$1600 will get you a respectable 2-bedroom apartment in a decent neighborhood in Chicago, which most certainly isn't LCOL. If you want your 5-bedroom mcmansion in Northbrook or your artsy flat in Wicker Park, then yeah that'll cost more - see your point about houses in Palo Alto.
A downright nice 2-bedroom apartment in the heart of Rochester MN will run you $1300/mo tops, and $1000/mo is well within reason.
I had to do this math fairly recently. For me, moving from a relatively pricey part of the midwest, the number was 2.2x my income for SV to be viable. Now that I live here, I find that I actually undershot a little, and it's more like 2.4x to break even. I thought groceries and restaurants and such would be roughly the same. They aren't.
$1600 will get you a respectable 2-bedroom apartment in a decent neighborhood in Chicago, which most certainly isn't LCOL. If you want your 5-bedroom mcmansion in Northbrook or your artsy flat in Wicker Park, then yeah that'll cost more - see your point about houses in Palo Alto.
A downright nice 2-bedroom apartment in the heart of Rochester MN will run you $1300/mo tops, and $1000/mo is well within reason.
I had to do this math fairly recently. For me, moving from a relatively pricey part of the midwest, the number was 2.2x my income for SV to be viable. Now that I live here, I find that I actually undershot a little, and it's more like 2.4x to break even. I thought groceries and restaurants and such would be roughly the same. They aren't.