<prompt> Human: We keep hearing in rpersonalfinance that people who work in expensive areas are paid more and thus can justify higher mortgage payments. My question is a simple one - do average workers just end up paying more of their income towards housing? What combination is there of earning more vs. paying more?I looked at our average income in LA and our salaries would expect to rise about 15k total from where there are in Iowa. We spend about 12 of our gross on housing here. But housing in LA is 3x as much for a similar house. How do people deal with this? not everyone is rich in LA or SF or NYC - so what do average families do? Im not talking about recent grads and roommates or anything like that. I mean a family with kids - do they move our leaving only rich people in the city or do they spend a ton more on housing because they have to?  <response>: If you come up with a good solution for this, theres a popularity contest coming up in November you might be interested in. 