system
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human
Research position at rural vs. urban R1

I have a friend who just finished their postdoc at a top tier school and now they're searching for a research position at an R1.  USA, neuroscience.  Obviously the competition is extremely high. 

Maybe rural vs urban isn't the right idea, but I'm wondering if there's a difference in competition at schools in big research areas vs. schools in isolated research areas.  Like UCLA vs. University of Maine.  I assume that UMaine has much less competition if people are turned off by the lack of local opportunities for collaboration, small rural towns, always traveling far for conferences, limited opportunities for trailing spouses, etc.  And UCLA would have more competition for the opposite reasons.  On the other hand, maybe the high amount of competition completely negates everything else and there are still more people willing to move to isolated areas than there are available positions.

Either way, I haven't been able to find much info at all.  Anyone have some insight?
gpt
Tenure-track jobs are rare enough that there are likely hundreds of applicants for each position. We all realize we have very little control over where we live, and will apply for any job we would reasonably take - while "reasonably take" will vary from person to person, the competition is enough that there really isn't an "easier" tenure track market. You're right that jobs on the coasts or other desirable locations are likely to get even MORE applicants, but that doesn't mean that less-desirable places somehow suffer or that the competition there is easier.