It's remarkable how "I don't like the Bay Area" translates so easily to "racist dogwhistle".
Quality of life means things like:
- "there are children in my neighborhood"
- "I don't need to keep looking over my shoulder at the playground with my children"
- "I can get a 15-yr mortgage on a house that is 2000 sqft, be financially stable, and safely deal with recurring large medical expenses that we will always have due to pre-existing conditions"
- Massive seasonal forest fires that have become normalized
- Risk (however small) of a catastrophic earthquake
- Dangerous public transport
- Piles of feces, needles, and general filth on (some) city sidewalks
- Daily bumper-to-bumper traffic on freeways from 8AM-11AM and 1PM-6PM
- Extreme regulatory burden and cost of normal things like starting a business, building a home or addition, and owning firearms
Although in all fairness, I am not aware of the drug situation in other parts of the country.
A cynic would see this as a dog-whistle for "too many Asians/Hispanics/foreigners". (And I have actually heard a white person here in California say that about the schools.)
I suspect though you mean something else.