So I agree with at least part of this article. California is a suboptimal place for a young middle-class family.
Specifically because they could not afford owning a comfortable home here.
It's a very real phenomenon.
I wonder why companies don't take advantage of this?
For instance, put your startup in the San Joaquin valley. That doesn't have the cultural attractions of, say, the San Francisco area--but that's easy to deal with. During the week everyone should be busy with work. For the weekends, it's a couple hours drive to the Bay Area and you are saving so much in cost of living that you can easily afford hotel and restaurant costs for frequent weekends away.
Or check out a PINES library (http://www.georgialibraries.org/public/pines.php), which is part of a very inspiring statewide project that spawned an open source library system (http://www.evergreen-ils.org/) used all over the world.
Now I the things that I see around me change the entire world for the better. When I travel thousands of miles away I see people using things made by people that I personally know. This is powerful and I'm glad that my kids are growing up someplace where the expectation is to change the world, not become a stripper.