> So you want to live in what would be an extremely desirable area but also have the cost of living be very low, and feel like you have a high quality of life while you have a tendency to exaggerate the negative aspects of your community.

I don't want a super low CoL, but I realize that housing prices have gone up in excess of what they should have due to restrictive housing policies.

Seattle used to be 1/2 the price of the Bay Area, or less! Engineers here earned less than in the SF, but we were OK with it because the QoL was great at a much lower cost.

But the city and surrounding areas refused to upzone, to such a degree that the state legislature finally had to force the issue, but even then the laws passed are too little too late.

The reason for the high CoL is lack of construction, plain and simple. Getting simple residential permits can take half a year or more, environmental regulations have limited what even homeowners can do with their own houses, and the majority of the city is still zoned for only single family homes.

The high price of building means that daycares can't open (too expensive to justify), and workers in all fields demand ever higher pay just so they can afford rent, which drives up the cost of everything.

For the last decade we've built 1/2 as many houses as we've had people moving to the city, and a large percent of new dense construction is rental only, which means money leaving the city and residents not building up any equity (or long term stake) in the city.

Bad policies lead to bad outcomes.