> Concentrate your tech workers in a area that isn't hostile to expanding the housing supply when needed.
Sure, you can try that.
But if the place doesn't offer the environmental features that make the Bay Area attractive, your going to have to offer them a premium to live there; lower housing costs may cover some of that so that you are only paying the same, but may not.
The Bay Area is expensive, more than anything else, because people want to live there.
I'll give you Denver, definitely high quality of life in Colorado. Not Vegas, most definitely not Texas (save for Austin), not Phoenix, and Atlanta is nowhere near friendly unless you work from home and never need to get into a car.
Chattanooga is good, Nashville is good (but getting pricey), lots of space and smart people in North Carolina (Asheville or Raleigh Durham Research Triangle Park). I've heard good things about Des Moines (not a fan of the cold though).
At this point, its just masochistic for SF startups to require their tech staff to live in the area, and throw away so much of their income to landlords.
That's a broad and rather incomplete generalization.
I spent two years in a California high school and two years in a Texas high school. I have seen first hand how terrible schools can be in CA and, conversely, how fantastic they can be in Texas.
For reference, I'm comparing Benicia HS in the North Bay with Seven Lakes HS in suburban Houston.
In California, teachers were restricted to six pieces of copier paper per student per year. One security guard for 1500 students. Ancient textbooks and the most antagonistic administration you can imagine. AP classes? Gone. School buses? Discontinued. Arts and music? Better hope your parents can pay for it.
Between my sophomore and junior years I moved to Texas. Seven Lakes was the most expensive school ever built. We didn't just have a computer science class, we had a computer science department. Our AP US History teacher had more students score 4 or 5 on the AP exam than any other US history teacher in the country.
To Benicia's credit, their band was actually quite a bit better.
And just to underline the difference in affordability, the average home price in Benicia at the time was $629k. Katy's average was $161k.
Safe to say I have no regrets about having left California.
Sure, you can try that.
But if the place doesn't offer the environmental features that make the Bay Area attractive, your going to have to offer them a premium to live there; lower housing costs may cover some of that so that you are only paying the same, but may not.
The Bay Area is expensive, more than anything else, because people want to live there.