It seems that wages are a lot lower in lower cost of living areas. So what makes it that a developer in SF is much more expansive than the one in, let's say, Ch

It seems that wages are a lot lower in lower cost of living areas. So what makes it that a developer in SF is much more expansive than the one in, let's say, Chicago? Or let's flip it around, move the same developer from Chicago to SF and they will suddenly make more money. I can only imagine that cost of living is the main factor. Naturally there will be a tiny minority of truly brilliant builders and engineers, but we are not talking about them as they are outliers.