prefer to live on the west coast for getting my career started (but ultimately wants to settle down in the South since family is nearby), those cities are my top choices as well. I'm currently in Knoxville finishing up grad school, but I've been scouting out possible technology-oriented cities in the South (unfortunately, there aren't many). I toured Chattanooga the other day. It's a cute town, but it felt kind of small and somewhat empty to me. I lived in Atlanta for 4 years during my undergrad. Despite being only 30 minutes away from my immediate family, Atlanta is one of my least favorite cities in the US. Too much crime, too little ambition (at least compared to SF and NY), horrible traffic, and not much "living" going on within the city. Everyone basically commutes into it from the suburbs for work and then drives back out in the evening. If you wander around SF, you see all kinds of people out and about. In Atlanta, everyone's cooped up inside; the sidewalks are mostly empty. Raleigh, Cary, and Charlotte are nice, but they're a little too suburban/vanilla for my taste. Nashville is quickly becoming my top choice (if I'm unable to live in San Francisco or Austin, TX). I have some family there, and I recently read that it's one of the fastest growing cities for 25-30 year olds interesting in technology. So, I don't know... as someone who's lived here almost all my life, I just wish the South had at least one big city that was world class in something.