San Jose used to be considered an affordable place where young couples could buy a home and start a family. The public schools were respectable, and home prices were reasonable. After the tech boom hit, the city's population ballooned (between 1990 and 2000 it grew 14.4%), and in the last five years, home prices have risen 70%, according to the Office of Federal Housing Oversight. San Jose made our list of the Most Overpriced Places primarily because of its job growth rank and housing affordability rank--both of which were among the bottom ten cities.

San Francisco may have a badge of honor for surviving both the Gold Rush and the dot-com rush, but the city also has the scars to prove it. After the bubble burst, thousands of the city's dejected tech workers left. The city lost 1.5% of its population between 2001 and 2002; job growth has slowed to a halt, but home prices still run high. The median home price was a plump $509,000, and the city ranked 128 out of 150 for job growth on our Best Places list.

The lure of Honolulu for most tourists is that beach time takes priority there. Unfortunately, full-time residents may have plenty of time to spend on the beach, too--but not by choice. On our Best Places list, Honolulu came in 115 out of 150 for job growth. Meanwhile, housing is still quite expensive: The median home price is $350,000. In 1958, the state generated most of its revenue from defense, sugar and pineapple. Today one of the city's largest industries is tourism.

Housing isn't cheap in Bergen. In fact, it's more than twice the national median ($176,500). Still, despite high real estate prices, job growth has stalled. To be fair, Bergen County is something of a commuter town where between 62,000 to 72,000 residents commute to New York City to work. Ranked by five-year job growth, the city came in 107 out of 150, and in terms of housing affordability, it ranked 138 out of 150.

Nobody ever said New York was an affordable place to live; the question is whether its residents see a return on the premium they pay to live there. On our Best Places list, New York didn't rank quite as badly for job growth as it did for housing affordability. Still, New York's economic slowdown and the steep housing costs landed it in fifth place on our Most Overpriced list..

Boston narrowly falls behind New York on our Most Overpriced list. Housing is certainly costly; at $413,500, the median home price is even higher than in New York. The city became a hub for technology startups in the late 1990s, and although tech has lost its luster, the city scored well for other factors such as education. Boston ranks 5 out of 150 for education attainment on our Best Places list.

For the second year, Chicago made it to our Most Overpriced Places list, only this year it came in at seventh, up from eighth last year. The median home price may not be quite as expensive as in Boston or New York, but Chicago still ranked 124 out of 150 for housing affordability. Although Boeing moved its headquarters there, that hasn't done much for business opportunities: The city ranked 124 out of 150 for job growth.

Laverne and Shirley may have put Milwaukee on the beer drinkers' map, but after a certain point even they had to get out of the city. Despite the fact that Milwaukee's median home price falls just below the national figure, the city still ranked 114 out of 150 for housing affordability. And although the city has aggressively tried to court tech business, it still ranks 122 out of 150 for job growth.

Like any major metro area, Los Angeles is expensive. The city ranked 141 for housing affordability (just above Boston), and 93 for job growth (just below New York). The city is known as the film and television capital of the country, but the largest private employers aren't very entertaining: Boeing, Kaiser Permanente, Ralph's Grocery, Kelly Services and Bank of America were the city's largest employers in 2002. Such old-economy companies haven't created enough new business to improve Los Angeles' job growth ranking, however.

During the tech heyday, there were 23,500 software workers in the Seattle area in 1998. Although that number must be significantly lower now, the city is projecting that biotechnology and medical technology industries could grow to rival Seattle's tech sector in the next two years; the city is forecasting there will be 26,000 employed in those two industries by 2005. In the meantime, Seattle is still quite expensive, ranking 139 out of 150 metro areas for housing affordability, and 88 out of 150 for job growth.

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