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Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

> On one hand, it’s a very high price. On the other hand, no one is entitled to a one bedroom in the heart of one of the human epicenters in the world. Many people here have roommates or alternate living arrangements.

New York is the “human epicenter” in the US. San Francisco is in the same tier as Houston or DC: https://www.lboro.ac.uk/gawc/world2018t.html.

Paying New York/London prices to live in a city that is not New York or London is just sad.

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> Paying New York/London prices to live in a city that is not New York or London is just sad.

I’m coming to this point. If I’m going to pay a New York level rent I might was well enjoy a 24/7 subway, a plethora of good restaurants and a beach that’s actually warm in the summer.

SF maximizes technological intelligence, Wall Street maximizes financial intelligence. Plenty of overlap, but the top talent stays where the rest of the top talent is.

Having technological intelligence doesn’t make San Francisco a “human epicenter” (whatever that is). I wouldn’t even call San Francisco a technological epicenter. Even within computer technology, much of the most important technological intelligence in the US is outside San Francisco: in Portland (Intel), Seattle (Microsoft), San Diego (Qualcomm), and maybe San Jose (Cisco). Put differently, what cities would be most devastating (in terms of impact on US technological capabilities) to lose early in WWIII? I’d put Boston or Seattle ahead of San Francisco.

Agreed, SF has a lot of tech companies, but a lot of them don't do things that ate very valuable for society, many are social networking/advertising.

I think consumer tech is valuable in the sense that our peace-time economy is based on consumption, and San Francisco is great at helping us consume. But when I hear the word epicenter I’m thinking “what’d put us back in the Stone Age if we didn’t have it?”

I don't think a significant proportion of the people who want to live in New York would cite Wall Street in their explanation.

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