Unless you have large, fixed expenses like student loans. Then, the larger absolute salary wins in spite of things like housing (the primary driver of regional differences in COL) being more expensive.

Or cars, or even Apple products. People love defending Austin, Boston, etc. Cost of living only applies to food and housing, more of less. After that $20-50K is paid, cost of living does not apply to anything you spend past $50K.

Cars and Apple products are luxuries. We are, after all, talking about the cost of living, not the cost of living luxuriously.

Are you basing this from base or total compensation? Equity payments in the bay area are quite high