Living in a Fool’s Paradise
I want to know who's living in these places.I work in a fairly senior role in a well known South Bay tech company (you've heard of it). I live in Livermore. (For those of you not familiar with the Bay Area, Livermore is so far away from everything, it might as well be Nevada.) Why do I live in Livermore? Because I can't afford anything within a 20 mile radius of Stanford. All over the Peninsula (and the areas in Santa Clara county you'd want to live) are dotted with $1.5M single family houses and $4,000/mo apartments. Summoning the voice of Jerry Seinfeld, "Who are these people? Really, who are they?" They can't all be stock option multi-millionaires can they? I'm doing pretty well for myself, but I can't afford to live anywhere in basically two counties. What do these people do who can afford to live down there?The Bay Area is going to eat itself soon. There's just no way this housing situation is sustainable? What is the end game? Is this going to turn into Elysium? How will normal people survive here without affordable housing?