Are there historical parallels to the current situation? Has there been another time or place where a young population all of a sudden became rich in the span of only a few decades and wanted to live in urban areas, which were currently occupied by less rich communities?
1.) Mid-1940s - thousands of single soldiers came home to places like Detroit and Chicago after the war and wanted to buy homes and start families. Because housing development had slowed or been stopped for years, these soldiers came home to housing shortages. You can read online about this, but mostly these folks moved back home for a bit, and by the late-40s, early 50s, several massively successful homebuilders were either started or hit their stride (i.e. Levitt and Sons).
2.) Today - in parts of North Dakota and Texas - similar problems to the bay area. Lots of overnight fortunes being made from oil and gas (pipelines, drilling, transportation), and a big lack of housing stock.
The first was solved with plenty of cheap, vacant land; and the creation of suburban sprawl / planned communities. My sense is the second issue will be solved similarly (if the boom continues).
One obvious difference is that the bay area doesn't have much land left to develop, and what is left is mostly too expensive, or protected from development.
FYI, I talked with my friend, and apparently a similar situation happened after the Black Death in the middle ages. Since basic communication and transportation systems broke down, the rich were better off moving from country estates to living in urban areas so they could talk with each other easily. This centralization of intellectuals started giving momentum to the renaissance.
However, the situation was a bit different back then since much of the urban population had died and didn't need to be displaced.
I have no idea if similar situations happened in ancient Middle East or Asia.
Has this happened before? How did it turn out?