To add something to this discussion: On my South Florida tropical island, rent is 1500-1900 per month, depending on whether you live on a canal, or waterfront (

To add something to this discussion: On my South Florida tropical island, rent is 1500-1900 per month, depending on whether you live on a canal, or waterfront (nevermind living on dry land, which is much, much more reasonable). For most of a decade, I've telecommuted and received, well, let's round it down to the San Francisco 119K per year, and yes that's W2, and paid 22.8K/year a month for rent. Snow? Ice? haven't seen them in years. Jackets? Surely you jest, I shiver at 73 degrees. My point isn't that San Francisco is worse than this or that, but that every day I read that it is the center of the universe, and recruiters used to tell me "but you _have_ to be here, this is the place to _be_" which is terribly unconvincing for persons of my particular persuasion, nevermind that I don't care for wading through bums and traffic. TL;DR it's a huge universe, and you don't have to put up with California to develop software in it.