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Mark Wogulis and Melanie Bowden in front of their new home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in May 2025. A layoff in biotech forced the couple to sell their home in Berkeley and retire early.\u00a0Courtesy: Danielle Wogulis<\/p>\nMark Wogulis and Melanie Bowden in front of their new home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in May 2025. A layoff in biotech forced the couple to sell their home in Berkeley and retire early.\u00a0Courtesy: Danielle Wogulis<\/p>\n
Since the California Gold Rush, economic opportunities have drawn people to\u00a0the Bay Area\u00a0from all over the world. But for just as long, the region\u2019s boom-and-bust economy has made it impossible for others to stay.<\/p>\n
Since the 1990s, the tech industry has driven costs higher, but for some who work in the industry and haven\u2019t struck IPO or AI gold, life in the Bay Area is not adding up.<\/p>\n
Mark Wogulis and Melanie Bowden, both 62, raised their family in Northern California, but a layoff made it impossible for them to stay. Last spring, they put their house in Berkeley on the market and drove to Santa Fe with a cat, Molly, and a chihuahua, Felice.<\/p>\n
Ani and Alex Vecchi, both software engineers, live in San Francisco\u2019s Hayes Valley with their orange cat, Mushu. They haven\u2019t been in the Bay Area long, but already, both aged 30, they\u2019re starting to worry that the city they love may be too expensive for raising a family.<\/p>\n
Researchers at Joint Venture Silicon Valley confirm what many already feel: The region\u2019s economy is generating enormous wealth, but also growing impossibly unaffordable for most people.<\/p>\n
Even well-paid tech workers are being forced to choose between the Bay Area and the rest of their lives.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt distills to a few key points,\u201d said Russell Hancock, President and CEO of Joint Venture Silicon Valley, at the organization\u2019s annual State of the Valley conference in late February. \u201cWe have a very hot economy. It\u2019s creating a lot of wealth. It\u2019s not creating as many jobs. And our housing is too expensive.\u201d<\/p>\n
And it\u2019s creating\u00a0demographic churn<\/a>\u00a0\u2014\u00a0young people move in while older folks move out.\u00a0<\/p>\n Mark and Melanie<\/p>\n For Mark Wogulis and Melanie Bowden, it\u2019s a story of young people arrive, fall in love with a place, build a life. Then something shifts, and the place that felt like home starts to feel like a problem to be solved.<\/p>\n After decades in California, Wogulis and Bowden felt the sting of leaving somewhere that felt like home. \u201cIt does hit differently,\u201d Wogulis said, \u201cwhen it\u2019s not your choice.\u201d<\/p>\n Wogulis and Bowden met decades ago when they were teachers in San Francisco. He was teaching science.<\/p>\n She was teaching math. They started a family. He pivoted from teaching to pharmaceuticals, then got a doctorate in biochemistry and molecular biology.<\/p>\n Pharmaceuticals and biotech are notoriously volatile, but he worked at Elan Pharmaceuticals in South San Francisco for nearly eight years, then at Novozymes in Davis for nearly 13.<\/p>\n From there, he moved to Amyris in Emeryville, which at the time specialized in developing sustainable alternatives for chemicals traditionally derived from petroleum or wildlife that were used in the beauty, flavor and fragrance industries. \u201cTurned out everything they were selling, they were losing money on,\u201d Wogulis said. \u201cWhen the money ran out, they went bankrupt.\u201d<\/p>\n There were three rounds of layoffs, but Wogulis remained optimistic. \u201cI thought I had made it,\u201d he said, because he hadn\u2019t been laid off, even as the company went into and emerged from bankruptcy.<\/p>\n Then he got axed during a fourth round of layoffs.<\/p>\n At first, Wogulis thought he\u2019d find another job, like he always had. But now in his 60s, his experience and longevity made him more expensive relative to other prospective employees.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no way to prove it, but there was no doubt in my mind that there was age discrimination involved,\u201d Bowdon said. \u201cHe would be fully qualified for a job and hear nothing on many, many, many jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere were people older than me at Amyris,\u201d Wogulis said, \u201cbut not very many.\u201d<\/p>\n It was also true that, thanks to LinkedIn and artificial intelligence, Wogulis was competing with biochemists from all over the world, many of them willing to relocate to the Bay Area.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, there just was nothing,\u201d Wogulis said. \u201cI applied for a bunch of stuff that either I was over- or under-qualified for. I mean, I got a couple of rejections. Most of them just went off into the void.\u201d<\/p>\n When the layoff came, the couple was living in Berkeley, in a 1,570 square foot Craftsman-style home they bought after raising their family in Davis.<\/p>\n \u201cWe loved the location. So close to BART and bus stops, and lots of good restaurants within walking distance. I could bike to work. We also liked the charm of such an old house,\u201d Wogulis said.<\/p>\n But they crunched the numbers and realized they didn\u2019t have much financial runway before they\u2019d have to take off for someplace cheaper.<\/p>\n \u201cWe needed to get out of there. We couldn\u2019t afford that house,\u201d Bowden said. That\u2019s how they decided to retire early at age 62 and move to Santa Fe, with their cat and dog in tow.<\/p>\n The couple, born on the tail end of the Baby Boom, had the benefit of owning homes for much of their working lives.<\/p>\n The proceeds from the sale of their house in Davis became the down payment for the house in Berkeley, so their mortgage was only $3,000 a month. Still, their utilities and property taxes added up to about $19,000 per year.