Sorry about the bias. I just pulled the top results. Chicago will help you save money long term. Chicago is dangerous but if you penny pincher its better then many.
sales tax and all the other local taxes in chicago/IL are just as bad as CA. the COL is lower and state income tax rate, but nothing else is. and the weather sucks, it's already cold...but yea, i'm trying to save some dough and move on

I wanna go to NYC so bad. How do they all compare to the bay?
I really like Brooklyn, it's moreso like Oakland/Berkeley in the nicer areas and the hood is the hood. Manhattan is straight up fast life, so much to do, it's like SF altho I like the edge people have to them more than I like the faux liberals in SF. If I lived in NY, it'd be Brooklyn, a little more space, still easy to get to Manhattan and I could have a car (I'm not built to take public transportation all the time)
Philly was ok, I wouldn't live there as a working person (I was there for grad school). There are very few parts of the city that are worth living in and I'm not old enough to want to live in the suburbs. Old City and Center City have some cool architecture and whatnot and it's a big sports town which is always cool.
DC was my shyt, easy to find your lane and the types of places you want to hang out at. The desirable places to live in DC proper are expensive, but you could get by without a car since the city is really walkable and small. There was always somewhere to be (except Friday nights for whatever reason lol) and you could find an open bar every night.
Overall, I liked the east coast since it's so easy to get to so many cities...I miss it now

...even Philly hahaha