Re:One-third of SF Bay Area residents hope to leave soon, po...
by shimon on Tuesday May 03, 2016 @05:19PM
(#11624326)
Actually, maybe it can? If we can ignore the somewhat tasteless aspect of this, what if the Bay Area was just a playground for kids who get 6-figure salaries at graduation, and then stay at high-paying jobs there?
It becomes extremely elitist, with all the costs and benefits of that. The benefit is that everyone who can afford to live there is implicitly vetted by a rich employer or investor, so there could be extremely high serendipity. The costs are massive insularity, risk of the next big thing coming from elsewhere, and hugely inflated costs for basic service labor.
But, if the vetting is good enough, maybe those costs are worth it?
In that sense, the distribution of salaries attached to the answers is telling. How do the startups and non-elite companies survive if nobody they can actually afford wants to come or stay? The area can't just be a playground for the elite megacompanies that can pay the salaries you state.