Let's see...incredible food, 24/7 nightlife, culture like nowhere else in the world, one of the largest and richest parks in the country, probably the best public transportation system in the country, a hell of a lot of convenience (drop-off wash-and-fold on every street corner, etc), a diverse and interesting population, easy access to not one, not two, but THREE separate international airports (JFK, LGA, Newark), and easy access to Europe.
You listed nothing of interest to the typical startup programmer.
Having a bunch of ways to travel doesn't do any good for people who are spending most of their time holed up in one spot. They won't be flying all over the place.
Night life? Have you MET many geeks? Plus that would cut into work hours.
Drop-off laundry? That means I have to take it somewhere. I'd rather have washer/dryer in the apt., then I don't have to lug it anywhere. Who cares about folding.
A diverse and interesting population -- very few of whom work in or understand startups. You don't have time to socialize anyway, and if you did, listening to people talk about finance or fashion is not "interesting".
Incredible food... This can be had in ANY major city. But nobody in a startup wants a 3 month waiting list to get into NY's trendiest new spot, so none of that stuff matters at all.
Culture... again, staring at a computer all day.
Parks? Yeah, like they don't have that anywhere else.
Not compelling in the least.
Look at Google's perks to get an idea of what developers want. Basically: get everything else out of the way so I can develop! Get rid of interruptions and distractions and extraneous TRAVEL -- I don't want to spend my time carting my jiggly fat physical body from place to place so that I can physically do the same thing in another place.
It's the same for ANY discipline. Olympic swimmers have the same deal -- eat, sleep, train. Being "well-rounded" is essentially training for social skills.
