That's true of essentially everywhere. The Bay Area is something of an outlier--partly because of geography--but there are a number of large expensive metros that you can still get to pretty affordable housing by driving an hour or two. (Or even taking a commuter rail in some cases.) To say nothing of the many metros that aren't especially expensive.

London is better than Toronto, but I'm not sure I'd call it affordable anymore. Real estate prices for a basic detached home have more than doubled in the last 5 years.