I think Seattle has the best balance right now. It's expensive, yeah, but nowhere near fuxpensive. Single family homes average $400k. Rental market is a little crazy right now but you can still rent a 2-bedroom apartment for under $1,500/mo, whereas that won't even get you a studio in NYC. And you don't really need a car here if you live in the city or reasonably close to work, the bus system is decent.
There are tech startups and VCs here. If you're a good programmer and need a big software company job for the (pretty high) salary and benefits, then Microsoft and Amazon are headquartered here, Google is expanding their presence here (although you've obviously burned that bridge), and there are lots of other software and internet companies like Expedia, Adobe, Real, Redfin, Zillow, and even I Can Has Cheezburger? that employ a lot of programmers and are suffering from a talent shortage because UW can't crank out CS grads fast enough.
It also doesn't even rain as much here as it does on the East Coast.
So, basically, Seattle:
-has programming talent
-has a lot of jobs for programmers
-has VC capital
-has startups and startup incubators
-is not fuxpensive
-has ok weather if you don't mind it just being 50 degrees and cloudy 8 months out of the year.
There are tech startups and VCs here. If you're a good programmer and need a big software company job for the (pretty high) salary and benefits, then Microsoft and Amazon are headquartered here, Google is expanding their presence here (although you've obviously burned that bridge), and there are lots of other software and internet companies like Expedia, Adobe, Real, Redfin, Zillow, and even I Can Has Cheezburger? that employ a lot of programmers and are suffering from a talent shortage because UW can't crank out CS grads fast enough.
It also doesn't even rain as much here as it does on the East Coast.
So, basically, Seattle:
-has programming talent
-has a lot of jobs for programmers
-has VC capital
-has startups and startup incubators
-is not fuxpensive
-has ok weather if you don't mind it just being 50 degrees and cloudy 8 months out of the year.