A key part of living in big cities is the optionality. Because some of these cities are so dense with engineers , investors etc that the probability of something positive happening to you is far higher than other cities. for e.g. the odds of getting a meeting with investors or getting feedback on a key product direction will be higher in dense cities such as SF.

Of course the tradeoff of that is the costs are higher. Very rarely do you find an arbitrage situation where the optionality of something positive happening to you is higher AND the cost of living is lower