Living in Los Angeles as a college student for five years, none of my apartments had air conditioning. Sure, some houses had it... but even in LA it's a bit of a luxury.

Same goes for the homes of everyone I knew in Lake Tahoe, where I grew up. The climate's similar to the bay during the summer, but it's still (partially) in California. ;)

Heh, heh. San Diego is pretty temperate and many of the houses were properly constructed--they don't rely on air conditioning, so you can shrug off the 88* summer days. High ceilings, copious windows and balconies... Slide those doors and windows open, revel in the near-constant ocean breeze, never sweat. Until persistent heat and high humidity (relatively high, still laughable compared to the southern states I hail from) struck southern California year 'round the past few years. Many of my neighbors are installing air conditioning after living without it for 28+ years.

We'll see how El Nino ruins things for us holdouts.

Nope; plenty of apartments in Menlo Park, Palo Alto, and Mountain View don't have air conditioning.

I lived in one in Menlo Park that I wished had air conditioning...