The Least Affordable Places To Live In The U.S.

"IN 2005, the least-affordable place in the country to live, measured by the percentage of income devoted to mortgage payments, was Salinas, Calif.

The second was the Santa Cruz-Watsonville area of California.

The third? Santa Rosa-Petaluma, Calif.

In fact, California has the distinction of having the 11 least-affordable metropolitan areas in the country. One would need to go all the way down to 12th place -- and across the country to the New York region's northern suburbs -- to find a non-California metropolitan area on the least-affordable list of 2005."

"'California has both political and geographical constraints on building,' said Dowell Myers, professor of policy, planning and development at the University of Southern California. 'That drives up prices, and then it snowballs.'"