What sustains continued price (general level) differences between K-Girl orgs in different cities/regions?  
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Among Seattle, LA/OC, San Diego, and SFBay regions, there are general price level differences that have been in place for many years.  Since these levels have not converged, there must be some difference(s) among the regions that explain it.
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What do you think are the actually significant underlying difference(s)?  
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Some obvious ones fail to explain, by being apparently in the wrong direction.  For example, general cost-of-living seems higher in the lowest-priced of these regions.  Attractiveness of K-towns to RAs, that should bring prices down, seems higher in LA.  And so forth.  
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Who has a decent economic theory and facts to base an explanation (or reasonable plausible story) on?  
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Remember, I'm asking about the sustained divergence of general rates, and only about K-girl orgs: not about effects of inflation nor about C-orgs nor about indies.   There have been various confused postings about these matters, but nothing rationally convincing.  
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Thanks.

Who actually sets the rates?
Is it the Korgs and they set the rates on what they feel the region can bear?
Or is it the Kgirls that ask for what they think their time is worth?
And that would be on established rates from the highest to the lowest in the region.

 
As you said, cost of living and income should set the rates, but they don't.
I would think the rates were established years ago with whatever they were at the time.
And maybe then it was geared more towards COL and income as a starting point, and the increases just kept up with inflation, with the BA at lower rates.
Maybe L.A, NYC & Chicago, at the time had more action going on and commanded higher prices.
And the BA at that time, had less action and lower prices.
As income levels grew and higher paying jobs moved into the BA, the cost of P4P didn't keep in step with those increases.
All speculation on my part, just one thought for how this panned out.

One thought that I don't think I've heard other mention (but make no claims that this is somehow new or original) is that the rent control policies of the area have an impact here. It does sound like the locations there are like here and other places where the agency/K-girl doesn't really move around that much.

 
I'm pretty sure the both SF and SJ have rent controls and I suspect that could impact the rates required if the rent has been increasing much slower than the over all cost of living or that of new rentals. That could also put a bit of a lid on what places like SM can charge.

 
The other thing is that for some/many the local cost of living probably doesn't really matter. They work there and don't quite live there in terms going out a lot or dealing with expenses that the average person living in the area deals with.

 
Sure there are other factors.

Volume was a big reason why prices stayed the lowest here in the bay.  

 
The other thing badger touched upon. LA right now a lot of girls are org less per se. East coast aamps are still org-centered as in, girls have to follow rules and prices orgs give. You can ask klient or whatever about it, I'm sure he'd have some insight.  

 
Bay area right now is a middle ground. Some orgs let girls do prices, some orgs (mostly ones with shrewd and no-nonsense bosses) try to hold their ground.

Interesting line of thought.  
So the follow-on question is clearly -- Why do Bay area K-girls and K-orgs know this and maximize revenue this way, but not the other regions?  What sustains the difference in business models?  
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And on the other line -- does degree of independence among K-girls line up with rates?  Are they all indy in Seattle?  (I don't know how East coast K-AAMPs rates compare to West coast.)  
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Thanks.

Let me preface this with saying that most of what ill say is my speculation, with some anecdotal stories from girls and mongers thrown in.

 
So, out of all kgirl metro markets, bay area by far is the biggest sausage fest and worst male to female ratio. Most of the orgs are smack in the middle of the golden triangle right next door to tech giant buildings. Many more males in need of some fun, making quite good money by American standards. It's silicon valley guys.  

 
Compared to LA its really night and day. And something like NYC can't even be compared. Getting some random good quality tail at a NYC bar or club is almost a given. Not sure about seattle.

So, a lot of concentrated demand by people who generally have lower social skills,attract less female attention on average and have more money to spend on average. Plus, there is like eight orgs in a very sense area. I mean literally, someone working at one of the companies nearby can make a zip line through five blocks and fuck six different girls from six different orgs.  

 
As far as Seattle, they have like two orgs and one of them is an AA branch. So, girls in Seattle are same girls often who rotate. Girls don't set the prices there, at least not at kangels org.

East coast is generally 350 now. When LA was at 240 it was 260 here but we also had a GFE as the base and GFE+ (CIM) at 300 an hour. So it was a bit more in the DMV and other non-NY locals. But in general the girls stayed full and if you didn't make your appointments by about 9:15 for the popular girls you didn't get a spot.

 
I get the impression that the K agencies and K-girls all try to price for a full day of business in all their markets. Which then begs your original question.

"So, out of all kgirl metro markets, bay area by far is the biggest sausage fest and worst male to female ratio. Most of the orgs are smack in the middle of the golden triangle right next door to tech giant buildings. Many more males in need of some fun, making quite good money by American standards. It's silicon valley guys. "  
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On orthodox economics, wouldn't that predict the highest prices for bay area, rather than the lowest?  
What did I miss here?

I just want to fuck Kgirls.  Twice a week.

The way I see it  -- and why I was talking about volume -- is that when you're in an untapped market, the best way would be to maximize volume. Ie, it's a lot better for a biz to have 100k subscribers at 5$/month than 50k subscribers at 10$/month

 
So when they were starting out, aim was to maximize volume at a cheap rate. Ten-twelve guy days were (are?) not uncommon. Back in those days orgs really ran shit here and girls had to follow the rules.  

 
Also, one thing hat hasn't been mentioned here is house cut. I know for a fact bay area house cut to org is smaller than in LA. Not sure about other places.

Girls here can often be booked days in advance, forget at 9:15am the same day. Hell, just recently I tried prebooking a girl two days in advance and she is always unavailable. Some girls the PO will say are booked solid for a week. Fomo, fresh meat, etc are big factors in play here imo.

Bay area is hardly an untapped market.
Maybe it was 10 or 20 years ago, when some orgs started, but the question remains:
What SUSTAINS the differences?  
What keeps volume*price maximized at different price levels?

Yeah, I was talking about the initial start.

Sustain-wise, I think orgs don't want to raise the prices by a lot. But this is inevitably happening already.

Honestly I just think it's whatever they can get away with (lol), with slight adjustments made for individual cities' COL

For instance Philadelphia rates have been about 10% lower than NOVA, etc.

Exactly!  
So why can they get away with more, persistently, in some markets than in others?