The Bay Area has a lot of trophy spouses who cover up the shame of unemployability by "serving" on the sorts of boards and councils that have the power to go ha

The Bay Area has a lot of trophy spouses who cover up the shame of unemployability by "serving" on the sorts of boards and councils that have the power to go hard-core NIMBY and fight progress and make it impossible to develop a housing density appropriate to the demand and job market. They do this because the artificially low housing availability spikes prices. They don't actually care about their communities; they just want to keep their houses priced at 5 times what they're actually worth. Of course, the breadwinners in those families (who finance the NIMBYs) get some karma when their trophy spouses (the ones pushing the NIMBY rules that prevent new development) give them stupid kids who'll require expensive and emotionally exhausting string-pulling in order to get them into schools. It's not enough, but it is something.