As in the "high salaries" of tech workers is just what average folks used to make relatively speaking previous decades.
"Luxury areas" are not somehow "optional" for the people that have to live there to work there, as the term "luxury area" implies.
Prior to COVID many similar disparities were able to be found. In fact, there was a growing counter-urbanization movement taking advantage of it. It does seem opportunists sitting at home not allowed to do anything else during COVID squeezed a lot of them dry along with everything else, granted.
Although most people want to buy a house, given a smartphone and a rent or a house but living with no smartphone or internet, I think most people would choose pay rent and have access to internet and a smartphone.
1: https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/ 2: https://clockify.me/productivity-pay-gap
For me at least from family in construction work it's very clear. They made the same hourly wage in the 80's as many workers do now, despite how much more productive construction has gotten.
The second article has a good quote:
> Wages and productivity were not growing at a directly proportional pace, but for some industries, such as high-tech (especially nowadays), wages are proportional to productivity. It all depends on the choice of variables taken into account.