Do you work for global companies? I'm in a major city that has a
horrible/non-existant tech comnmunity so if I took a "local" job I'd drop my salary by at least $80k. I have worked for Denver companies and the vibe is completely different though, which is nice. Like, everyone will know Wednesday is a great skiing day so half the company leaves to go ski and nobody cares. Or we have hockey playoffs or whatever everyone expects you might be celebrating.
Can't do that at my globo corp which can barely handle setting meetings in my time zone.. but pays way more..