<\/p>\n They moved to Santa Fe knowing nobody but their real estate agents, who helped them find a house for $600,000 \u2014 half what they paid in Berkeley, even though it\u2019s roughly the same size. They don\u2019t even have a mortgage, something that\u00a0seems wild<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0most Bay Area homeowners<\/a>\u00a0today. The property taxes are smaller, too: about $4,000 per year.<\/p>\n \u201cWe did it out of necessity,\u201d Wogulis said. \u201cI would have felt a lot better if I\u2019d totally chosen to come here, I didn\u2019t feel\u00a0under the gun<\/a>\u00a0to do something. Yeah, that was difficult. It does hit differently when it\u2019s \u2026\u201d he said, giving Bowden a chance to finish his sentence, the way longtime partners often do. \u201c\u2026When it\u2019s not your choice. We had to move. We had to.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou know, there\u2019s people I miss, definitely,\u201d Bowden said. \u201cOur neighbors are very nice.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt just takes time,\u201d Wogulis said. \u201cIt took time in Berkeley, too.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLuckily, Santa Fe is a very cultural and artistic city. There\u2019s so many museums, plays, concerts,\u201d Bowden said. Their grown kids came to visit at Christmas. She is keeping up with masters swimming and cat rescue. They got a second cat through Felines and Friends. His name is Cyrus.<\/p>\n Back in the Bay Area, the AI revolution continues the region\u2019s long tradition of minting new millionaires and billionaires. The question is whether everyone else can hold on.<\/p>\n Ani and Alex<\/p>\n Ani and Alex Vecchi met about 10 years ago in physics class while studying software engineering at the University of Central Florida in Orlando.<\/p>\n She went into front-end, customer interface work. She\u2019s now a senior software engineer for Banquet Health, a startup software platform for hospital meals. \u201cUsing tech for a good cause is huge for me,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n They came to the Bay Area in June of 2024 because Alex\u2019s weather monitoring startup Sorcerer landed a\u00a0$500,000 grant<\/a>\u00a0from Y Combinator, the Silicon Valley accelerator that launched Airbnb, Dropbox and DoorDash. It was, in startup terms, a golden ticket.<\/p>\n \u201cStarting a company here, you have to do it here,\u201d Alex said. The investors are here, or a short drive down the Peninsula. Scheduling a Zoom call? \u201cIt\u2019s not the same,\u201d he said. \u201cThings spark here.\u201d<\/p>\n Sorcerer closed a\u00a0$3.9 million seed round<\/a>\u00a0last year. \u201cThat data is what powers, essentially, the forecasts on your phone.\u201d<\/p>\n They have been having the time of their lives in San Francisco.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of greenery,\u201d Ani said. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of people out and about. You have that drive [to succeed in business], but it\u2019s also peaceful, in some ways.\u201d They love walking and picnics and meals with friends. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot going on here,\u201d Ani said.<\/p>\n The thing is, the Vechhis are starting to think about\u00a0having children<\/a>. But it\u2019s complicated. They need both salaries, and both sets of parents, who could help them with childcare, live in Florida. And they\u2019re not ready to make that move.<\/p>\n Rising child care costs in the Bay Area<\/a>\u00a0are forcing parents to make painful tradeoffs, either by passing up career opportunities, cutting back work hours, or quitting altogether. For families with multiple young children, these expenses can surpass a parent\u2019s entire salary.<\/p>\n The Vecchis also shy away from the idea of leaving San Francisco for a\u00a0Bay Area suburb with nominally cheaper real estate<\/a>. \u201cIf we were to move out of the city, we might as well move back to Florida.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf you gave me the option and I had the money, I would stay here 100%,\u201d Alex said. And the family back in Florida? \u201cThey understand. They want us to be happy where we are. They know that we\u2019re doing a bunch of great things here. When we think about moving back, we think, \u2018But we\u2019re not going to be happy over there.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Research from\u00a0Joint Venture Silicon Valley<\/a>\u00a0provides statistical confirmation of personal experience. For years, the Bay Area has created jobs faster than it\u00a0builds housing<\/a>, fueling relentless price pressure.<\/p>\n In Silicon Valley, just 28% of Millennials own homes, compared to 68% of Baby Boomers, giving older residents an asset to rely on even in tough times. The Vecchis, like most people their age here, are still scrambling for a financial foothold, even though they both work in tech.<\/p>\n \u201cAll these things have implications for community, and now we\u2019re seeing it. We\u2019re living it,\u201d Hancock said.<\/p>\n![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/260413-SILICON-VALLEY-CHURN-02-KQED-1024x1536.jpg\")
Mark Wogulis and Melanie Bowden in front of the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco in 2022. Courtesy: Mark Wogulis<\/p>\n![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/250623-BerkeleyMiddleHousing-18-BL_qed.jpg\")
A \u201cFor Rent\u201d sign in Berkeley on June 23, 2025. Credit: Beth LaBerge\/KQED<\/p>\n![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/260413-SILICON-VALLEY-CHURN-04-KQED.jpg\")
Alex Vecchi and Mushu enjoy a sunny day in San Francisco\u2019s Alamo Square. Alex and his wife, Ani, came to the city two years ago to pursue careers in tech. Now 30, the unaffordable housing market raises uncomfortable questions about whether and how they plan to raise children in the years to come. Courtesy: Ani and Alex Vecchi<\/p>\n