The Glory & The Cost of Living in Silicon Valley

In the expensive areas on America's coasts, demand is robust, because of high incomes and pleasures... California's Santa Clara County, Silicon Valley, has a splendid Mediterranean climate and incomes that are 60 percent above the U.S. average. Unsurprisingly, people will pay plenty to live there. Between 2005 and 2007, average housing prices in the county were close to $800,000, more than four times the U.S. average. Prices have dropped since then, but according to recent sales data, the San Jose metropolitan area, which includes Santa Clara county, remained the most expensive place in the continental United States in the second quarter of 2009.-Edward Glaeser, The Triumph of the City, pp. 188-189