I don’t buy that argument, there’s no reason a teacher in San Francisco can’t live in Oakland or Berkeley, or a teacher in NYC couldn’t live in NJ. You don’t have a human right to live in the most expensive real estate on Earth.

GP didn't say anything about it being a human right. You seem to be strawmanning their argument.

I think it's a reasonable expectation that even in HCOL places like SF or NYC, people in careers important to society should be able to live in the communities they serve.

The price of SF real estate affects the price of real estate in Oakland and Berkeley. So it's still a relevant input variable.

Yeah, screw the teachers, they should just have a longer commute, who cares about them? /s

I always want to laugh when I hear people complain about finding near-minimum-wage workers in a HCOL area. They can't seem to grasp that commuting is not free, it may feel free to them at their income level but transportation costs money (gas, car maintenance, insurance or bus, etc) and time. I'm not saying teaching is a minimum wage job but it's not a high earning one either, paying them as low as we do _and_ also asking them to have a longer commute is just absurd.

Keep that argument going.

Jackson Hole residents complaining about "poor service" in stores and restaurants in town, because shocker, servers can't afford to live in Jackson Hole. And unlike even SF or NY (which may not be perfect but have at least functional transport), there's no easy way to travel from the next town, an hour away or more.

Residents have started banding together to rent coaches to bus people in, which seems the most reasonable solution, after all, no poors in town, still, and it doesn't hurt the residents that service industry employees in their town have a three hour commute. /s

It got so bad in Atherton, CA, that the school had to build accommodation for teachers in the school itself. Next step, they can do janitorial work for extra money!