My living situation and life circumstances are broadly similar to yours, and I'm also in California but not anywhere near downtown Metro. Instead I'm about an e

My living situation and life circumstances are broadly similar to yours, and I'm also in California but not anywhere near downtown Metro. Instead I'm about an equal distance from the center of La and the center of San Diego, and the beach cities of orange county- each roughly an hour drive in their various directions (modulo traffic). Daycare here, at a fairly premium facility connected to the UC system, is 1700 a month for a toddler and would probably be about $2,200 for an infant (full day/5 days a week). Rent is probably not a consideration in a move someone like yourself or ourselves might make, but if it had to be, an entire three bedroom house with a swimming pool can be had month-to-month at about $3,500-4500. median home value is somewhere around 750 to 850 depending on what side of what street you live on. This doesn't really remedy the tax situation but it does look like a completely different universe in contrast to what you're going to deal with in the middle of San Francisco or LA, or even (to a much lesser extent) San Diego. The downside is that you had better really, really, really like the company of fake-aggressive midlife crisis bros in humongous lifted pickup trucks, because that's who you're largely going to be surrounded by.