People at ivies mostly just had a lucky background (if you look at the statistics based on income). I really doubt they work any harder. Even side by side you're not really comparing apples to oranges if you compare the amount of work a low income person has to do to get into an ivy and the typical high income ivy kid.
I've had the opposite experience, with older programmers balking at new libraries, techniques, and setting up any environment they're not used to. If it doesn't work right away they go back to what they know. I know one guy who absolutely refuses to learn c++ because it doesn't compile for him and he only "trusts" c. Another who writes only in good ol' python2.7 (scipy dropping support; subprocess bugs; cough cough). Younger people tend to be aware of and use newer tools. But we're all bias I suppose.
Ummm... LA has more homeless people than any other city because of the weather. NYC winters kill. LA's outdoors are basically like the indoors most other places. No mosquitoes. Only rare rain. 70 degrees most of the time.
Much of California's poor are created elsewhere and they move to California. It's easier to be homeless in California than most other places.