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"major Canadian metros were as if not more expensive than SF/NYC" That just isn't true. You can easily look up the cost of living for e.g. Vancouver: > Cost o

"major Canadian metros were as if not more expensive than SF/NYC" That just isn't true. You can easily look up the cost of living for e.g. Vancouver: > Cost of Living Including Rent in San Francisco, CA is 57.8% higher than in Vancouver > Rent Prices in San Francisco, CA are 91.7% higher than in Vancouver https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=Canada&city1=Vancouver&country2=United+States&city2=San+Francisco%2C+CA https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou...

infecto 17d ago
Too many strange datapoints in that comparison. I never paid that much for utilities in CA but who knows. It’s anecdotal but at the time which this link does not cover it was simple math of taking a 2x paycut (not counting RSUs) to have roughly similar expenses. I don’t know if current SF prices are reflecting the boom in AI. Another anecdote I look at the areas I used to run in under a decade ago and they are all around 60% higher. Really hard to do exact apples for apples between geographies so at the time I just went off basic necessities and it was skewed heavily in favor of SF.
- bigmadshoe 17d ago
  There are several websites aggregating rent data that put SF rent at around 2x that of Vancouver, which is itself the most expensive city in Canada. I agree that many people would be worse off financially moving to Canada due to the lower salaries. But the claim that cost of living is the same is categorically false.
  - infecto 17d ago
    Yet you keep missing the point. “Was”. I am not saying prices today or equal. I am simply saying when I did the math pre Covid the cost of living was very similar all things considered. Like I already said the link you provided looks like a bunch of bad data so truly hard to tell. Categorically false are strong words without any data!
    - bigmadshoe 17d ago
      There is a lot of data available online that you can find very easily. Zillow for example, regarding rent: SF average rent: $4,795USD [1] Vancouver average rent: $2840USD [2] [1] https://www.zillow.com/rental-manager/market-trends/san-francisco-ca/ https://www.zillow.com/rental-manager/market-trends/san-fran... [2] https://www.zillow.com/rental-manager/market-trends/vancouver-bc/ https://www.zillow.com/rental-manager/market-trends/vancouve... I would say categorically false is accurate and an anecdote from 7 years ago isn't adding anything productive to the conversation. EDIT: Sorry, I just saw that you said "all things considered". I think we agree that when you factor in salary, it is financially worse to live in Canada. I just noticed a lot of completely inaccurate statements about the rent being the same which I was trying to correct. Apologies if you got caught in the crossfire.

infecto 17d ago

Too many strange datapoints in that comparison. I never paid that much for utilities in CA but who knows. It’s anecdotal but at the time which this link does not cover it was simple math of taking a 2x paycut (not counting RSUs) to have roughly similar expenses. I don’t know if current SF prices are reflecting the boom in AI. Another anecdote I look at the areas I used to run in under a decade ago and they are all around 60% higher. Really hard to do exact apples for apples between geographies so at the time I just went off basic necessities and it was skewed heavily in favor of SF.

bigmadshoe 17d ago
There are several websites aggregating rent data that put SF rent at around 2x that of Vancouver, which is itself the most expensive city in Canada. I agree that many people would be worse off financially moving to Canada due to the lower salaries. But the claim that cost of living is the same is categorically false.
- infecto 17d ago
  Yet you keep missing the point. “Was”. I am not saying prices today or equal. I am simply saying when I did the math pre Covid the cost of living was very similar all things considered. Like I already said the link you provided looks like a bunch of bad data so truly hard to tell. Categorically false are strong words without any data!
  - bigmadshoe 17d ago
    There is a lot of data available online that you can find very easily. Zillow for example, regarding rent: SF average rent: $4,795USD [1] Vancouver average rent: $2840USD [2] [1] https://www.zillow.com/rental-manager/market-trends/san-francisco-ca/ https://www.zillow.com/rental-manager/market-trends/san-fran... [2] https://www.zillow.com/rental-manager/market-trends/vancouver-bc/ https://www.zillow.com/rental-manager/market-trends/vancouve... I would say categorically false is accurate and an anecdote from 7 years ago isn't adding anything productive to the conversation. EDIT: Sorry, I just saw that you said "all things considered". I think we agree that when you factor in salary, it is financially worse to live in Canada. I just noticed a lot of completely inaccurate statements about the rent being the same which I was trying to correct. Apologies if you got caught in the crossfire.