Earlier quoted context omitted.
Atlanta is the center of tech ambitions for the southeast. It has a lot of Fortune 500 company headquarters - Turner Broadcasting with 18+ major online brands, Home Depot, Lowe's, etc. Yahoo and Google had offices. There are also a lot of small satellite consulting firms. Cost of housing is much lower, though traffic is bad as well. It's a nice green city, but Venture funding is low, so it depends on your ambitions.
I'd be very cautious about Atlanta. Outside of Google, many of the companies there are wanting to pay salaries I'd consider substantially below market (even including COLA) compared to the other hubs. That includes those fortune 500 companies (a couple of whom had internal recruiters bail when I mentioned my current salary + the COLA number). Cutting your real estate costs by $12-15k goes a long way but it doesn't ma…
If most companies are paying a certain salary, doesn't that imply that salary IS market rate?
I don't think you can directly compare salaries across cities even after factoring in cost of living since it ignores the fact some places are more desirable to live in than others and thus should command "premiums".