> Considering the Cali coast has the highest cost of living, doesn't that mean it is where many people want to be? CA has more natural boundaries that spike th

> Considering the Cali coast has the highest cost of living, doesn't that mean it is where many people want to be? CA has more natural boundaries that spike the cost of living higher. For example, pretty much the entire LA area (except around Palmdale) consists of a bunch of small valleys nestled between mountains. Not only do they have the west coast in the way, but they've got mountains blocking them from expanding in every other direction. And you can say the same thing about the Bay Area, too. If expansion isn't blocked by water, it's blocked by mountains. NYC's COL is also in large part due to natural boundaries, but it's not as bad as CA. Manhattan is a tiny island. Long Island is also, well, an island. The Bronx and Westchester are a peninsula. But there's at least some room to expand. The Hudson Valley opens up when you get north of White Plains, and Jersey has plenty of room to sprawl. So the COL isn't nearly as bad as SF. What really keeps it as high as it is, though, is culture: Manhattan is the center of the world, and that's exactly how New Yorkers like it. There's a massive stigma to setting up shop in places like Morristown or Ossining. So instead everyone either pays $$$$$ to live near work in Manhattan or they pay $$$$ live in the suburbs but not so far out in the suburbs that they can't commute to Manhattan every day. In the midwest and the southwest, on the other hand, there's no stigma to setting up shop in suburban edge cities. So you have metro areas like Dallas where there are large tech hubs in suburbs like Plano and Richardson, and some companies now are setting up shop in the exurbs.