(This is more of a response to several of the comments posted so far.)
I'd like to come to the defense of low-cost living but also acknowledge that (expensive) city living has its obvious pluses that people already in SV might be taking for granted.
I created a low-cost living situation while living in a big (old/pretty) house in New Hampshire by renting out all of the rooms to friends. My rent is "free" and utilities are split 5 ways ($50 per person in summer, $150 in winter. Heating the house is expensive). If you can stand living with other people, I think this is one of the better ways to bootstrap "new job out of college" money instead of putting a down-payment on a smaller home that might not bring in any cash.
The house just so happens to be the house I grew up in, which my father sold in 2005 and foreclosed on in 2010 (ultra-conveniently, the year I graduated from college). It needed lots of work, so instead of trying to (re)sell it for cheap I made a deal to fix it up while living in it for reduced rent. Three friends living there cover the rent.
The house may be worth more in the future than current rates, and certainly has its share of things-needing-fixing, and my friends pay below-market rent rates, so it seems like a good deal for everyone involved.
If I did not have such a house, I think I'd try to buy one and do the same thing. It's nice to have some communal society around after college. (I've planned other things in my life to try to re-create that, too, because I think its important and under-acknowledged.)
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It's worth noting that there are downsides to living in a lower-cost-than-SV/Major City area. I don't have any programmer friends in real life outside of the people at my work (a very tiny company, and no one is remotely near my age (24)). That becomes a little problematic. I'm reminded of a quote from John le Carre:
> Coming home from very lonely places, all of us go a little mad: whether from great personal success, or just an all-night drive, we are the sole survivors of a world no one else has ever seen.
It's hard to talk about programming things and I think that's bad. I'm not around as many career-driven people as I'd like to be either and I think that's bad too. I end up spending a lot of time on the internet to talk about those areas of my interest. (And especially HN: I have a lot of affection for the repeated names in this place, even if we all tend to be a tad too negative. Consistent commentors still make a community and I'm thankful for that. Really.)
So it's a good setup. And while my salary isn't amazing it's more than enough for my area, and I love my walkable, lovable hometown in New Hampshire. But there's certainly something to be said for cities and high cost areas. I miss being around as many smart people as there were in college.
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On a note actually related to the article, when I drove around western NY - went to college at RPI, near Albany and headed west for Craigslist ventures - the places I saw just seemed surreal. Some parts of western NY, if you were just dropped there with no context, you'd think to yourself "A war must have happened here maybe 30 years ago". Strange levels of decay and halted-/de- construction