I’ve been in Pittsburgh 6 years now - worked in local tech, currently a grad student at CMU. From my perspective, the “grassroots” community is a massive factor in the region’s success. I’ve gotten more out of the active and inclusive tech community then out of proximity to big-name companies or an influx of investors. I’m not saying those things aren’t important or don’t drive the creation of the community I benefit from, but my touchpoint with the tech scene has been motivated and approachable developers (and aspiring developers!).

Example: there’s a local meetup with 2,200 members (http://www.codeandsupply.co/) and weekly talks ranging from programming 101 to effectively scaling a micro-service architecture. They’re putting on a conference in August where I’ll be able to see Richard Stallman, Larry Wall, and Joe Armstrong speak for a $70 dollar ticket price (student price, regular tickets are still only a fraction of what you’d expect).