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He may be an outlier, but that is only because he chose differently. He didn't get lucky beyond having the mental ability to do a high-paying (software?) career

He may be an outlier, but that is only because he chose differently. He didn't get lucky beyond having the mental ability to do a high-paying (software?) career. I have about the same deal. I'm in a low-density part of Florida, enjoying my 3-minute commute to a workplace across the road from the beach. I can afford my 12 kids. If I were willing to live in a 2-bedroom house on only 0.17 acres (for about $172,000), I could pole vault to work. I prefer my 0.39 acres of course. People wanting a dozen acres have to commute about 25 minutes. Unless you live in a tiny studio apartment, income simply doesn't keep up with cost of living in the expensive areas. I don't know what income it would take to have acres of land in San Francisco, but it is something frightful that isn't generally being offered.

chipotle_coyote 7y ago
For a different anecdote about Florida, I grew up in Tampa. When I left in 2002, it was because finding tech jobs there that weren't based around Windows networking or AS/400s was... difficult. The market for Unix web developers wasn't entirely non-existent, but when the company I was at laid me off, the best I could do was a three-month contract. When I did have a full-time job, it was to a company in a business park. Nobody had a 3-minute commute there. I don't know if anyone who works in an office anywhere in Tampa Bay has a 3-minute commute. My mom lives in a genuinely rural part of Florida, and if I lived there, I'd either be working remotely -- giving me a zero minute commute, I guess -- or I'd be lucky if my commute was under an hour each way, because the chances of finding a tech job anywhere within a twenty-mile radius are pretty much zero.