It's not just the salary. It's also the opportunities to do things as in for the SF Bay Area we can go to wine country one weekend, go snow boarding another, sail, surf, hike; there's a lot of stuff to do here. I'm sure people can say the same for the NY metro and other similar places.

I've lived in cheaper but boring places. The financial tradeoff is fair.

Vs NYC there's also Tahoe, the ocean is surfable, there are beaches, it doesn't smell like trash everywhere, the climate is less extreme (less hot humid in the summer no snow), more access to fresh local produce more of the year, etc etc. It's not like rent in Manhattan is cheap, and you'd likely make less in NYC vs SF unless you work in finance.

I probably should have been more specific. People like NYC for different reasons, like the nightlife / club scene where the SF Bay Area doesn't compare at all. There's also culture that you wouldn't find outside NYC like the fashion industry and even art. That said NYC isn't for me either but it is for a lot of people, which is why people endure finance to stay there. Since we're on the subject, LA is another comparable place but not similar place. My point is that you can't these qualities in the boonies and that's why it's expensive to live in these places.

> My point is that you can't these qualities in the boonies and that's why it's expensive to live in these places.

But lots of people are plenty happy in the "boonies". They just have different interests, like doing more outdoor-oriented activities like hunting, hiking, fishing, or building their own workshops from scratch. Or maybe they're more cerebral and like the peace and quiet so they can focus on writing.

It's worth pointing out that far more people live outside of San Fransisco and New York (sure, throw in LA and Chicago, too) than inside those metropolitan areas.

Each of those cities is unique in different things. So they are part of the fatter part of a long thin tail. But that's not the same as "everyone wants to live here!"

> But lots of people are plenty happy in the "boonies". They just have different interests

I don't disagree. Different people want different things. I'm just pointing out 1. why people like living in big metros and 2. the flaw of basing where you live entirely on the cost of living and real estate.

>It's not just the salary. It's also the opportunities to do things as in for the SF Bay Area we can go to wine country one weekend, go snow boarding another, sail, surf, hike; there's a lot of stuff to do here.

You can do all of those same things just living an hour east of SF.

True with those examples. I live 20 minutes out of Seattle. I have hundreds of restaurants, every movie in theaters, hundreds of dance clubs/bars/social clubs within a 20 minute drive.

I can't get a well-paying job, or access to any of the above without being close to the city.

Can't you just commute the 20 minutes to a job in the city?

I thought that's what he just said he was doing.

Or rural eastern Washington, I moved to the bay area from there and other than good restaurants you could do pretty much everything else for less money and no traffic.

Doesn't the SF Bay Area include the cities an hour east of SF?

> Doesn't the SF Bay Area include the cities an hour east of SF?

No, an hour east of SF is deep in the Central Valley.

Could be wrong but I feel that's more than an hour east especially when you account for traffic - at least the cities that are actually inexpensive. Dublin, Pleasanton, and Livermore are no longer inexpensive cities with cheap real estate. Neither is Alamo and other nearby cities.

So the problem with living beyond Pleasanton is that you will spend most of your life sitting in traffic. Why do you need to sit in traffic? Because almost all the jobs are in the Bay Area. Maybe that won't be as big of a problem soon though once you have Level 4 autonomous driving. Personally I still wouldn't go for it with that.

Barely and only without traffic. It's over an hour to Tracy now without traffic and that's right on the Western edge of the central valley. Places "deep" in the valley like Stockton out Manteca are even further.