I love Chicago, you just can't beat this city for the kind of value you get for the price. The closest competitor is New York in terms of food and culture, but

I love Chicago, you just can't beat this city for the kind of value you get for the price. The closest competitor is New York in terms of food and culture, but the costs are astronomically higher. When I'm contacted by a job recruiter for a position that pays more, but requires moving to somewhere like Mountain View, I will rarely entertain the idea. Sure, I'll fly into the office, I'll do it quite regularly actually, but there's no way I'm picking up and moving to a city with considerably less to offer, yet which costs substantially more. I understand the value of social capital, and working with people face to face. But how often does that really need to happen? As developers, our job is ultimately to write code, and that can happen anywhere.