How did everyone end up where there at?

My wife and I have both lived in SoCal all of our lives. We've seen other places we'd both like to live in, but where we are now...the mountains (and snow in the winter) are 1.5 hours away, the beach is 30 minutes away, and the desert is 1.5 hours away.
If the pilgrims had originally landed on the west coast, would anybody have ever gone east?

Buy something now and enjoy the tax writeoffs.