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.
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?