The problem is that its not just San Francisco - in a city like New York (which none would accuse of being affordable) you still have fairly decent options of l

The problem is that its not just San Francisco - in a city like New York (which none would accuse of being affordable) you still have fairly decent options of living outside the city in at least somewhat affordable areas within halfway reasonable commute to jobs. in SFBA it's almost entirely either unaffordable and/or dangerously crime infested and the semi-affordable options that aren't require an insane commute. While there are some topological issues, the main differences between NYC and SFBA are transit infrastructure + density. SFBA[0]: 8.75m people at 859/square-mile density. Greater NYC[1]: 23.7m people at 1,781.3/square-mile density. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Bay_Area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Bay_Area [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_metropolitan_area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_metropolitan_area