By that measure, yes, I do think most of the major metros in the US are corrupt. It is a by-product of the loss of genuinely productive jobs in the country, an

By that measure, yes, I do think most of the major metros in the US are corrupt. It is a by-product of the loss of genuinely productive jobs in the country, and the rise of the "jobs" that had to replace them, because as a nation, the U.S. is violently allergic to any form of "unearned" welfare system. So the largest portion of the welfare system takes the form of pointless, overpaid, make-work government jobs. The military-industrial complex is similar, providing jobs for people leaving the military with no experience applicable towards ordinary businesses. It's welfare for veterans, but they have to work for it, so that's okay. It impacts ordinary citizens by raising their taxes and making the siting of production facilities in that locale even less attractive to companies, which tends to compound the problem. Real jobs leave. Fake jobs spring up. Companies that offer real jobs get squeezed harder to pay for the fake jobs. When they finally reach a breaking point, they leave and take the jobs with them. Spiral further down and repeat. This gets thrown around on HN a lot, but the root cause of the problem is the implicit and seemingly unassailable assumption that everyone has to work in order to eat. People actually get angry at the idea that someone might get the minimum portion of life's necessities without sweating on them first. Until that is addressed, no city in the US is totally safe for a business founded to do productive work, and the safest cities are those where enough new businesses are founded to employ all the people who would otherwise be forced to do make-work jobs to survive. And I think that's why people want to found companies in places that are already considered to be friendly to startups. The tightness of the labor market is not a bug; it's a feature. It means that more of your taxes go to infrastructure and vital services, and less to stealth welfare. The best place to start a business is one that doesn't need for you to start it there.