I'm in New York. In 2005-7, it just seemed obvious that if you were young and wanted to have a career, you moved to the Valley or New York. However, I don't think it's that way anymore (if it ever was).
I'm trying to figure out where the future is, because the Bay Area's been parasitized by NIMBY and acq-hires and lost its vitality, and New York VC-istan's pretty damn uninspiring. Austin and Seattle seem like strong candidates.
I would also look at Atlanta, Boulder, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Detroit. The latter is a really interesting contrarian pick: ultra-cheap real estate, neat history, and an interesting subculture of hacker/maker types.
http://www.omnicorpdetroit.com
Its dangerous reputation is mostly just reputation, but don't leave valuables in your car. Vehicle smash-and-grab crime is very high.
The cost of living is (for now) cheaper than SV or NYC but housing is hard to come by and the live music scene is getting pushed out of its old stomping grounds by luxury condos every freaking block.
Eh, first things first… un jour…
On the bad side, there is still this feeling of lingering racism throughout the entire area. The city itself is very poor, with the exception of a few neighborhoods. And outside of those stable/safe neighborhoods (and even within them to some degree), the city has this vast feeling of emptiness. Like it's Berlin after the bombings but everyone left.
Real Estate values are so low that you literally have one guy (Dan Gilbert) building his own Delta City downtown. It's not a bad thing to have a billionaire so committed to making a great downtown, just a little odd and strange that no other regional wealth holders have really stepped up. Gilbert is doing his damnedest to make Detroit a place favorable for start-up entrepreneurs. He's associated with groups like TechTown, Detroit Venture Partners, and BizDom U. There's also a pretty reasonably sized 'old-school' tech economy here from the auto industry. IBM, HP and Microsoft have big offices in the suburbs. Lots of people here work on mainframes, industrial HR software, factory automation, and the like. If you want to make software that has effects on real physical objects, no better place to do it than here.
On the good side you will never find a more committed group of people than those who are working to make Detroit better. Groups like the Detroit Mower Gang and the Hub of Detroit are great. It's pretty inspiring what many of these groups are doing. Architecturally, Detroit is absolutely astounding. For the price of a 1br in San Francisco or Manhattan you can purchase yourself a beautiful mansion that your friends on the coasts could only dream of. At one point Detroit was referred to as the 'paris of the midwest', and it really shows in the buildings that remain. You probably won't ever have to worry about a lack of affordable housing. If you are looking for some international flavor, Canada is just across the border and Detroit is ~4 hours drive (or a train ride) from both Chicago and Toronto. The region also has the largest Arab population in the USA. As well as large Japanese, Indian, Korean, Mexican and Vietnamese population centers.
Detroit isn't like other cities where the people in the region associate with the Central city. Philly and Baltimore have bad reps but people in Montgomery County or Baltimore County still defend their city. Up until recently (and still in the older generation) many people in the suburbs of Detroit simply don't care about the Central City, and actually take pleasure in seeing it burn. Regionally, the greater Detroit area's economy is actually pretty ok. It's just that none (or very little) of that wealth made it through to the city.
So that's my spiel on Detroit.
Outside of those areas it can get pretty dicey depending. But ymmv. You have to know your neighbors and in some cases rely on their eyes in the neighborhoods.
I'd be curious to hear what ways you think Philly can improve.
It has a dangerous reputation for a reason. Detroit hasn't really been safe for 10+ years. I lived in the area for 25+. Nearly everyone I know that lived in or around the city was held up, saw gun crime, or mugged.
I know two people that were shot in the middle of the day for being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Luckily, neither of them were fatal.
Another issue is that if you do have an emergency, the police/ambulance most likely won't get to you for many hours.
If you want a good tech scene, pick a city like Ann Arbor or Grand Rapids.
I've found Ann Arbor to be sort of obnoxiously pretentious and expensive for what it is.
There are some things you can point to as indicators (e.g. rents have doubled). But I have a harder time gauging the sort of atmosphere/ethos and whether that's changed or I have.
I lived in Boston from 2005 to 2010 and thought it was fairly bad, but I can imagine the Valley being much worse.
http://detroitventurepartners.com/
(note I'm not affiliated with startups here at all, I actually have a boring corporate job in the suburbs. I just love seeing Detroit get back on its feet as a city)
Anyway, if you are at all interested in the startup world, want to live somewhere without all of the hubris and pomposity of the Bay Area, and somewhere with a reasonable cost-of-living and a nice climate, come check out the Triangle (Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill) area of North Carolina.
Despite what you may have heard, the entire state isn't a right-wing, christian fundamentalist, redneck backwater with nothing but hog farms, tobacco farms, and cotton. The Triangle area is home to the largest research park in the world[1], and has a burgeoning startup scene[2], especially around the revitalized downtown Durham[3][4]. And we just had another tech IPO from a Triangle area company today[5]. Heck, we even had a local company win $50,000 on a CNBC reality show[6].
Seriously, there's a lot going on here and it's a pretty nice area to live in. With all 3 of the vertices of the "triangle" being "college towns" to some extent (Durham: Duke U., Chapel Hill: UNC - Chapel Hill, Raleigh: NC State University) there are plenty of young people here, and with all the big companies in the park (IBM, Cisco, Glaxo, tons more) there is a very diverse and multi-cultural population as well. Durham/Chapel Hill rank as the #4 city on the "most educated city in the US" listings[7] as well. And Wake County (Raleigh/Cary) has some of the best public schools in the country[8]. So, yeah, while the stereotypes about the South may have some truth to them, NC (especially this part) probably isn't anything like what you'd expect if you haven't been here (or aren't from here).
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_Triangle_Park
[2]: http://www.downtowndurhamstartups.com/content/startup+direct...
[3]: http://exitevent.com/rediscovering-durhams-startup-scene-10-...
[4]: http://exitevent.com/index.asp
[5]: http://venturebeat.com/2013/05/23/channeladvisor-ipo/
[6]: http://blogs.newsobserver.com/food/pintful-mystery-brewing-w...
[7]: http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2011/08/30/the-10-most-e...
[8]: http://www.greatschools.org/find-a-school/moving/slideshows/...