[linguae]

I'm curious about the untapped potential of other parts of California. Now that the pandemic has made remote work a necessity, I'm wondering if regions of California outside Silicon Valley will benefit from remote tech workers having more options in terms of residences. For example, Sacramento is a very popular destination for ex-Bay Area residents, and it appears to be a good location for people working remotely for Silicon Valley companies who (post-pandemic) may need to make occasional trips to the office. Sacramento is still affordable, though it's becoming more expensive each year.

Other areas that are intriguing to me include San Luis Obispo County and some of Southern California's exurbs like the Antelope Valley area and Lake Elsinore, where it's possible to buy a nice single-family house in a safe neighborhood for less than $500,000.

California gets a bad rap in some circles due to its high cost of living and its taxes, but not everywhere in California has the Bay Area's high housing costs. There are many other areas of the state where people can still reasonably make a day trip to the Bay Area to enjoy its amenities while living in a place that is affordable on an average engineer's salary.

[gnicholas]

I grew up in Sacramento and now live near Palo Alto. Sacramento has great public schools. I went to a public IB high school, whose science teams regularly placed in the top 3 in the US for Science Bowl/ Science Olympiad. In many parts of CA, the best schools are private (LA), or you have to pay millions of dollars for a house in the good districts (Palo Alto).

In Sacramento, they have what is called 'open enrollment', which allows people to send their kids to school outside of their district, if there is a program there that isn't available locally. I had many classmates from across town, and one who lived halfway to Tahoe.

I personally think that areas like Half Moon Bay and Scott's Valley will benefit from remote work. It's close enough to go into SV when needed, but farther than many people would have wanted to commute daily. And they're beautiful, with good weather. SLO will probably benefit also, and I imagine that schools will change in these areas, to become more like SV/LA. That's probably good for SF/LA families, though locals might not like the changes.

[beamatronic]

There are so many nice little towns in northern California. Any of them would be a fine place to live.

[novok]

If I wanted to stay in generic american suburbia while my location doesn't matter for my job, it's hard to justify staying in california.