The Bay Area is praised for having a large tech sector, and a history of supporting counter-cultural and otherwise non-normative people. So right away you get lots of geek subcultures (broadly defined), some of which overlap with LW-interests. There might be other overlaps too.

Outside of those factors, I'm quite certain that the Bay Area (or California in general) is not being praised as a model of good governance on things like housing, land use, budgeting, or doing anything in less than three decades, four referendums and five judicial opinions! Within the United States, the region has a mixed reputation. Something like: It's a pretty nice place in spite of itself, (provided you can afford it and don't do something crazy like try to raise children in the area).

With reference to the article, San Francisco has had a fairly unique problem with homelessness for decades (among US cities). The history of this is complicated, but it doesn't seem that a lack of skilled workers or available economic power is a dominant factor, so I'm not optimistic that the latest tech boom will do very much to help the problem.

EDIT: I meant to post this as a direct reply to the OP, outlining the view from inside the US a bit more. I don't disagree with anything you've said.