Everyone's been priced WAY out of Manhattan too, but I don't know that I would call it a "monoculture". (Tribeca/Greenwich Village area is very different than the Upper East Side for instance. Very different cultures. But only 0.0001% of Americans could ever really afford to live in either place.)
That's why I'm not sure that the affordability of housing is what's causing the monoculture?
In fact, I'd wager that with greater affordability in SF, the only thing you would really buy yourself is MORE monoculture. I don't think there is a massive wave of NON-tech people waiting to move into SF.
In addition, living without a car in NYC is common and normal, while cars cost $8,500/year TCO on average: https://www.aaa.com/autorepair/articles/what-does-it-cost-to..., and, while SF / SV is making some progress in the mass-transit area, it's still much harder to be without a car.
And NYC's absolute market rent levels appear to be lower than SF's.
>And NYC's absolute market rent levels appear to be lower than SF's....
That's NYC, not Manhattan.
Manhattan is worse than SF, (and certainly worse than any other place in SV). And yet, it's not a monoculture. That's the point I'm making. It strongly suggests that the issue in SF is less about affordable housing, and more about the fact that SF/SV is simply popular with a certain type of person.
And, as noted in the original post, in Manhattan it is very easy and typical to live without a car; in SF, less so, further increasing the cost disparity.
Tech is not even in the top 4 employers in SF (tourism, government, medicine and finance are ahead). Granted, a large contingent of techies working at Google/Facebook/Apple in the Peninsula would rather live in SF than the mind-numbing tedium of Silicon Valley.
I don't want to distract from your point too much, and I know you chose a percent out of a hat, but 0.0001% of Americans is ~300 people. Certainly 300 people can afford to live in expensive parts of NYC. In fact 0.0001% of the world (~10,000 people) can easily live in the most expensive parts of NYC (and do!).
Everyone's been priced WAY out of Manhattan too, but I don't know that I would call it a "monoculture". (Tribeca/Greenwich Village area is very different than the Upper East Side for instance. Very different cultures. But only 0.0001% of Americans could ever really afford to live in either place.)
That's why I'm not sure that the affordability of housing is what's causing the monoculture?
In fact, I'd wager that with greater affordability in SF, the only thing you would really buy yourself is MORE monoculture. I don't think there is a massive wave of NON-tech people waiting to move into SF.