Originally Posted by Gresp15C

I've lived in Madison for just over 20 years. I grew up in Michigan, and lived in Texas for a few years. Some people love it, others hate it. I commute to work by bike, every day, year-round. I only drive to work if I need the car for some extraordinary reason.

The Bay Area is kind of an epicenter for some technologies that I'm interested in, so I read a lot of chat about housing in and around SF. I'm pretty sure climate is not the reason why housing in SF is expensive. There are some pretty bizarre economics and demographics that are unique to that area. And hearing it from the people who live there, it's practically dystopian.

I visited the Oyster Point area, and during my stay, I took some long walks. It was indeed dystopian. I saw no stores or restaurants, save for the hotels that were in the area. I saw practically no signs of human life except for cars driving around. There was a long paved path along the waterfront, and it was virtually deserted, even during the evening. Even in the depth of winter in Madison, you will see people outdoors, engaging with their surroundings.

Madison doesn't have a flood of venture capital money, and foreign money laundering, driving up the price of real estate. What I've observed is that it's pretty stable. For instance, in my neighborhood, housing prices didn't skyrocket during the 2000's bubble, but they also didn't crash in 2008.

And it gets weirder. The Twin Cities are considered to be even more bike-friendly, despite having an even more severe winter.

By the way, I'm not bashing SF, but just trying to offer a perspective to support the fact that people like different places for different reasons.