You would have to pay me an absurd amount of money to move back to the midwest.
Not everyone has the same priorities as me, but I think it's a mistake to think people are only moving to those places because of jobs.
Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, Google, and Twitter all have offices in the Detroit metro area.
Any medium sized city will have at least a few insurance companies looking for developers. Not to mention other random tech jobs and startups, especially if it's a college town. I worked in Lansing MI for 3 years after college and it was one of my favorite jobs I've ever had.
Madison Wisconsin, Omaha Nebraska, Minneapolis Minnesota, St. Louis Missouri, are all places in the Midwest that are going to have plenty of tech jobs.
Then of course, there's Chicago, which is a bit less affordable than the rest of the Midwest, but still better than San Francisco or NYC. They have a huge tech scene.
Sv isn't special anymore. You might not want to live in the Midwest. But plenty of talented people do. I would want a 7 figure salary to live in sv for many obvious reasons
Proximity to jobs, proximity to family, cost of living, whether you can legally work there, and safety all trump “niceness of place” for a majority of buyers/renters.
They are not the only nice places to live though? Theres plenty of other states that have nice areas and probably a lower crime rate altogether.
> You would have to pay me an absurd amount of money to move back to the midwest.
Or you benefit from the talen pools elsewhere... You can recruit local and not necessarily just people from one state. Lots of very capable developers across the country.