It's a lifestyle choice. Personally, I like restoring old cars, remodeling my home, building robots. I couldn't do any of these things without being already wealthy if I lived in a big city, within walking distance to the grocery store and work.

I gladly commute so I can come home to something more than an apartment or condo, because that is all that is available or affordable.

> restoring old cars, remodeling my home, building robots.

May I ask what city/neighborhood you're in? I'm looking to escape from San Francisco to do that exact list of things.

That does sound like a nice life.

Priorities differ. Furthermore, not every job is in SOMA--or even in the Bay Area. Many tech jobs are in exurban areas an hour or more from the nearest metropolitan area. You can certainly choose not to work at one of those companies, but it limits one's options.

I don't live anywhere near SOMA. I live in Canada in one of the ten or so "tech cities" where one can reasonably get a job as a programmer.

Which is fine. But, at least in the US, many of the even "urban area" tech jobs are not within a city's public transit system etc. Personally, I work for a tech company which is about an hour outside of the local major city and that's pretty typical of many of the major tech jobs in the area.

There are ten tech cities in Canada? I thought there were like ten cities in total. :)

Some of them are more like tech villages.

I am considering moving to Canada from Silicon Valley, any suggestions?

Victoria is wonderful if you can afford to pay a shocking amount of money for a condo/house or tolerate living in student-grade housing well into your thirties. Otherwise, Kelowna is a beautiful town with more reasonable cost of living, a good urban core, terrific weather, and easy access to some top-notch nature.

Nice, thanks for the info. I am also considering good school and educated community areas in Canada, I saw MoneySense report and it seems Ottawa is a good place (ah weather I know), it seems Kelowna (Saw it mentioned before also) suits the bill here.

What are tech jobs in Kelowna? I can't imagine there are many tech jobs there at all. Or at least any tech jobs there that pay more than 30% of a similar job in major US cities, let alone SV.

That long commute only happens when you live outside of the expensive coastal city, but insist on working there.

I can probably drive to all those places (work, school, grocery) faster than you can walk to them. Had I been willing to live on a street with cars passing by, I could have been within a few hundred feet of work+school or the grocery store. As it is, they are all within 3 miles without really any traffic. Getting to work is 3 minutes. Getting to groceries is about 7 minutes, and I can actually bring back enough stuff for a large family. School would be 1 or 2 minutes.

Oh, as a bonus, I never face the threat of personal crime.

No, you face a worse threat: automobile accidents

http://www.nsc.org/learn/safety-knowledge/Pages/injury-facts...

For some people, spending most of your life in a polluted, noisy, shitty apartment is giving up more life than the commute to work. It is unfortunate that we have to make such terrible choices.