It’s even more extreme in the Bay Area. While San Francisco is a job center, there are also major suburban job centers such as Palo Alto, Cupertino, Mountain View, and Sunnyvale. The problem is living close to work is painfully expensive for all but the most well-off employees. A Google executive could comfortably afford a nice house in Los Altos or Palo Alto and have an easy commute. A Google engineer could commute from Fremont or Pleasanton, which would be grueling in a car, but is comfortable on a Google shuttle bus with leather seats and WiFi. But if you’re a teacher working for a school in Mountain View, my condolences. If you want to afford to buy, you’re looking at a grueling commute from either a middle-class exurb like Tracy or from a high-crime, impoverished area like East Oakland. Even renting an apartment closer to work would be daunting in terms of cost.