It's pretty high, I'll grant you - but 1/3 that of San Francisco. And the rent is correspondingly lower. Chico etc are significantly lower than that, of course, but they're a longer drive away - Santa Rosa is just an hour on the 101 from SF.
I'm not convinced it's really just an hour during commute hours.
It's not, not even close. It's 2H typically, with very high variance.
Not to mention it's completely inaccessible by public transportation, and more or less an undoable commute from most of the East Bay, South Bay, or Peninsula. Bay Area commuting in general is a shit show; it's bad enough that I'm basically locked out of any jobs in the South Bay or Peninsula, just because I choose to live in the East Bay to save on housing costs.