Are we talking about Seattle? We definitely have public transit here.
> Sending children to a good colleage is probably 50k+ a year just in tuition.
If they don't get into UW you mean? UW in-state tuition is only $11,745 (I say "only", but it is much higher than when I went there). However, it is a very competitive state university to get into.
I suppose this light rail train I am watching go by outside my window is just a mirage or something. Same for these buses, obviously a plant.
What? Seattle has one of the most utilized public transit systems in the US.
If you took the same amount of high earners and dropped them in an area with five times as many equivalent utility houses, then prices would not be high even though there are the same number of high earners. Hence high housing prices are not a result of a population of high earners simply existing.
As an example, I can afford and am willing to pay $5 for an apple, but I will not because I can easily find an equivalent one for $1.5.
Pay is usually max(COL, local market rate). You don't need a super high COL if the local market is very competitive, but COL can raise the pay because you still need to convince people to move to your location and most people won't do that if it has an abnormally higher cost of living without a corresponding pay increase.
The reason house prices are high in Seattle is because geography limits how well they can sprawl to build new houses and lots of people don't like higher density housing.
