> hyper-competitive culture of major coastal metro areas of the US
I agree with the rest of your comment so I don't want to generally detract, but I think the qualification of major coastal metro areas includes a lot of places where your comment doesn't apply and excludes a lot of others (e.g. the upper Midwest).
I think there are aspects where major coastal metros are outliers, but grade school and public university quality isn't one of them.
Yeah, it was a short-hand way to convey the categorization and could have been more more precise. In reality, every region has its own culture that is somewhere along this spectrum.
I’d also note that I think “school/university quality” != “a high pressure environment”. There are plenty of places that have one but not the other. In particular, there are lots of places where high schools are providing excellent education and public university options are good, but students don’t feel like they are in a pressure cooker.
I agree with the rest of your comment so I don't want to generally detract, but I think the qualification of major coastal metro areas includes a lot of places where your comment doesn't apply and excludes a lot of others (e.g. the upper Midwest).
I think there are aspects where major coastal metros are outliers, but grade school and public university quality isn't one of them.