"Desirable cities" for me, as a 30-year-old software engineer, include Brevard, North Carolina and Dahlonega, Georgia. Notably, that list does not include New York City, Los Angeles, and definitely doesn't include San Francisco (I'd quit a job if it required me to move there, without a second thought).
"Desirable" is a multivariate subjective assessment, not an objective trait (or even a mostly-consensus one).
One of the best DBAs I've had the pleasure of working with would, from what I've gathered, prefer to be in a boat on a lake somewhere in rural Alabama than to be in many of the major "tech hub cities". Being a software engineer doesn't mean you have the same opinions as other software engineers (as a quick search of programming language trends might show, at least on a superficial level).
"Desirable" is a multivariate subjective assessment, not an objective trait (or even a mostly-consensus one).
One of the best DBAs I've had the pleasure of working with would, from what I've gathered, prefer to be in a boat on a lake somewhere in rural Alabama than to be in many of the major "tech hub cities". Being a software engineer doesn't mean you have the same opinions as other software engineers (as a quick search of programming language trends might show, at least on a superficial level).