I love living in San Francisco. For me, it's a near-perfect city and climate. Obviously it is expensive but I find it completely worth it.
If you mean keeps the riff-raff out of homes and onto the streets, then yes.
Nice weather, good infrastructure, funding for city services, and disposable income in the area could be driving both.
Pool of affordable housing might provide a better signal for homelessness than median housing costs in an area this expensive.
ie, There's probably not a large percentage of marginal homeless in SF, who could afford a $1.03 million home but not the current median $1.15 million home.
Either way, average rent is trending slightly downward, and Zillow predicts home prices in SF to fall 0.5% next year, so maybe we'll see.
I don't think these marginal shifts, even if magnified 10 times, will really be a substitute for something like housing first or mental health programs.
https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-san-francisco-ren...
This is really inaccurate, and especially discouraging on a message board for "entrepreneurs", who should really be in favor of cheaper housing close to venture capital, so new businesses are more viable.
[1] http://www.businessandeconomics.mq.edu.au/our_departments/Ec...
If I didn't have equity to vest I would have zero reason to live here.
FWIW, I have a relatively low "tech" salary, so I don't disagree with you on the relative cost of living.
I understand there are a lot of young professionals here – and you may disproportionately exposed to that demographic – but there is certainly a lot culture and diversity in this city.
There are some good things about San Francisco, like the incredibly strong job market for tech workers but other than that I couldn't bring myself to live there.