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The problem is it's scary to live in a city that only has one employer offering jobs in your field. My wife and I moved to a new city last year, and while we considered a lot of smaller cities, it ultimately wasn't worth the risk to live someplace that only had a couple prospective employers.

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That sounds more like a rural town, what kind of city only has a single employer? I grew up and lived in one of ~400,000 (there are 47 US cities over this size) people which is small for a city and there were many potential employers. Not as many as larger cities of course and many were on the more boutique side of the spectrum, but there were enough opportunities and the lower pay was a better deal when adjusted for cost of living.

Not single employer in general, single employer in a person's field. That's not an unreasonable concern when a person's field is tech related, and we're talking about less populated areas.

You make a really great point, and I myself have been victim of losing a tech job that brought me two-thousand miles from home. Thankfully my company gave me a large enough severance to move myself and my belongings back to my home state.

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