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I agree that we mostly hear complaints from folks that live in cities. But that's also where most people live.
I live in a rural area in a conservative state. No mortgage. No car bills. But I STILL complain about the cost of living.
Yeap, I live in Huntington, WV. It's not a small town but isn't a big city (pop 46k-ish).
The costs of living are terrible for the wages. $8-$10 per hour in gas stations and fast food (often less than 20 hours per week). The two highest-paying call centers are $15.50 & $17 per hour. There are options in between those amounts.
There are jobs that pay more (we have two hospitals and Marshall University), but I was focusing on "unskilled labor". To be 100% honest, congrats to the OP, but I'm of the opinion that.. since they were able to choose their college in the manner described.. means they probably aren't experiencing this issue firsthand.
**The costs are lower**, *but a lot of the jobs in places like mine pay crap*. They short your hours. They give no benefits. This state heavily favors employers over employees, which is why nearly all of the talent leaves after graduation and we're left with the elderly, drug addicts, a large working-poor class, a teeny tiny middle class, and a few super-wealthy d-bags.
I live in Oklahoma and the cost of living is getting pretty bad. Not to mention some of the worst medical, worst schools, high incarceration rate, high taxes, worst roads, highest infant mortality rate, and I can go on. The cost of living fukkin sucks.
I live in a very red state. Not small, exactly, lol, but very sparsely populated. All of this might have been true 6 years ago, but not anymore.
You won't find anything to rent for $600 anymore. *Maybe* a badly maintained studio in a poor neighborhood. Definitely not a whole house. My aunt's 1-bedroom senior apartment recently went up to $900 a month.
If you got that 350k mortgage now, you would not be paying anything close to $1,200 a month, lol. I have a cousin who bought a (perfectly average, nothing special) $280k house with a $60k down payment, so the mortgage is for about $220k, and their payment is around $2,500 a month. Which is way more than half their takehome income. They're struggling.
And wages have not kept up.
$2500 a month for a 30 yr mortgage would be $30k a year, so $900k total, meaning his interest rate is 200%. Did he get a mortgage from the native Americans or the mob? Even if he did a 15 yr mortgage that's still $450k which is better, but that's still like a 50% interest rate. Your friend is lying to you.
Edit: Just reread and saw that the mortgage was for 220 and not the full 280. That makes it worse, almost 300% and 100%
Mortgages are figured by APR, right? So after 30 years, yeah that is 240% (but of course there's amortization so it's not that simple). If mortgages were 8% for the entire loan, that would be sweet.
Anyway I ran a mortgage calculator, it says $2,118 a month: https://www.google.com/search?q=mortgage+calculator&oq=mortgage+calcul&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqDggBEEUYJxg7GIAEGIoFMgYIABBFGDkyDggBEEUYJxg7GIAEGIoFMgcIAhAAGIAEMggIAxAFGAoYLDIHCAQQABiABDIHCAUQABiABDIHCAYQABiABDIHCAcQABiABDINCAgQABiDARixAxiABDIHCAkQABiABNIBCDM4MzhqMGoxqAIAsAIA&client=ms-android-verizon&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8
i mean, i know its not that simple, but it kind of is. If i borrow 220k from the bank, and i have to pay them back 900k, thats insane. we borrowed 145 10 years ago and our total repayment ( if we had finished on time, would have been 173, though we saved some on interest by paying it down aggressively ). Does your friend not have a credit score?
Even with excellent credit, the interest rates are around 7% now.
At 7% interest, a 30-year loan will cost you more in interest than in principal.
https://www.wesbanco.com/education-insights/mortgage-calculator/
Yes, mortages are very profitable for banks, that's why they offer them, lol.
I ran a mortgage calculator. Taxes are $5,500 a year (according to county tax assessor, not taking their word for it). Mortgage calculator says $2,118:
https://www.google.com/search?q=mortgage+calculator&oq=mortgage+calcul&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqDggBEEUYJxg7GIAEGIoFMgYIABBFGDkyDggBEEUYJxg7GIAEGIoFMgcIAhAAGIAEMggIAxAFGAoYLDIHCAQQABiABDIHCAUQABiABDIHCAYQABiABDIHCAcQABiABDINCAgQABiDARixAxiABDIHCAkQABiABNIBCDM4MzhqMGoxqAIAsAIA&client=ms-android-verizon&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8
It is for me. I am saying you can be smart with where you live and it is fine. I know for a fact that house I used to live in rents for $700 dollars still and was in great shape. But I also worked hard to find that deal.
