The problem in the Bay Area is that since 2010, we added about 500,000 jobs and only 50,000 housing units. Roughly speaking, jobs gives you a sense for demand and housing units give you a sense for supply. Our jobs-housing ratio is completely out of whack. That's what makes the Bay Area so expensive. I actually don't believe any of the nonsense about this being a "destination area" or that there is "insatiable demand" - the demand is directly driven by job growth and you can see that plainly. People are not moving here from Nebraska and taking on housing that is multiple times more expensive just because it's pretty here- they're doing it because they got a job offer here. So no, Topeka and Detroit don't have this problem because their jobs growth isn't so far out of whack from their housing growth.

Yes: California is exporting a steady stream of people to Oregon, which displaces locals and irritates some people. We're not building fast enough either and may simply not have the capacity, short term.