Using a random cost of living calculator (like this: http://www.bankrate.com/calculators/savings/moving-cost-of-l...), it looks like many places aren't $60k different. But Atlanta, Dallas, Indianapolis, and lots of other cities are ~$50k different. Rural places are ~$60-70k different.

What number are you using?? For $150k, I see Atlanta, Dallas, etc. as $15-20k different, which seems correct.

Going from San Francisco to Dallas, using $150k gives me $81717.69.

Meaning the equivalent income to maintain your standard of living in Dallas is $81k, or ~70k less than San Francisco.

I'm in San Antonio, TX. The 7th largest city in the US, but it has one of the lowest costs of living of any major metro area. It's also home to several tech companies, including Rackspace, one of Amazon's primary competitors in the Cloud space.

The cost of living calculator posted by SNDean (http://www.bankrate.com/calculators/savings/moving-cost-of-l...) calculates that 150k in Seattle is ~117k in San Antonio, so that's actually extremely close to the 120k you mentioned as standard.

This is the one I've always used for many years: "A salary of $150,000 in Seattle, Washington could decrease to $89,728 in San Antonio, Texas" (http://www.bestplaces.net/cost-of-living/seattle-wa/san-anto...) which is where I got my figures. Maybe they are incorrect, but my anecdotal experience in both San Antonio and Seattle makes them seem in line.