A 10-acre lot is a ludicrous metric, and even 1 acre (for a residence) metric is unrealistic. I doubt most technical types even want the burden of upkeep for an acre+. At that point, the main thing you're buying is isolation.
Reading this thread, I find both sides at extremes - one side from the Valley who's quite out of touch with the rest of the country. And the other side that is putting a fairly high metric.
1 acre is not at all unrealistic. I work at a well known tech company and live in an area where you can afford acre (and multiacre) lots. While owning a 1 acre lot with house is certainly not the norm in the company, it is also not at all noteworthy. No one gets surprised when they hear someone owns one. It's seen very much as a preference thing. Some people like apartments, some townhouses, some houses, and some larger lots.
And yes, they're mostly "tech types".
More realistically, in most parts of the country, a tech job will get you a 2000+ sq ft house built no earlier than the 90's. And in many of those places, a short commute to boot. Now I know SV folks often talk about how they don't need a house that big or one that "new"[0], the reality is once you're outside and can afford one, you won't find a good reason to buy a 1960's house, or a 1200 sq ft one. The preferences of SV folks are really post hoc rationalizations.
[0] Many of my coworkers reject houses built in the 90's - it's too old for them.
It makes perfect sense as is. It is almost my experience.
A coworker of mine bought 11 acres. (That's one more than 10. These lots go to 11...) He has sheep and goats and chickens, and he can shoot his AR-15 in his yard. Interestingly, he grew up in San Francisco. His current lifestyle is ridiculously incompatible with his city of origin.
I settled for a little 0.4 acre lot with a modest 3500 square foot house. (1619 square meter lot, 325 square meter house) By settling for that, I got to live within a mile of the beach and within a mile of work, and I paid off the mortgage in 8 years without trying terribly hard.
So that's close. I suspect you'd normally have to commute about 15 or 20 minutes to get a whole acre, and they go for $220,000 to $500,000. There is a house on 1.3 acre (like a football field) selling for $320,000 that is 11 minutes away, but the house was built in 1957. If you don't mind paying a couple million, you can be 5 minutes away with a modern waterfront home on an acre or two.
So this is non-urban life. It's mostly not even rural; we have an airport with about 7 passenger jet flights arriving per day. Senior developers live in nice houses, paid-off unless they really go nuts. They can have waterfront access, or room for a horse, or room to shoot and raise sheep. They can get McMansions. They can live within walking distance of work.
I just can't see giving that up. Sure, cable cars are cool and all, but that doesn't compensate for what I'd have to give up.
Aren't things cheap if you go well to the west, almost to the coast and away from a rail station? Japan has rural areas. If people would live there, they could afford to have large families.
