[an]

[quote=spdrun]It’s also the gateway to Northern California, and you can be out of the city in some truly beautiful places in a relatively short time if you head north. In SD you get TJ, Hell Ay, or some mountains and then a whole lot of desert depending on which way you go.[/quote]
SD, we get Catalina, La Jolla, Del Mar, Coronado, the mountains, the dessert. Why do you think people COME to SD to vacation?

[an]

[quote=spdrun]I’m arguing that given the ability to have only one home, I’d prefer to raise a family in a 3/1 apartment in a nicer part of NYC over a 4/3 house in San Diego.

As far as the teen daughters, if they know from birth that bathroom time is limited, they’ll learn not to take their sweet time in the bathroom. Making every sane guy that they date 10 years down the line very happy :)[/quote]
That’s perfectly fine and that’s your choice. I never said SD is right for everyone. Vice Versa, you can’t PAY me to live in NYC. The first sign of snow or humidity and I’ll be on the next flight to SD. But don’t try to argue to $ proposition of said decision. Especially when it’s Bay area vs SD.

WRT to teen daughters, you talk like a true single guy. Get back to me when you have kids of your own. Especially daughters.

[an]

[quote=spdrun]Access to interesting people (in real life, not over the intarwebs), places to go, cultural events, etc.[/quote]Oh please, there are interesting people all around if you just open up your mind and put your prejudice at home. Places to go, cultural events. Sorry to say but SF is no NYC or Paris or Rome in term of culture. I rather take the $ I save and make a yearly trips to NYC and Paris and London etc. There are plenty of small plays and musicals in SD. So, you have more culture in SD than you can possibly experience. Yes, they tend to not have the biggest star casts but it’s no less cultural.

[an]

[quote=spdrun]My point is that living standard is much more than number of bedrooms and porcelain alters in your abode of choice.[/quote]
Living standard has everything to do with number of bed and bath and sq-ft and lot size and school and crime level and number of parks near by and proximity to trails, work, food, shopping,etc… I can go on but you get the point. You can’t possible argue a 1000 sq-ft 3/1 has the same living standard as a 4/3 2000 sq-ft for a family of 4. On one hand, 4 people have to fight over 1 bathroom. On the other, they each almost get their own. Now, imagine if you have 2 daughters who are in their teenage years. Yeah, good luck trying to pee.

[an]

[quote=spdrun]Again, housing expectations are purely local. Yeah, you will get a 3/1 or 3/2 for $600k instead of a 4/3 on more land. That doesn’t make it a worse place to live, just a DIFFERENT place to live.[/quote]
No, it makes it A LOT more expensive to live all the while, the pay is not that much more. Which was my point. BG tried to say pay was 40% more while housing is 0-25% more. I completely debunked that with DATA. Now, you’re saying a 3/1 or 3/2 is 80-100% more than SD while pay is 15-25% more? Yeah, no thanks. Which is why I didn’t move up there. I want to escape the rat race, not get deeper in it. If I move up there, my chance of retiring early diminish to almost 0. So, please explain to me why it’s entirely worth it for gen Y to get deeper in the rat race by living in an area that pay 15-25% while the same living standard would cost them 80-100% more?

I know the two places are different. Every place is different. There’s no point in debating that places are different because there are no two places that are the same. But, it does make it a worse place to live when it put you that much deeper in the rat race.

Now, back to my original statement, which is, the Bay area folks are more likely to have to pay this new tax. An average S/W Engineer 5 in Palo Alto makes around $143k in Palo Alto while a similar Engineer in SD makes $123k. Since SD is a lot cheaper to live, one can choose to live on a single income with $123k salary and still live very well. in the bay, it’s much harder to live on a single $143k income. So, if both spouses work, their combined income is $286k. They will be hit with this new tax. Even if the couple in SD decide to have double income. If they have similar income at $123k, their combined is only $246k, which means they still won’t be affected by this new tax. So, yea, I still stand by my original point that the W-2 folks in the bay area will be most affected by this.

[an]

[quote=spdrun]Housing expectations are purely local. You can also buy 30 acres of farmland and a 4 bedroom house for the same price in a small-town 60 miles west of Washington, DC 🙂 Several hundred acres even in central Michigan.

You don’t need a 2000 sf 4/3 house to raise a family of four. I know plenty of people who grew up in a 3/1 apartment or small house and turned out just fine.

Modify your criteria to grab anything that’s 3/1+ and > 1000 sf, and you get quite a few more listings in your area.[/quote]
Alright, lets do as you say. A 3/1+ in MM goes for low to mid $300k. This is what I get when I look up 3/1 <$400k around the areas I mentioned: linky

Here’s an advice, before you try and debate, you should do your research first. It’s getting way too easy.

