I'd love to hear from people who want to stay in the Bay area what is unique that you cannot find elsewhere in cheaper locales.
I lived in Mountain View for 3 months during 500 startups and the valley proper was the most garden variety suburban existence you could find anywhere.
I lived in SF proper off and on and can attest that it certainly has (had?) fantastic restaurants/shops and a particular type of culture that many people love. However the basic infrastructure and problems with SF are well known and have been documented.
I can't see at this point how the former plusses of SF outweigh the latter negatives and frankly I see no inherent plusses to the Valley.
It seems that people (technologists mostly) literally only value the valley because of technology companies and even more pointedly - because that's where the big VC money lives.
I lived in Mountain View for 3 months during 500 startups and the valley proper was the most garden variety suburban existence you could find anywhere.
I lived in SF proper off and on and can attest that it certainly has (had?) fantastic restaurants/shops and a particular type of culture that many people love. However the basic infrastructure and problems with SF are well known and have been documented.
I can't see at this point how the former plusses of SF outweigh the latter negatives and frankly I see no inherent plusses to the Valley.
It seems that people (technologists mostly) literally only value the valley because of technology companies and even more pointedly - because that's where the big VC money lives.