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Riverside MSA has a lot of commuters to LA and even San Diego, plus it has two smaller metros of a few 100,000 located in it. A group of smaller metros around 500,000 will always lead to less GDP this makes the number infinitely small as we are cutting commuters and essentially analyzing three metros of 500,000, 500,000 and 1-2.5 million This will always cut into GDP.
Phoenix is in a inexpensive state (compared to California or Massachusetts) hence the drop, also Phoenix city seems underdeveloped for its size in terms of huge downtowns and multiple CBDs that other cities of similar size present.
San Francisco is actually much larger than its MSA in some aspects and we are looking more at an area or region that it can draw from closer to 10 million, Boston is similar in this regard. Then add on that both states are more expensive to live in more money will be needed to sustain that lifestyle.
Riverside MSA has a lot of commuters to LA and even San Diego, plus it has two smaller metros of a few 100,000 located in it. A group of smaller metros around 500,000 will always lead to less GDP this makes the number infinitely small as we are cutting commuters and essentially analyzing three metros of 500,000, 500,000 and 1-2.5 million This will always cut into GDP.
Phoenix is in a inexpensive state (compared to California or Massachusetts) hence the drop, also Phoenix city seems underdeveloped for its size in terms of huge downtowns and multiple CBDs that other cities of similar size present.
San Francisco is actually much larger than its MSA in some aspects and we are looking more at an area or region that it can draw from closer to 10 million, Boston is similar in this regard. Then add on that both states are more expensive to live in more money will be needed to sustain that lifestyle.
This is spot on. The MSA boundaries are misleading as both SF and Boston have much larger CSAs than Phoenix. In addition, as you said, the cost of living is far higher in SF and Boston as well, and salaries are accordingly much higher too.
That is a factor, but not the only one. I would get paid more money for the exact same job I do in Dallas if I moved to Boston because it costs so much more to live there.
People flee the to Phoenix for affordability in addition to weather. And they go to R/SB because it's the cheap end of LA. It would be odd if they weren't cheap. Neither has a lot of high-paying industries.
The reason is the costs of living in the San Francisco and Boston areas are so much higher than Phoenix and Riverside that the wages have to be at a certain level in order for survival. The best way to judge what you're getting for your money is looking at an area's Buying Power (wages vs. cost of living). With the index national average being 300 (the lower the number, the better), Phoenix is 333.18 and Riverside/San Bernardino is 394.24. Yet San Francisco is 732.49 and Boston is 451.81. By comparison to a couple of other major metros, Houston is 282.46 and Charlotte is 291.29. You are going to have a higher salary in the Bay Area, but your money will go much farther and you will be able to afford more on less in Phoenix.
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