[an]

[quote=spdrun]Ever thought that many of those companies started in Palo Alto precisely because it was cheaper than SF? And tech companies aren’t the only people who hire software types… Bearishgurl mentioned SF not Palo Alto, so a fair comparison would include SF salaries.[/quote]
Again, do your research before you try to debate. Since you’re too lazy to do your own research, I’ll give you data on SF:
S/W Engineer 1: $70k (lower than Palo Alto)
S/W Engineer 3: $105k (lower than Palo Alto)
S/W Engineer 5: $140k (lower than Palo Alto)
RN: $79k (lower than Palo Alto)
MD: $211k (lower than Palo Alto)

Do you see the trend?

Cheapness might be one thing, but the biggest thing is, there’s not enough SPACE for them to house all of their employees in SF. Salary.com DOES NOT only report on tech companies. It’s S/W Engineer as a whole in ALL industry.

So, there you have it. Since you’re lazy, it was my pleasure to hand your a$$ to you. SF Engineers gets paid WORSE in SF than in Palo Alto, which means their pay gap is even smaller than Palo Alto comparing to SD.

Who cares why BG mention SF. SF is not the hot bed for tech jobs. Neither is Downtown SD. She’s not aware of that though.

[an]

[quote=bearishgurl]It is between 0 and 25% higher, depending upon the micro-area there and its comparable micro-area here.[/quote]
Now, on to housing:
We all know, 92121 have A LOT of the high paying tech jobs. If you live on the West end of Mira Mesa, you can get a 4/3 2000 sq-ft house on a 5200 sq-ft lot around $450-500k (depending on condition). Now, if you work in Redwood, Menlo Park, Palo Alto, Mountain View area, do you think you can find comparable house for between $450-625k? Let me help you out, this is what’s available right for under $650k around those areas: linky This is what you get under $950k link. You start getting some houses popping up but the total w/in a decent commute time is still in a small handful.

So, no, young people who don’t want to be stuck in a rat race would not be better off going to the bay area. Do you think it’s possible to raise a family of 4 in the bay on a single income while living in a 2k+ sq-ft house in a good school area and be w/in 3-4 miles from god paying high tech jobs?

[an]

[quote=spdrun]Palo Alto isn’t SF… That’s like comparing a suburban town in NJ to Manhattan salary-wise.[/quote]
Tell me, where are all the big tech companies in the Bay area? Where’s Apple, Google, Facebook, Intel, need I go on? Now, tell me, in SD, where are all the big tech companies? Where’s Qualcomm, Intuit, various different Bio-tech companies? I thought so.

BTW, you assertion about salary shows how much you know about the bay area and tech jobs. Feel free to look up how much those positions get paid in SF and report back here.

[an]

[quote=bearishgurl]AN, I maintain that the avg salary in SF is 40% higher that the exact same position pays in SD County.[/quote]
Here are some data to dispute your claim:
S/W Engineer 1 – 14% higher:
Palo Alto – $71k http://swz.salary.com/SalaryWizard/Software-Developer-I-Salary-Details-Palo-Alto-CA.aspx
SD – $62k http://swz.salary.com/SalaryWizard/Software-Engineer-I-Salary-Details-92121-San-Diego-CA.aspx

S/W Engineer 3 – 26% higher:
Palo Alto – $116k http://swz.salary.com/SalaryWizard/Software-Developer-III-Salary-Details-Palo-Alto-CA.aspx
SD – $92k http://swz.salary.com/SalaryWizard/Software-Engineer-III-Salary-Details-92121-San-Diego-CA.aspx

S/W Engineer 5 – 16% higher:
Palo Alto – $143k http://swz.salary.com/SalaryWizard/Software-Engineer-V-Salary-Details-Palo-Alto-CA.aspx
SD – $123k http://swz.salary.com/SalaryWizard/Software-Engineer-V-Salary-Details-92121-San-Diego-CA.aspx

RN (Staff Nurse) – 16% higher:
Palo Alto – $81k http://swz.salary.com/SalaryWizard/registered-nurse-Salary-Details-Palo-Alto-CA.aspx
SD – $70k http://swz.salary.com/SalaryWizard/registered-nurse-Salary-Details-92121-San-Diego-CA.aspx

MD (Family Practice) – 16% higher:
Palo Alto – $216k http://swz.salary.com/SalaryWizard/Physician-Family-Practice-Salary-Details-Palo-Alto-CA.aspx
SD – $186k http://swz.salary.com/SalaryWizard/Physician-Family-Practice-Salary-Details-92121-San-Diego-CA.aspx

I think that enough data to prove my point about salary, no? My personal experience fall perfectly inline with these averages. About 15-25% difference between different companies.

