you can swing cheap rent anywhere, though, if you are willing to make some tradeoffs and know what you're doing. In 9 years in the sf bay area my rent has steadily decreased from 780/mo for a shared room when I got here in '96 through several other places at 600, 500, 450, 360, and now I've got a nice room in a nice house in a nice neighborhood for 250 bucks/month, so I can swing it on messenger pay around here and still have enough money to satisfy my blingy bike addition (i'm in a masi phase right now)