Yeah. I work for a big tech company, and 6 years ago (when our sons were in their early teens), I was called into a big room with a lot of other people, and told that our division was getting "de-fragmented" and my position in NYC was being eliminated. I had three choices:

1. Keep my job and find a spot in SF, Silicon Valley, or Boulder, Colorado.

2. Find another job within the company in NYC, if I could.

3. Take a buyout.

Silicon Valley and SF were out of the question, financially. There was no way we could have found something that we could afford with good schools.

Colorado scared the hell out of me, for the reasons you cite here. Boulder seems fine, but we would have been trapped inside the city.

I ended up finding another job in NYC within the company (which was my first choice). But I would have taken the buyout and faced unemployment rather than subjecting my wife and kids to that level of resistance.