[an]

[quote=bearishgurl]AN, I maintain that the avg salary in SF is 40% higher that the exact same position pays in SD County. This includes the counties of SF, SM, SC, Alameda, Contra Costa and Marin. Housing is NOT 40% higher in SF (or any of the abovementioned surrounding counties) than SD County. It is between 0 and 25% higher, depending upon the micro-area there and its comparable micro-area here.

Salaries are higher there because they don’t have a captive audience of thousands of employees (Americans incl) living cheaply in MX and crossing the border everyday to work in the US. And the weather in the SF Bay area isn’t as consistent as it is here. Periodically, the wind is very high in SF and SM counties. And commuting traffic can be much worse than here for residents of SC, Alameda and Contra Costa Counties (and beyond).

I understand you grew up here and your family still lives here but I feel that the SF Bay area has MUCH more opportunity for a “worker-bee,” ESP a Gen-Y worker, even in light of a so-called “affordable housing shortage” in the areas of the best jobs. I also feel it is entirely worth it for a young San Diegan college grad to relocate there for work, even one with a family. Most of the public schools there are better than here, as well.[/quote]
Wrong, wrong, and wrong. I’ll respond to all of your points. Average salary in SF is not 40% higher. It’s around 5-25% in my industry and my industry is one of the biggest industry in the Bay Area. I know, because I seriously considered moving to the Bay 2-3 years ago. Did a lot of interview, got a couple of offers and did a living cost analysis. Although the pay is 20-25% more, the cost of living for a comparable place is at least 50% more. If you don’t believe me, look around and tell me where I can get a 2000 sq-ft house on a >5K sq-ft within 15 minutes from the beach, 3 miles from work (around Sunnyvale, Menlo Park, etc), HS API in the mid 800s and elementary and middle schools API >900? I look for exactly these requirements and all of them are >$800k while I can get all of these for mid $400k.

If you don’t believe me on the salary, feel free to do your own research at salary.com or better yet, apply for a job up there and see how much you’d get pay there vs here. I don’t need to give reason why they get paid only 5-25% more than here because not only did I look it up on salary.com but I also got offers from both locations a couple of years back.

Again, I disagree with your statement that it’s entirely worth it up there. The numbers doesn’t work out at all. Not only do I HAVE to have dual income to barely just to survive up there, I’d have to put up with the cold and gloomy up weather as well. Also, the most important thing of all (if I have to have a long commute due to lack of affordable housing near work), is that I won’t be able to eat lunch with my wife everyday and see my baby everyday during lunch. I’m not talking about hypothetical or about things I have no personal experience with. I’m in that age group, I did apply for jobs and got offers up there AND I did tried to find housing up there AND down here.

[an]

The funny part is, w/in CA, people who live in SF gets paid the most for the same amount of work, since their cost of living is so high, so it’s much more likely to make >$250k in SF. So, they’re voting for taxes on themselves. Since cost of living in SD is much lower, we also get paid much lower. Which means it’s that much hard to make over $250k here than SF. So, they get to pay for CA’s spending. They’re happy to do it, since they voted for it, so I’m happy too. Maybe, once they need more money, they’ll propose higher taxes on family making more than $150k. After all, it’s still only a small percentage of CA’s population.

[an]

[quote=paulflorez][quote=AN]And we all know how that turned out.[/quote]

Which is why the current President is in the process of bringing all of Bush’s wars to an end as well as letting some of Bush’s tax cuts expire. Neither of those things turned out that great.[/quote]So, this time, the “mandate” is different than the last “mandate”?

[an]

[quote=Allan from Fallbrook][quote=AN][quote=spdrun]And think of the Mall*Wart employees “encouraged” to work on Turkey Day rather than spending it with their families. Boycott, baby!

Oh, and hope that whoever made that decision gets incurable nut (or c*nt) cancer and dies screaming.[/quote]
Wtf? Wow, just wow.[/quote]

AN: Yup, the beauty of the Leftist mind at work.

“Believe as I do, or get testicular or cervical cancer!”.

The far Right and the far Left in this country are now virtually indistinguishable.[/quote]
Yep, they’re both nut jobs.

[an]

[quote=spdrun]And think of the Mall*Wart employees “encouraged” to work on Turkey Day rather than spending it with their families. Boycott, baby!

Oh, and hope that whoever made that decision gets incurable nut (or c*nt) cancer and dies screaming.[/quote]
Wtf? Wow, just wow.

[Author]

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