and what would you do with all of that space? In the bay, I am living a bit far out (25 minutes) and tradeoff for a bit more space - but I'm also going out to social events 3-4 times a week. I would not be doing that anywhere else, heck when I was living in DC I only managed 1-2 events a week unless i tried really hard.

Some people prefer saving and looking for other forms of stimulus other than the acquisition of space. For those of us, the fear of living "some place in the south" amounts to:

"The cells just say, 'that's it', and you, the unwary victim of cellular ennui, are quite literally bored to death."