One crucial item is not listed - weather. For people who migrate from all over the world, including places with even better weather, CA weather is a happy compromise. It is sunny for much of the year, there is rain in the spring months, the air is dry, and temperatures rarely swing to extremes.

Virginia certainly doesn't have that.

What's VA's stance on enforcing non-compete agreements? This seemingly innocuous thing really accounts for a lot of the Bay Area's success. Innovative, fabulously successful companies have been repeatedly founded and nurtured here because of the cross-pollination of ideas and competition engendered by CA's refusal to honor non-competes.

VA has a couple things going for it, as far as I can tell:

- Plentiful network connectivity and data centers (many east-coast data centers are sited in a couple spots in VA).

- A large government sector, including many agencies that are tasked with technical work for the federal government, and the educated workforce that goes with it. Perhaps it's a double-edged sword: the region is a bit too dependent on Government largesse. What is interesting is that most no-one talks about how the Federal Government has played an outsize role in nurturing nascent technology innovations and companies (via government contracts and outright funding via In-Q-Tel and such) in the Bay Area. It goes very much against the current ethos of employee activism against DoD projects. In this respect, the Bay Area and VA share a similarity.

Virginia does not have many of the things from both lists. Especially not a ban on non competes or even a fraction of the other pro labor laws.

I have family in the Northern Neck. Virginia definitely sees winter weather California doesn't!

But on the other hand, it does have proximity to DC...