I lived and worked in many cities – Maryland, NYC/NJ, Charlotte, Dallas, Chicago, San Diego. Overall, I think that San Diego has very good talent in wireless (due to Qualcomm) and maybe in biotech (but biotech here is small, and most of them are in startup stage). Otherwise I don’t see how San Diego attracts better talent. In fact, we have problem attracting graduate students from top schools to San Diego sometimes from my recruiting experience. School (UCSD the best here?) is OK here, maybe we have some top research institutions like Salk, but impact is small. It is true, though, that some established people (scientists, professors, business men/women) like to retire here. Money is likely of no issue to them.

My personal experience actually says that overall IT talent is poorer here, but I don’t count it as a reliable data point.

Back to housing and economics…San Diego will likely always have higher price levels (if nothing else, those rich out-of-towners like to keep a vacation home here). But I don’t think it’s supported by better local human capital.