Fun fact: San Francisco is one of the few places where it's cheaper to live near the ocean, than it is to live inland!

That is, 'coastal' is irrelevant to your point.

When the non-coastal cities have the same job prospects, the same thing will happen to them.

Edit: In the time it has taken to write this up, this article is now ranked 51 and is well on its way to the third page. Mods, go fuck yourselves.

> Maybe tech companies don't have to live in overpriced, overhyped coastal cities.

It's the tech companies that made those cities overpriced. The same problems will crop up in any city that attracts a sizable enough contingent of high-paid work. Hell, it's happening to my hometown of Austin as we speak. Throngs of transplants, eager for high-paying work at whatever tech or energy company is calling, take a look at the cost of living reports for Austin and think they've found a match from heaven. They pack up their bags and move, thinking that somehow, Austin won't succumb to the maladies of its predecessors.

But property investors aren't stupid. They start buying up real estate left and right for ten percent over the asking price. Sellers are ecstatic. Owners give considerable thought to joining the sellers and renting elsewhere off of the proceeds. Everyone along the financial chain sees the bandwagon and rents and mortgages rise. The investors and sellers know the money is out there for the taking. And that's all well and good for those with the money. Moving from expensive San Francisco or NYC to Austin leaves you sitting pretty in Austin's (historically) lower costs of living, even if the house you purchase would have gone for 15 or 20 percent less 5 years ago.

But everyone else gets squeezed. Slowly of course. Rent rises like it does every year, but since it's a seller's market, there's no apartment complex to hit up for the same rent you were paying. If you're leasing, your landlord is giving serious thought to adding three or four or five or six hundred dollars a month to his bank account. It doesn't matter that you can't pay; there's a waiting list of interested parties that can. It doesn't matter that you want to stay in a neighborhood with decent schools so your children can have a shot at a better life; the people on the list want that too and have no problem outpricing you. Your paycheck hasn't really risen. The two percent COL raise might have broken even before but it sure doesn't now (assuming you were fortunate enough to even have a COL raise). Traffic has always sucked, but now it's sucking like it's trying to get a golf ball through a garden hose.

The tech and energy workers don't see these problems. They can afford whatever price increases come their way. It's the supermajority of citizens that don't work in office buildings off 360 or MoPac that have to deal with these problems. And when they rightfully insist on nipping this gentrification in the bud, when they fight to prevent Austin from cannibalizing itself into the next Silicon Valley, they get told with a straight face that they aren't "entitled" to their homeland and must step aside so the affluent can have their fun.