I actually like visiting Manhattan but I don't think I could ever tolerate living there. I spent a summer interning in Midtown for a small consulting firm while in business school. We're admittedly talking pre-Giuliani New York in the summer with very little money but it still wore on me to the point where I pretty much decided I wasn't interested in working there.

I do, on the other hand, understand the attraction of the Bay Area given enough money although, in this case, the negative side of the balance sheet has gotten much longer and redder.

I agree with your basic point. Another reason I never seriously went after an investment banking job was that the sort of thing I was interested in was pretty much viewed as grunt stuff that techies did, i.e. not really respected.

(ADDED: I was using Manhattan as a term for the [nice uber-urbanized] parts generally although I know that's not accurate. I don't think I ever set foot in Brooklyn until relatively recently.)