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Comment by kylestlb | Hacker News Reader

Born and raised in the South Bay and it's really hard for me to justify spending even 1M on a house in Sunnyvale. Wages are higher, yes, but it's still a huge shock. I imagine if you grew up elsewhere in the USA it's even more unbelievable (aside from NYC).

edit: looks like I got a downvote - did I break a rule? Didn't mean to offend anyone. Sunnyvale is a decent area but when I think 'one million dollars' I don't think Sunnyvale :)

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I dunno, man. NYC is starting to feel downright reasonable compared to SF now.

And in NYC I can get a bagel that doesn't suck.

That's what's crazy to me, that a 1BR in Sunnyvale is probably the same as a 1BR in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

Me and my partner are paying the same amount for a 1BR in Campbell as my buddy pays for a high-rise, swanky 1BR in downtown Hollywood. It's surreal.

But what about kale chips?

Oh and access to great surfing? And quick access to excellent skiing? Oh and an award winning, internationally renowned wine country?

Now you guys do have cheaper maple syrup, that's probably worth it. And the fog in the summer here definitely ruins those awesome summer evenings that are so plentiful in NY.

(Btw, these are the things I repeat to myself to be ok with the cost of living here)

>But what about kale chips

You lost me right there

I was responding to the bagel comment, totally facetious

NJ/NY transplant here, currently living in SF. I went skiing regularly as a kid in the Adirondacks in upstate NY (~4-5 hour drive from NYC). And fantastic Quebec skiing is another 2-4 hours past that.

Valid on the surfing and wine country, but there is skiing in the East :)

I grew up skiing in Vermont and all around the North East, the skiing in Tahoe is, IMO, orders of magnitude better.

Maybe you're being facetious about kale chips, but NYC is the world center of hipster gastronomy, if that's your thing (it's not mine, but some people like it).

NYC's also got great skiing and the wine is nothing to scoff at. Really, the only thing missing is surfing and "internationally renowned" wine.

I've had NY wine, my parents still live there, and we go out to some of their local wineries... they're better than I expected, but I love Zin, and CA is it's home.

NYC's got Skiing, yes, but it's nothing like Tahoe... Not even Vermont, though Mad River Glen, will always have a place in my heart; the Paradise trail and it's little frozen water falls to jump off, great memories there.

You can actually swim in the ocean in nyc without a wetsuit. (Summer of course)

I can throw a rock and hit a company that is willing to hire me. That kind of job security/market is worth the exorbitant housing prices.

Same deal in NYC, honestly.

I wouldn't want a million-dollar home in Sunnyvale either. It would be in a terrible part of town or incredibly small. A decent place in Birdland or Ortega Park or Cherry Chase is more like $2M.

And while Sunnyvale is mostly an also-ran of Silicon Valley cities, it's actually closer to the new Apple spaceship than most of Cupertino, it has Apple's new campus at Wolfe & Arques and while Sunnyvale/Tech Corners is arguably the least popular of Google's local campuses, hey, at least Sunnyvale has Google offices.

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