The biggest issue is the cost of housing. It's like 5x more expensive in the Bay Area than housing in my area. The higher incomes available don't compensate.
In order to get "cheaper" housing, most people with families then live farther out with crazy commute times and traffic. Some people send four hours of their day in traffic.
Lastly the tech scene can be a little overboard at times with whatever the progressive flavor of the month. For example, is picking conference presenters in double blind fashion without regard to gender or race, a virtue or a crime worthy of a mob? Are men and women the same, or do they have differences? Either answer could get you ostracized, depending on which way the wind is blowing in SF or SJC.
State Income taxes is a small thing but will take an extra 8-10% of your income a year.
Lastly the Bay Area tech companies and startups seem to require a bit more than 40 hours a week of work. This isn't as common elsewhere.
None of these things may bother you if you are a young, progressive, single person with a high paying job.
But as you get older they can get to be an awful daily irritation.
I interviewed with several companies in the Bay Area before deciding on one and moving out here. Yes, the housing market sucks. When we were looking for a place to rent we were shown a house that wasn't on the market yet and already had an interested party who put an application down. Fortunately they went with us but the housing, even out in the East Bay, is expensive and goes fast.
But, for me, that ends the negativity that many seem to be echoing in here.
My family and I absolutely love it here. We lived our whole lives on the east coast and having been in the Bay Area for a year we never want to move back. The weather is amazing, everything is close (we live further out in East Bay but still we're minutes away from just about everything; shopping, restaurants, hospitals; everything!).
The schools in most areas that we looked have phenomenal ratings (some of the ones in SF, not so much and obviously we didn't look everywhere) and my daughter just completed her first year at a school over here and she's crazy sad the year is already over!
The work is interesting! It's also very refreshing to know that there are just so many opportunities here that should I decide I don't like my work anymore it's crazy how many companies will open their doors to interview you ASAP (if you're in the tech industry, I should clarify).
There is a ton of stuff to do here. Beaches, lots of interesting places for kids (like indoor play places everywhere) and for adults (kick ass stores and movie theaters and probably other stuff but I don't do much else lol). I love the california science academy and their planetarium. Fisherman's Wharf in SF has awesome food and is just an interesting place to walk around.
Overall the Bay Area, in my opinion as a semi-recent transplant, is absolutely amazing. I really hope we can make progress on the housing issues.
I'm from Minneapolis as are a number of my friends. Some of them moved out to CA (Irvine) and some later moved to Seattle.
They /can't wait/ to move back to MN. For a while, I didn't understand them (usually, when they tell me this in the winter). But the music scene, culture, and comparative lack of traffic make a big difference.
I've yet to go to CA outside of layovers, but I still want to experience it for myself.
Irvine is in Southern California. Southern California is a different state than Northern California, which is where San Francisco and Silicon Valley are.
To me, it presents itself as a kind of Stockholm syndrome. It develops because your brain is aware of the fact that the weather there is capable of killing you 3 months out of the year and it has to find a way to justify the fact that you're not leaving. Obviously there must be something really great about this place when it's not 20 below.
Minnesotans are unusually aware of the primacy of their bike paths, healthcare coverage, skyway'd cities and educational system. They talk to each other a lot about how great each of these things are, reinforcing the special shared status of this land of hardship, but good working folks.
In my experience, most people don't speak so highly of their hometowns as Midwesterners- Minnesotans in particular. When you move to a place where everyone sees the bad stuff and doesn't try to sugar coat it, it can be offputing. If you don't get enough milage between you and the cult of the midwest, you inevitably return to a land where people endure because everyone talks about how good it is when it's not too bad. It could be worse!
-Former Minneapolitan.
I see stickers saying "Keep Austin weird", and "Keep Portland weird". You never see those for Minneapolis. We don't need 'em.
I personally love being here but I also grew up around here. I'd rather all the people who didn't want to live here move on and out and make room for the people who do want to be here.
That being said the people who appreciate being here generally outnumber the people who don't appreciate it. Anecdotally of course.
As mentioned by others, because of tech, some people move out here despite not actually wanting to live in a place like CS. That number is a minority.