The pay may be a lot less here but real estate is way cheaper. For the price of a 1 bedroom apartment in San Francisco you could buy a 4 bedroom house in Waterloo. We have a nice startup scene here that's really expected to take off when the LRT opens up in 2018.

I am a student of the university of Waterloo and I have lived in San Francisco on two separate occasions in both San Francisco / Mountain View.

Are you seriously comparing SF living to Waterloo living? There's a reason it's 1/4 the price. It's a running joke between every single undergraduate student with significant experience in SF that we want to get out of Waterloo.

LRT opening up? That's a joke. How exactly is the LRT going to help the startup scene?

For the price if a 1 bedroom apartment in San Francisco you could buy a 4 bedroom house in northern California. (3+ hr drive north of SF)

Who wants a 3 hour commute? If you worked at a startup in Waterloo you'd have a 5 minute commute from your 4 bedroom to the office. You could walk to work, just as people do from their really expensive apartments in SF.

Who wants to live in Waterloo? People who enjoy living in expensive apartments in SF probably wouldn't enjoy living in a city that small. They're willing to pay high rents for a reason.