I'm born and raised Sonoma County (as is my wife) and we are about the only people we grew up with who still live here. We saved/worked through college bought a house at a decent time (2014), and our mortgage payment for 3BR/2BA is less than many friends pay for a room. If my wife wasn't a winemaker we would most likely not be living here either. I cannot begin to understand how or why people would move here, and many people have come from out of the area to work at the City I work for only to leave after a year or two of living in a home 1/4 the size of where they come from and saving absolutely no money despite their pay increase. We've had 3 people hired for the same position all decline after a month or so of looking for housing, saying they cannot find a place where they could afford based on the salary (and the salaries are high).