jens wrote:
p3 wrote:
It's expensive because it's amazing to live here.
That's what people there tell themselves. The reality is that it's expensive because so many people think they have to be there to make huge salaries for......$80,000 Teslas, $3 million houses, nannies, gardeners, and housekeepers.
I live in Southern Oregon where a bunch of people figured out that they don't need to be on that treadmill. They sold their Bay Area houses, bought something up here for 1/4 of the price and now lead very comfortable lives off the proceeds -- with some of best cycling around and no traffic.
The added bonus is that our kids up here go to school with normal people of diverse economic and ethnic backgrounds. Their friends are Latino, African American, Asian, and European; their parents are doctors, plumbers, and gardeners. By contrast, if you live on the Peninsula, there's a nasty divide: wealthy white and Asian Facebook & Google employees and then the Latinos who flood into Menlo Park and PA every day to mow their lawns, clean their houses and change their babies' diapers. The latter group often lives in desperately crowded conditions in East PA or RC to make ends meet.
It's funny that most of these Peninsula folks consider themselves "progressives," but the life they lead has shades of "The Help." The irony is that a few of our most progressive friends treated their "help" the most horribly.....
We're so happy to have moved away. Reno has it right.
Hey, it is looking like you are taking a beating on this thread, but 8 years ago when my company first asked me to move I actually resisted because of the kind of 2 tier strata in Bay area society which you pointed out that i found quite a bit different than elsewhere (especially in my Canadian communist world LOL...here we just have two tiers of frozen misery....cold and colder). I do really enjoy the area for training, and I really love the buzz of the tech industry there. But you can have a lot of that elsewhere.
To Lightheir, I love the Santa Clara International Swim center pool. Sure there are better 50m pools, all over the world (the 50m pool that I train at here at home is nicer, but it's indoors), but you can't beat training in the same lane that Mark Spitz did!
Personally when my son was in high school, I ruled out going there, but now that all is done, I guess I would not totally rule it out, but I don't need a big fancy house. Just rent a small condo for the time there.