I don’t think the cost of plumbing is the issue. SF has very high cost of living, not just in housing but in everything. Couple that with the loss of freedoms (SF has laws that the rest of CA doesn’t have, like menthol cigarettes being illegal for one) and I couldn’t be paid enough to live there. Perhaps this feeling is much more widespread than the utopia painted, and now that WFH is viable people are leaving for greener pastures.
It's all personal choice. I lived there for a long time, and if it wasn't so expensive, I'd move back in a heartbeat. I wouldn't care about SF specific laws, it's the cost of living in ANY city. Personally, I would rejoice if all cigarettes were illegal -- that would make me want to move to SF even more, to take such a wonderful stance against cigarettes.
All cities have laws that other places don't have. Why you for some reason only confine it to SF is strange.
I just adore SF.
Even all these things about homeless - that is true where the homeless are, but last time I went there a year or two ago, there were no homeless, or exceedingly rare - I went to Glen Park, Noe Valley, Inner and Outer Sunset, Excelsior, Forest Hill, Parnassus Heights, Cole Valley, Marina, Pacific Heights...so many places in SF - no, or rare, homeless.
It's the same exact thing in Los Angeles. If you go to where the homeless congregate, there they are. But I could drive around Los Angeles for days and not see a homeless person.
But people like to catastrophize. ALL San Francisco is horrible, ALL Los Angeles is horrible. No, sorry.