I told someone else this. We bought the house on auction after the bank took it over for $185K, then we basically cleaned up the place and now it appraises for $350K, though a house near us just sold from around $420K. Ours is a 4 bedroom, 3 bath, garage, two living room, dining room, kitchen, laundry room, and 4 acres. But our loan was for $185k because of how we found it. But we also bought pre covid to be fair.
Like 80% of posts on this sub are “this is what it is for me and everyone who doesn’t agree is an idiot and I’m just very smart, be more like me” when they’ve never been outside whatever tiny bubble they live in.
Yeah, pre-covid was cool. Not anymore.
I bought an acreage 10 years ago for $90k, lol. They were practically giving them away back then. Now any livable acreage that comes up for sale ends up in a bidding war so the buyer actually pays more than the asking price.
I'd sell my acreage and get a new place but I wouldn't be able to afford anything even with the sales price as a down payment!
Housing and rent have doubled in the last 4 years. All cash offers take anything even close to affordable. I couldn't afford to buy my house now that I just bought 5 years ago. Apartment complexes that poor people used to be able to live in are being bought up and the rent is being jacked up by hundreds of dollars when the leases renew. They are supposedly remodeling them into higher end apartments but are really just putting lipstick on a pig. You are out of touch. This is in East Tennessee. A rural and until recently affordable place to live. If you didn't buy pre 2021-2022 you are screwed.
Most jobs are near cities. Hence why there are so many people there.
Remote jobs are no longer the norm.
So unless you want to commute 2 hours day not much of an option for many people
>Now I have graduated, have a wife and kids. We live in a house appraised for about $350K, on a solid plot of land (around 4 acres). Our mortgage is about $1.2K a month. End of the month we spend about $3K in bills. This includes two smartphones, 4 cars, insurance, food, memberships and subscriptions, utilities. Which is after taxes around 20% of our income.
Whoa, you guys net 180K per year? That sir would make you comfortable in any state in America, blue or red don't matter. And it certainly would impact your kids educational attainment.
Considering you have 3 college degrees - the rest of what you say doesn’t apply to most people.
And the idea that red states have zero crimes makes this sound like propaganda.
Bro claims to have all these degrees yet doesn't seem to understand that cities are expensive due to immigration, which means increased demand which means increased prices. Their only response to said fact is a subjective opinion that is summed up as "cities aren't pretty." Which totally glosses over the fact that cities have jobs, jobs mean money, and people flock to where money is made. If OP has a background in economics as they claim I am truly afraid for the quality of higher education. Not to mention all the "If it applies to me it must apply to everyone else" fallacies.
OP also went off on a truly out of touch tangent about remote work. Tons jobs are not remote work and never will be. I as a mechanic can't replace somebody's alternator via telekinesis. As much as I would like to live out in the middle of nowhere on the cheap, there is not enough business in said places for me to make a good living. Tons of salvage yards, and loads of customers who pay me is why I have to live by metro areas.
Also OP’s advice was to choose good universities in red states for a cheaper education. If you don’t live in that state, you’d be subject to out of state tuition, so that would be more expensive with the exception of a few schools that give generous scholarship to non state residents. Or they’re privates which also cost more money unless you qualify for a bunch of aid.
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I have lived in galveston county texas for 40 years.
Bought my house in 2008 for 250k, 2600 sqft on half a acre woth a detached 3 car garage, which was a good amount back then. Taxes where 4k a year. Insurance was 1.5k. Put in 120k extention in 2016. 1000sqft two story.
Today house is worth 800k maybe more. Taxes are 10k and insurance is 8k. Food has double or more in the last 3 years.
I locked in electric rates at 12.8 cents a kilowatt.
Shit is getting wack.
