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No. This is a gross exaggeration and extremely out of touch with economic reality.
I would wager the couple making $300k in SF are not living like that. Hell, I used to live a lifestyle much better than my grandparents did back when I lived in the Bay Area, on a lot less than a six-figure salary. I didn't have kids, but I also didn't even make $50k, and yet I still ate out multiple times per week, not per year.
I know nobody making over $80k in the SF Bay Area who I would not be comfortable calling at least upper-middle-class. The people who think otherwise mostly live in an insane bubble in which they only know people in the top 10% of the income distribution, and have absolutely no idea what a middle-class American lives like.
> sq-ft
Well this sort of thing is the crux of the matter. If you give a shit about restaurants and ipads, well yes now is better. If the idea of having a handful of grandkids appeals to you, well now is worse.
The result is a society in which people find it quite easy to obtain what their parents would have called frivolous luxuries (sushi), but quite difficult to obtain what their parents would have called basics (an affordable house in a good neighborhood).
How about Silicon Valley? Cupertino is safe and has good schools. And it's <1 hr drive to Santa Cruz or Half Moon Bay if you want beaches. Or you could do the other direction, and live in SC and commute to Cupertino (or wherever). Google even runs shuttles if that's your thing. I lived in Santa Cruz for years on a 5-figure salary, and felt quite comfortably well off. Actually I sort of wish it were further from Silicon Valley, because the only bad thing about living in SC was that the rich techies with 6-figure salaries were driving up prices...
