Knowing people happens after 20 years in the industry.
It may very well be that the best way to kick start your career is to move to SF or some other big city. So be it. I did the first 20 years of my career in the Boston area.
I have no idea what you mean about websites being racist. For picking lower cost developers? It seems odd to call people who give work to people in other countries "racist". Isn't doing that exactly the opposite of racism?
Just try to win a project on any modern "freelancing" website and you will understand... personally i used to make solid money on Rent-A-Coder even before getting my CS degree and when they sell us to Freelancer, i started losing bids and the great bids were "closed" to only accept bid "first world developers" (ie US Developers) or limited to people that already paid for the website membership to get in so pretty much any bid today had like 20 indian developers working for 5c/hour.
It may very well be that the best way to kick start your career is to move to SF or some other big city. So be it. I did the first 20 years of my career in the Boston area.
I have no idea what you mean about websites being racist. For picking lower cost developers? It seems odd to call people who give work to people in other countries "racist". Isn't doing that exactly the opposite of racism?