My favorite line from the article: (Perhaps you have heard about...) ...the guy on Reddit who calculated that it would be cheaper to commute daily to the Bay A

My favorite line from the article: (Perhaps you have heard about...) ...the guy on Reddit who calculated that it would be cheaper to commute daily to the Bay Area from Las Vegas by plane than to rent an apartment in San Francisco? However, I am going to nitpick the title: Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area? This question really ought to be: Does It Make Financial Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area? I will also suggest that there are facets to this question that really are not covered by the article. I am keenly aware of this because I returned to California as soon as I could for health reasons. My health is simply better here ("here" being California -- I am not in the Bay Area currently). My condition can be very expensive and very debilitating when it is not well controlled. So, while I am horrified by real estate prices out here, for me it makes more financial sense to be here than to be someplace that keeps me too sick to work while running up medical expenses. There are many reasons to want to live in a particular place. While criticism of the insane cost of living and insane pace of inflation is totally valid, I think it is problematic to boil down a decision about which job to take or where to live to these (specific) financial metrics (of salary and rent). Life is multifaceted. Such decisions do not hinge entirely on money.