Stable not the best word, apologies. Life stability was in my mind.

- stable health insurance and medical coverage.

- economy big & stable enough that when one job is lost, another can be found without substantial financial injury.

- geographically dense and large network of innovative people (this requires a good university - or two).

Essentially you need a place where you can take risks and fail without causing a total life crisis. that is why SV started as a thing: fruit farms with cheap land. Universities were nearby and the Cold War was in full force: a lot of funding was present. The interaction of knowledgeable people is a huge support base for increased research and innovation.

>Suburban Ohio is literally an order of magnitude cheaper than say San Francisco and Cleveland isn't that much more expensive or for that matter unstable.

Do you know what else is within 300 miles of Cleveland Ohio?

Absolutely nothing.

> Do you know what else is within 300 miles of Cleveland Ohio?

~50 million people live within 300 miles of Cleveland vs about ~16 million within 300 miles of SF.

https://www.freemaptools.com/find-population.htm

A circular radius of Cleveland is meaningless because half the circle is in Canada. A large portion of that population would be metro Toronto. On top of that the absolute numbers don't matter at all; it's about density.

New York City, Philidephia, Baltimore, Washington DC, Detroit, Cincinnati, Toronto, Indianapolis, Chicago.....

All of these are about 400 miles away, some less than 300.

And did you edit your comment, because I think it originally said 500 miles.

This is wrong and condescending.

Is it? Why?

I grew up in Akron, the former Rubber Capital of the World. There is literally nothing in Northeast Ohio but cornfields, soybeans, brutal winters, and rusting artifacts of the 20th century economy. Columbus could be a good choice for growing tech firms to add a second HQ due to OSU being a pretty decent school, but Cleveland really has nothing going for it. The geographical advantages that led to it's existence and growth during the industrial revolution have gone and will never return.

When did you move? I'm not going to argue that NE Ohio is the best place to live in the country or something, I was speaking very particularly about the region I was familiar with because it sounded like there were very broad statement being made.

You are still speaking a bit too strongly though. There is plenty of things in NEO. For starts world class museums and cultural institutions (having been rich in the past helps).I'm living in San Francisco right now, but I could definitely see myself going back someday

As pointed out in other comments, there are multiple large cities within a 300 mile radius. Even if there weren't, saying there is "nothing" there dismisses the real lives and businesses that are there.

South eastern Ohio has some nice nature. And even Toledo isn’t that bad.

Actually Columbus OH (2 hours from Cleveland) is considered the sweet-spot city, a third of US population lives less than 500 miles away from Columbus, OH.

Clean air?

Hint: America red is not the same as Chinese red. See:

http://aqicn.org/map/northamerica/

And compare to:

http://aqicn.org/map/china/