I hear ya Dano! THe Bay Area is a nice place. Nice outdoors spots, good food, plenty of strange people to watch....And I too hate the traffic and prices for homes.
Hell, I bought my house 4 years ago and paid 380K for it. Thats D@MN good in the bay area, really crummy for anywhere else!
There's also the Anti-Gunners, Anti-Military, Protest Anythingers and plain old Dumb @sses to deal with as well!