[tomsaffell]

That, and cities have a higher standard-deviation than suburbs on pretty much any variable you choose to measure: house price, income, race, price of gas, education level, price of a haircut... In my experience cites have the best and worse of all that life offers. Suburbs are mediocre.

[spartango]

Potentially, but I've found the 'suburbs' of San Francisco/the Bay Area are very different from suburbs in other parts of the country. Suburbs are known for being somewhat isolated, uniform, and idle; the textbook definitions of suburbs describe them as a dissociation of residential life from industrial zones.

This is often not true around SF. Up and down the peninsula, you'll find continuous cities with strong tech and other industries. Would we consider Redwood City a stereotypical suburb, for example? It becomes more murky, and many of the stereotypes fall apart.

That said, your perception is held by many people and is accurate for many parts of the US. As a result, people moving to the Bay Area choose where to live with a similar bias.