SF doesn't have "centuries" of infrastructure. The great earthquake and fire in 1906 destroyed nearly everything. SF doesn't have "vastly limited space" eithe

SF doesn't have "centuries" of infrastructure. The great earthquake and fire in 1906 destroyed nearly everything. SF doesn't have "vastly limited space" either. It's not even in the top 100 cities in the world in terms of population density. Source: http://www.citymayors.com/statistics/largest-cities-density-125.html http://www.citymayors.com/statistics/largest-cities-density-... Nor are SF's roads and bridges really all that complex. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has 446 bridges, and is one of the cheapest cities to live in in the United States. Maintaining two big bridges just isn't that complex, certainly not enough to explain a 10x factor in the cost of living. Sure, SF has a high minimum wage for construction employees, but so does California in general. And somehow it is not that expensive to live in Fresno or Sacramento. If anything, rural and suburban areas tend to have to maintain more infrastructure per taxpayer, since people are more spread out.