I'm living in Tokyo right now and I own a home in Seattle. In terms of housing and job market, Dallas, Texas is hard to beat. In Dallas the pay was good (the

I'm living in Tokyo right now and I own a home in Seattle. In terms of housing and job market, Dallas, Texas is hard to beat. In Dallas the pay was good (the average engineer will make a lot more money in Dallas than in Tokyo, and not really much difference between Seattle and Dallas) and the home prices in the Dallas area were amazing. Build a new home that's 2 to 3 times the size of a 40 year old home in Seattle and half (or more) of the price. Tokyo is out of the question - The quality of life here stinks. I'm paying $3,100 for a 700 sqft apartment in Shinjuku surrounded by an ocean of concrete (there are other good things here though). There are big downsides to Dallas which make it not ideal for living. In the end I'd pick Seattle as the best quality of life based on home pricing, pay, the natural environment, and low crime. An interesting note between Seattle and Dallas was the speed at which things are built. I've talked to builders who built in both areas and the amount of bureaucracy in Seattle is absurd compared to Dallas. One builder who's building fast food restaurants said he'd build out a store in Dallas before he could get bast the bureaucracy in the Seattle area -- I wonder how that compares to SFO and NYC?