The DC area is right there with wealth with SF and Silicon Valley and is more educated. While still being rather expensive, it's much cheaper than SF and Silicon Valley. Why? Much better density and land use. Not only is the District adding 100,000 housing units a decade, Arlington, Alexandria, Bethesda, Silver Spring, etc. have downtown areas with density that are Metro accessible and more are being built and added to.

And we still deal with NIMBYs out here! Everyone does. But you have to put rules in place that limit their influence. People need to live somewhere. Density is good for the environment (and California has major issues with air quality in certain areas).

These are all things that people in California understand, but NIMBYism is carried out at the local level, and there aren't strong enough land use laws in place to brunt their force.

Every metro in the country would love to have a huge influx of white collar companies and workers. The idea that this is the fault of tech companies or tech workers is ridiculous. The problem is very poor land use policies, and people are taking out their frustration out on individuals just trying to work and live, when the real problem is not being addressed at all.