I don’t know if that’s always the case here. Look at the price of everything, and think about how people don’t just up and move when the cost of living is boiling them alive.
The people I went to law school with are now buying $1.5 million+ houses. Even on a $500k/year salary that's insane. My wife, who grew up in a modest household, simply couldn't pull the trigger on a mortgage like that. We moved an hour outside D.C. and bought a house for 1/3 that much.
I understand close-in houses are more expensive than they used to be, but there's also been serious lifestyle inflation among middle class millenials. I grew up in a solidly middle class household; my dad had a graduate degree and a white collar job. We ate at Sizzler, sat through the timeshare pitch to get tickets at Disney, etc. We travelled internationally just three times growing up: twice to go back home to Bangladesh, and once to Paris. Today, it seems like millenials think that just because you have a white collar job you should be able to afford an international vacation every year.
I would even say that given some people's circumstances, and the odds they face, it might very well make sense for them to live it up in their healthy years if they feel like the probability of seeing a sufficient return on their grind is too low.
Maybe they saw their parents and families work two jobs and end up with nothing, or for whatever reason, do not have the chops to get the right credentials or learn the skills to vault them onto the next rung of the ladder. Or they were 18 to 21 and invested in an enormous amount of debt thanks to the US government's "generosity", that has very little payoff, and they figure they will never make it out of that debt.
At that point, you have already made mistakes you cannot recover from and it makes sense to just say screw it, and live for the present.
The fact that people are complaining about the cost of kids and housing is telling. The media glorifies the Sex in the City lifestyle, but I think most normal people once they hit their 30s want to have a family and a house. What they want in life is closer to Des Moines than Greenwich Village. It’s really hard to do that in NYC and SF, and I think our culture has done a poor job educating millennials about what alternatives are out there.
But maybe people have preferences of what they want in life and Iowa is not it. If Iowa was many people’s dream of a location, the unemployment wouldn’t be 3.7.
> But maybe people have preferences of what they want in life
As with everything in life, there are tradeoffs. If someone is so wedded to the idea of living in the Bay Area or New York City, then they should accept the reality that a low six-figure salary won't get them very far in terms of material benefits and creature comforts. In return, they get trendy brunch places, awesome dim sum, and proximity to Hamilton. You're right that if people prefer that, it's their prerogative, but they also can't come back and complain that they can't afford a nice big house and maybe a little more disposable income like their peers in Iowa. Ideally, these cities do more to construct housing to meet their demand, but as long as that's not happening, this is a very real tradeoff that every rational person needs to make; especially those that are privileged enough to earn $100k+ per year.
I chose to live in New York City, and fully accept all the upsides and downsides of my decision.