There is no city in America where a single individual cannot afford a comfortable lifestyle in a nice neighborhood on a $150k salary. is this not true in most of Europe? I feel like most of my European friends make well south of $150k and do just fine.
NZD is 0.6 USD or so, 150K NZD is about 90K USD, according to HUD, such an income for a single person is between Very Low Income (65K) and Low Income (104K) in San Francisco. You can explore income limits here https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/il.html
I used to work in public housing so I know all about income limits and how they are determined by the average income of the specific region and household size. When talking about average income in ridiculous high income areas, "below average" can still be a very livable salary.
It very well may be very livable but I don't see how it can be "a comfortable lifestyle in a nice neighborhood". With the standard 30% of gross income limit you can rent at $2250/m, which limits you to tiny apartments in certain neighborhoods.
