Every comment in here seems to be missing the obvious. Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Mountain View, Cupertino and San Francisco have the most successful companies in the US/world. Further, the concentration of talent feeds back on itself as people that move here get addicted to the fact that they can meet with almost anyone in the tech world that matters in an hour. Hell, when people visit me in Los Altos I take them on a driving tour where we check out Apple, Yahoo, Google, Facebook and finally through Palo Alto to Stanford before getting back to my house in about an hour. If you are a developer you should move here and leverage the network that exists. I moved to SF in 1996 to be a software engineer at WebLogic from consulting in Chicago and I can tell you that remotely working for some company would never, ever have given me the opportunities that actually meeting with people in the Bay Area has given me.

Further, my kids go to Cupertino public schools and they are some of the best in the nation. It is amazing how stringently they enforce the residency requirement, even to the point of visiting the homes of students who they suspect don't live in the district. Palo Alto schools are also very good though lots of people send their kids to the private schools there and in Menlo Park.

Someone also mentioned the outdoor opportunities. It is amazing how close the wilderness is to almost anywhere in the Bay Area. I can get to the beach, the mountains, or a redwood forest within an hour.