I am not sure if the Bay Area is that (or any) better, food-wise, than Chicago, and I've tried most of the well-rated places in both... Matter of taste, of course.

For the difference in cost of living, I probably could fly myself from Chicago to Tahoe every week and still come out ahead. And to each his own, but I like looking in the window and knowing what season it is.

I'm not really a midwestern local, but of all the places I lived or visited in the US, I would certainly pick Chicago well ahead of Bay Area. It might be more "interesting" professionally (although I'd rather work on something actually useful, not the next Juicero or Theranos), but having some money left is pretty sweet, too.

> although I'd rather work on something actually useful, not the next Juicero or Theranos

Bay Area companies have made a lot of what we know of modern life in the 21st century possible. It's not just limited to IT either. This is the birthplace of biotech. It's a lot harder to take your comments seriously when this is what you're writing; it also shows that you're not familar with the professional side of the Bay Area. There are just a lot of companies as well as a big variety of them that give your professional life a lot more flexibilty. The concentration of companies also allow for more serendity i.e. it's not uncommon for people at Googles or FB to just meet by chance and end up working on something together. People are less risk averse and more open to new ideas. I can go on. Does this lead to ridiculous things? Of course. Mistakes are inevitable. At the same time, it's also how major breakthroughs are made.

There's a reason why a lot of things start here and not elsewhere. That said it's not totally exclusive to the valley; it's just no longer in the Midwest. Of course I could be missing something, and I've been totally wrong before and I could be wrong now or in a few years.

> For the difference in cost of living, I probably could fly myself from Chicago to Tahoe every week and still come out ahead

For SF, maybe; but the Bay Area is more than just SF. Outside of SF, Chicago is only about 20% - 30% cheaper than many other parts of the Bay Area metro.

SV does tend to exaggerate its importance. Part of the brand marketing, I guess. I also fail to see how Google and FB meeting to come up with new ways of stealing your private data is a good thing.

Seriously, sure, there are breakthroughs made in SV, too. But if you adjust for the signal/noise ratio with all the absolutely useless things that SV comes up with (and that's the majority of them -- exactly because it is only in SV that you can get financing and sometimes even sell for billions stuff like the aforementioned Juicero) you could find that cornfields of Illinois are just as innovative. They just have to come up with something that, you know, is useful.

As for prices... for anecdotal reference, I am paying about $1000 more a month for a two-bedroom on the outskirts of San Jose, in a crappy apartment cardboard apartment complex with no walking accessibility to anything, no public transport, and nothing to do than I did for a place in a Chicago midrise, with stuff like elevators and garages, 2 minutes from subway, 10 minutes walk from some of the best restaurants in the country, walking distance to downtown, real soundproofing etc. etc.

Sure, I guess Gilroy might compare with Chicago prices slightly better (but then, houses there are at least 2-3 times as expensive as a comparable Chicago suburb; and Chicago wouldn't stink of garlic, either). And a place 3 hours away from anything... why would I want to live there in the first place?

> I also fail to see how Google and FB meeting to come up with new ways of stealing your private data is a good thing.

It doesn't literally have to be just Google & FB. There are plenty of other companies here such as MS, Amazon, NVidia, Intel, AMD and so on. Having a large number of programmers, engineers, and scientists in one location tends to produce a lot of breakthroughs and innovation, similar to what happened with the glass makers in renaissance venice.

> SV does tend to exaggerate its importance. Part of the brand marketing,

Yes, I guess the place where the first commercially viable microprocessor and smart phone were created isn't very important. Most of the work of the foundation of what later became the internet was done here as well. There's a really long list of acheivements that overshadow the bread and circus that's inevitably forgotten.

> As for prices... for anecdotal reference, I am paying about $1000 more a month for a two-bedroom on the outskirts of San Jose

Again, I feel that you're missing (or continuing to ignore) my main point. Despite its problems, Chicago is probably still a great city. The problem is that it has a lot more competition (not including the SF Bay Area) in the 21st century.