> This holds within, but not across, markets, obviously. $450k in one market is an excellent school district, while in California it's not. If your budget is $450k, you will land in a better neighborhood with better schools in a cheaper city than in a more expensive city.

Yeah, you are right about that. Thing is, even the area I'm in is inflating much faster than incomes are. I don't think young people coming up are going to have an easy time getting into even the relatively-cheap-but-decent-schools places like where I am. They're rapidly becoming not-cheap.

> Reminder that rating sites like great schools penalize districts in urban areas. Density typically includes apartments/affordable housing/transit, which frequently includes people struggling financially and/or people whose first language is not English. This shows up in test scores. Even if every family at a school excels academically except those of more modest means, rating sites will ding the school. Even though research shows such environments are often very good for children. So "school quality" ratings basically are "what percentage of families in this neighborhood have white-collar professionals," which is not really a great measure. TL;DR; it's difficult to evaluate school quality via the Internet.

Very true. I've seen some try to address this by making "equity" (or similar) a significant part of whatever final score they have, so that under-performing schools that are at least not notably failing to serve their low-income students get a big bump in the ratings, and apparently-good ones that are doing poorly at bringing up lower SES student scores have that failing amplified. Modern testing also helps with this, with a stronger focus on growth versus absolute scores. In both cases those can also muddy the waters, though, if your concern is trying to find the absolute best instruction and overall experience in an area. Measurement of that is definitely a tough problem.

Separately, it is also the case that school quality appears to be largely based on selection bias, that is, the "good schools" also tend to have the easiest-to-teach (stable home lives, probably not having money problems) students—but it's also the case that better (more ambitious, better-performing, better-behaved) peer models and less classroom disruption will result in a better and more effective school experience, even if instruction quality were everywhere equal. It's a case in which my aims for best-serving my kids, and how I wish the world worked, are in some conflict.

> Honestly, this is the real killer. I empathize with folks with tight familial ties to California, for this reason.

Yeah, general "just move somewhere with a better economy" advice (usually aimed at folks already in cheap areas, not cases like what we've been discussing) usually neglect that the benefits of having nearby, on-good-terms family and friends can cost well into the five figures to replicate without them, for folks with kids especially. Loss of free child care, loss of "hey can you come help me move this?", loss of free skilled help for, say, auto or home repair, free rides places if your car breaks down, free transport service for the kids, et c. That's such a huge benefit, hard to abandon, especially for people with low incomes. (or, as you note, people stuck having to choose between an expensive area and a cheaper one where they won't have close ties to people)