If more employers understood the value of distributed teams, this wouldn't even need to be an issue. You could live exactly where you wanted to live.
Want a 700 sq ft studio in Manhattan for $3k/month? Great. Want a 2000 sq ft ranch home next to a river out in the country with your own garden? Done. Want to just save as much as you can, with a cheap apartment in a cheap town outside a cheap city? You got it. Maybe you even want that $600k suburban McMansion to raise your family in. That's not a problem either.
Most readers are probably going to prefer urban environments, but that's because the demographic of software developers is somewhat self-selecting. When it's nearly impossible to get a job as a developer not in an urban environment, people who don't like urban cities are going to self-select out of the profession. The high achievers among them will instead choose to become doctors, dentists, lawyers, etc. -- careers that aren't so location restricted, despite ironically being far less amenable to remote work. I had some really smart and hard-working friends growing up, and all chose to go into careers of that nature simply because they didn't want to be forced to move to a big city.
Want a 700 sq ft studio in Manhattan for $3k/month? Great. Want a 2000 sq ft ranch home next to a river out in the country with your own garden? Done. Want to just save as much as you can, with a cheap apartment in a cheap town outside a cheap city? You got it. Maybe you even want that $600k suburban McMansion to raise your family in. That's not a problem either.
Most readers are probably going to prefer urban environments, but that's because the demographic of software developers is somewhat self-selecting. When it's nearly impossible to get a job as a developer not in an urban environment, people who don't like urban cities are going to self-select out of the profession. The high achievers among them will instead choose to become doctors, dentists, lawyers, etc. -- careers that aren't so location restricted, despite ironically being far less amenable to remote work. I had some really smart and hard-working friends growing up, and all chose to go into careers of that nature simply because they didn't want to be forced to move to a big city.