This could describe Seattle, Portland, Austin, Denver (from my experience) in the US, and a myriad of other places worldwide.
We're politically liberal (sometimes to a fault), not any more optimistic than average (and quite possibly less), and definitely not what I'd call "energetic". It'd be more accurate to say the PNW has positioned itself as the laid-back alternative to SF. I've known a couple companies who have left the area because they couldn't find enough people here in their particular field who wanted to really work hard.
On these particular axes (which may or may not be important to you), Seattle/Portland simply aren't in the same league as San Francisco or New York City. People in those cities are mercilessly open, optimistic, and energetic.
The problem is that the Bay Area might be full of more creative, interesting people, but the quality and cost of life down there is terrible (and nobody's fixing it), and the problems associated with that more than mitigates the benefits.
You meet smart people, but in order to pay their exorbitant rent they need to work long hours for companies that can pay them an enormous salary, and that's usually the big ones you know about already. That financial burdon, combined with chronic transportation issues, prevents the congealing of people and free time required to form the really creative new ideas and companies, and you just end up with whatever the VCs want to throw a pile of money onto.
So naturally, the thing I do find the area useful for is companies that could be considered VC/10x plays. But I feel like most companies, even very successful ones, don't fall under that criteria. And it only works for companies VCs are willing to fund, limiting your ability to get creative and outside the box.
My advice would be to go there for 1-2 years after college, then decide if all the problems with the area are worth it. Anecdotally, most people I've known eventually get sick of it and leave. And infact the problems are so bad now that the area has started losing population.
I think in order for the Bay Area (and California in general) to really become good for creatives, they need to take a deep existential look at themselves and really decide that they're willing to solve the problems. That means making radical, Marshall Plan levels of reform to zoning and property tax laws, establishment of strong regional metropolitan governments, and significant investments in better transportation. I have zero confidence in the idea that the region will continue to be successful unless they aggressively tackle these problems.
And this will never, ever happen. California is going to continue it's slide into something resembling the third world, where the ultra-rich elite 10% live in their exurban gated communities with armed guards, and a permanent underclass of service workers provides for their every need while barely scraping out an existence. The incentives pushing things in this direction are simply too great for any kind of change to happen. I've been here for 4 years now and have seen it visibly getting worse in that time. The place is completely unlivable. I'm now just biding my time to save for a down payment in Seattle or Portland, because the thought of buying a house here has literally become a punchline for even high income earners.
Good general rule of thumb is your cost of housing shouldn't exceed 30% of your income.
The 40x rule in New York (annual income must be at least 40x monthly rent) conveniently works out to be 30% too.
https://www.nakedapartments.com/guides/nyc/beginning-your-se...
The type of folks you want to meet, if you're interested in doing something that will be seen as important in a generation, are generally fairly apolitical. Politics (at least the hyper-partisan variety pursued in the U.S. today) consumes a lot of energy for the purpose of opposing other people who are expending a lot of energy. It makes sense that neither one of them makes much progress, though they generate much heat and noise in the process. Real change comes from people working on stuff so weird that nobody bothers to oppose them.