That piece is absurdly biased. There's no comparing living in San Francisco to Waterloo. The COL difference isn't just disappearing -- you're paying to live in lively metropolitan city.

Also I think it's funny when people position "number of startups" as an important factor. Just because your city has 30 five-man startups crammed into a coworking incubator doesn't mean I want to work for any of them.