There are no zoomer coders drinking YC koolaid and moving to seattle with a backpack and a dream. Seattle is where you go to live a regular american upper-middle class life.

On the flip side, is there any evidence that there should not be a gap between those two cities? Why is it surprising that there is a gap? It seems like that's expected.

apparently Seattleites have more sense

Could just be that people in the Bay Area are more absurdly wealthy so they have a higher risk appetite… risk tolerance tends to correlate directly with wealth and security - nobody taking zero salary is doing so in leu of food and shelter.