How significant did you feel the change was from Atlanta? And, as a better indicator, where in Atlanta did you live? I'm from North Atlanta, and I 'm curious to hear. PM me if you don't want to share location data with the world.

I grew up in cherokee county, went to UGA for undergrad and GT for grad school. Lived in midtown for a year and East Point for a year (it was cheap!). I came out to CA for a summer in undergrad and fell in love with the parks. Came out again for an internship in grad school and fell in love with a girl. Moved out here in 2007.

Compared to Georgia/Atlanta, the biggest changes I've noticed are: 1) everything is much much more expensive. a house that would be ~$200k-$250k inside the perimeter will cost ~$700k-$800k on the peninsula. houses in the $300-$400k range would probably go for $1-2mm out here. Average restaurant bills are ~$50 for my wife & I for what I would consider pretty "normal" places (we'd probably average $25-30 in comparable Atlanta restaurants). I'm lucky that my wife's job has on-site daycare for only $1500/month. The one exception is veggies--I routinely go to the local farmer's market and walk away with a week's worth of veggies for under $20. 2) at the same time, salaries are a lot higher. even if your housing/expenses take up the same percentage of your paycheck, your disposable income will generally go a lot further (an iPad costs what it costs anywhere in the U.S.) I've bought things since moving West that I probably never would've spent money on living in GA, just because I had that extra disposable income (i.e. flying to the UGA-Arizona State game a few years back). This can be a double-edged sword, though--if you want to do your own thing or start your own company, it will be MUCH harder to do that here than in Atlanta (making $50k in the app store is a hell of a lot cooler in Atlanta than it is in silicon valley) 3) people are generally pretty nice, but not interested at all in getting to know you or chatting randomly. we've been in the same house for 4 years now and barely know the neighbors 4) the amount of stuff within driving distance is really, really incredible--including the excellent state and county parks. people here are MUCH more interested in going outdoors on the weekends (whereas I found in GA people mostly just hang out on the weekends, maybe having a bbq or going to a lake). 5) if you're an engineer and decent at what you do, you'll never want for a job. 6) the work is a lot more high-energy -- i know engineers in ATL who work from 9-5 (or less) and more or less coast through the day... but are smart enough to get all their work done. that sort of attitude does not fly at all in silicon valley. if you feel like you're smarter than everyone around you in Atlanta, move out here and you'll be pleasantly surprised 7) if you're interested in things like hackathons, there's always something going on and it's pretty easy to meet like-minded people 8) the weather's awesome

Holy cow, I'm from Cherokee County (Towne Lake) and went to GT as well! What a small world... I'm debating whether I want to move west after grad school. I'd really like to get involved in a start-up. Although I doubt there's many chemical engineering start-ups compared to software/tech ones.

> People are generally pretty nice, but not interested at all in getting to know you or chatting randomly.

Could you elaborate on this? I've heard things like this from other people.

I don't think it's that people are "mean" or less friendly than in the South--it's just harder to break through with strangers. People in general are a little less outgoing towards strangers (not sure if that's the right word, but can't think of one better) and a little more focused on their own things. That may be because the work culture is so focused--free time is a little more valuable when you're working long hours and people just may not be as willing to stop in a grocery store and chat for half an hour on the best way to cook zucchini.

I guess another way to put it would be that everyone is headed somewhere (and not always a place), whereas living in the South I remember the culture being a lot more about relaxing and waiting for things to come to you. It's not as bad as New York, where everyone is literally headed somewhere, but more like a state of mind--like everyone here is working on a difficult puzzle in their head, even when they're not at the office.

Take a trip out to Tahoe or Yosemite and that mostly shuts off--people you meet on hiking trails and in restaurants/hotels are warm, friendly, and usually pretty chatty.

I grew up in the South too (Memphis, TN) and I live in Silicon Valley. It's kind of hard to elaborate on this, but I would say that Californians keep to themselves more than Southeasterners (people in Texas are a totally different story than SEC states), but when you get to actually know CA folks, they're far nicer people who genuinely care more for their friends and do more for them. Basically, Californians are maybe harder to befriend, but worth way more than you do. That's my anecdotal experience anyway, and some of my favorite people in the world live in Southern states. Really there are great people and terrible people everywhere in the world.

I lived in Midtown for a while, then bought a house in East Point and lived there for six or seven years.

It was a huge change, but mostly because of the lack of social support: it would have been as hard to move anywhere.

We also made a conscious decision to live in San Francisco (first in the Mission, now just South of there in Bernal Heights): if we'd wanted to do suburbs, we could do that just fine in Atlanta for a fraction of the price.

As I mentioned, we owned a house in East Point. We don't realistically expect to be able to buy a house in San Francisco anytime soon, possibly ever, unless we have an unexpected windfall that would take care of a huge downpayment. Then again, our rent of $3k/month (typical for two bedrooms, dogs allowed) would go pretty far in a mortgage if we did manage it.

My intuition (not based on fact) is that for a capable, experienced programmer, Atlanta has relatively high salaries, and relatively low cost of living.

Then again, we have mountains, a vast diversity of state and national parks, the ocean, beautiful views, skiing, walkable neighborhoods with corner stores, no bugs for most of the year (you can leave un-screened windows open!), etc... etc...