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I've never been to either so I didn't realize Albuquerque was so small!
As long as there are size misperceptions and you hadn't thought specifically about Nebraska thought you might be interested in this:
"The City of Omaha has a population of 409,416 and is surrounded by a number of suburban communities. The population of the Omaha metropolitan statistical area (MSA) is 807,305 with over 1.1 million within a 60-minute drive. The Omaha (MSA) consists of Douglas, Sarpy, Saunders, Cass and Washington counties in Nebraska and Pottawattamie, Harrison and Mills counties in Iowa." Source: Omaha Chamber of Commerce (broken link)
Also one of those suburban communities it talks about is Papillion which was just this year named the 6th Best Place to Live in the US by CNN/Money Magazine. Papillion is also headquarters for InfoUSA.
You might look at some of the other California cities--I think San Diego and LA are a little less expensive than Silicon Valley. Seattle, DC and Research Triangle, NC, would be all be good, and I imagine Phoenix and Dallas would be too. I live in Albuquerque, and from what I've heard, some of the big high-tech companies here are not hiring now. Even though I like Albuquerque, I think high-tech career opportunities are a little more limited here than in some bigger cities.
As long as there are size misperceptions and you hadn't thought specifically about Nebraska thought you might be interested in this:
"The City of Omaha has a population of 409,416 and is surrounded by a number of suburban communities. The population of the Omaha metropolitan statistical area (MSA) is 807,305 with over 1.1 million within a 60-minute drive. The Omaha (MSA) consists of Douglas, Sarpy, Saunders, Cass and Washington counties in Nebraska and Pottawattamie, Harrison and Mills counties in Iowa." Source: Omaha Chamber of Commerce (broken link)
Also one of those suburban communities it talks about is Papillion which was just this year named the 6th Best Place to Live in the US by CNN/Money Magazine. Papillion is also headquarters for InfoUSA.
Omaha is definitely a nice city. It might be a little cold for the OP's taste but it is a nice city, much nicer than most people are aware.
SoCal is nice but the IT market is quite flooded there. Getting a job is going to be tough anywhere in California if you are in IT. Everybody keeps pumping up Omaha. I have a friend who lives there and he says its very nice.
I've never been to either so I didn't realize Albuquerque was so small!
That's probably because its not.
The population of the city of ABQ is just over 500,000. The population of the entire metro area is just over 800,000.
While ABQ is not as big as Austin (city size: 700,000; metro size: 1,500,000), I don't know that I would classify it as "small".
And I'll take the weather in ABQ over just about any place in the country. Additionally, the politics are pretty moderate here too!
Chap
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