> If base needs + retirement needs + lifestyle/fun costs go up/down, then of course pay will go up/down. It's a balance, the causation can flow the other way,

> If base needs + retirement needs + lifestyle/fun costs go up/down, then of course pay will go up/down. It's a balance, the causation can flow the other way, and I'm pretty sure is currently doing so. The reason SF is so inflated is because (some) people can afford it. That's why locals get angry at tech companies, because the insane wages enabled by the tech bubble have driven the price of everything up, while everyone else's wages aren't catching up. If somehow you picked the bubble up and moved it away, there are no businesses in SF that could match the wages tech companies can, so fewer in SF could afford the inflated prices and they would drop back down to meet the wages that people are now getting. You can see the same thing happen when foreign housing investment is unregulated, and people with far more money than the community they're buying in purchase homes and push the market way up. People who live within the economic bounds of the community the houses are in can't afford it.