A lot of what you are saying rings true, but you may be underestimating just how small San Francisco is and how large the tech entrepreneur population is here. The number of new companies being started here is what makes San Francisco feel special. There is no other city on earth where you can overhear someone's new business idea at the cafe, the bakery, a restaurant, and the subway. And the crazy thing is that no one rolls their eyes at these ideas like they would in Chicago. It's pretty bizarre, sometimes unsettling, sometimes wonderful. It wouldn't happen at this frequency in Santa Cruz or Raleigh, or even New York or Austin or Boulder.
I think it would. Is there something special about SF in particular, or is it just the people? If you moved the people to Chicago or even Detroit, I have a feeling it would be exactly the same. If it's an issue of city size relative to the number of tech workers, look at smaller cities like Knoxville, Grand Rapids, or Madison. These conversations don't happen there because the people holding them don't live there. San Fran is almost a million people. The last two cities I've lived in clocked in around 200k. I think you're underestimating just how big San Francisco is.
I would gladly live in Silicon Valley if it weren't in San Fransisco. I don't think I would have the stomach to live in a city where the local people and politicians were that hostile to me.
And I still haven't heard anyone say that the local population doesn't totally hate everyone who works in tech. All I'm hearing is "yeah they hate us but look at how good it is for me". That's pretty awful.
