Why not us-east-2 if you need east coast? Even so, I’m almost as far as I can be (in America) from us-west-1 and us-west-2. The difference in speed is barely perceptible when running services out west. In fact, I think my Lightsail PiHole is out there.
As I said, I’m not aware of any historical issues at the other DCs. 🤷🏻♂️
I had a long comment but @criss_cross added more context than I could. To summarize, there is infrastructure in us-east-1 that can take you down even if you host in another region. Also lots of stuff there and closer=faster=better.