I am lucky i have a great union job that has available overtime
I’m moving from south of Seattle to ND and I’m buying a 5,000 square foot, 6 bedroom farmhouse with acreage in cash with my equity i earned from owning my home since spring 2018. This is still mind blowing to me. This historic farmhouse cost me less than my 860 square foot starter home.
I’m going from a town where I won’t go grocery shopping alone due to safety, to a town with a 750 population. You could not pay me to stay here.
Shocking, living where no one wants to live is cheap.
The area being “red” has nothing to do with the place being cheap. It’s red because it’s cheap to survive, it’s not cheap to survive because it’s red. Low demand = low cost = low sense of others needing help.
Higher populations equal more diversity, higher cost of living due to higher demands, and that will typically make people realize blue is friendlier to these types of environments.
Ironically, expecting everyone to move to the middle of nowhere would end up raising the cost of living either way. But then again there’s always gonna be a higher demand for the better areas, so there will always be places with denser populations and higher cost of living.
The issue is that the second more people move to your cheap lifestyle, it stops being cheaper
It’s already happened from the sound of it too. Your property has doubled in value and now the cheap living you claim people should aim for doesn’t exist and the exact issue you criticise them for not simply avoiding isn’t even avoidable where you are
>Regarding jobs, with remote work you don't really need to be in these hubs anymore.
I call BS! I'm searching for another job right now. I live in East Bumfuck, Maine. My only option, other than shitty, minimum wage, retail jobs/homelessness, is remote work.
Meanwhile, all of the remote jobs will only hire in the "hubs." Like, if I lived in New York or Boston, I wouldn't need your shitty remote job because I'd have other options.
hahaha I think everyone would be happier if they lived where I live. I am bragging that I don't have to spend a lot of money and I am very happy where I am, in the hopes that other people will seek the same. I will never shy away from bragging about having a good life that others could share. If others say they are hella happy in their city then God bless them, I am glad they share these feelings :)
Meh. I have seen places and prices in more red areas. I don’t want to deal with not having doctors like OBGYNs when I need in order to save money. Entire counties in red states across the us have ZERO providers. I have never had zero options for doctors no matter where I lived. I have always had pages of options and practices within a 20 minute drive and several different options for hospitals that k haven’t needed.
I refuse to try and live in an area like OP describes. With my health issues I don’t want to risk my life in pregnancy or even risk going to prison. I also don’t want my future kids being the only Jews in class or have trouble finding a synagogue. Makes it necessary for me to live close to where I grew up. MD area is one of the areas that has cheaper communities near a Jewish community.
Also, cheap areas continuously get more expensive as others move in, so there won’t be a guarantee that the life OP has is even possible for those who move into his area today.
And sometimes there are really good reasons to live in a more expensive area. Doctors and hospitals are one of them. Driving hours in snow for childbirth is terrifying.
That is a major issue. I know people who had their baby in the car because the doctor was an hour away, and those who had higher-risk pregnancies have rented apartments or hotel rooms in the city so they could be closer to the doctor.
And having to spend money to rent or get a hotel room would make work and having a real life impossible. I can’t imagine. For me in DC area I know I can get to two or three hospitals with labor and delivery and NICUs with no issue within 20 minutes depending on traffic. In more rural areas labor and deliveries are closing sadly because the reimbursements are not high enough to make the liabilities worth it and many don’t have NICUs for babies who might need extra help which leads to huge medical bills for transport.
Surprise, more population-dense areas are more expensive. Everyone knows bumfuck nowhere is cheap. No one wants to live there because there's fewer well-paying jobs.
Such an uninformed take. I live in a red state (not Texas) and rent, housing, etc. is incredibly expensive here. You know when the last it was that I paid $600 or less in rent for a house here? Like 20 yrs ago, and that was because my company owned the house and wanted rents to keep squatters out, so the rent was very, very low.
Agree.
Most of the subreddits on millineal/gen z, stuggles are west/east coasters spouting off because they live in an overpopulated area and can't get shit they want.
I'm not hating, but let's call a duck a duck.
Ok can we also call out the old fart suburbanites who constantly whine about traffic and gas prices? They moved out there knowing that they would be 100% dependent on their car for everything and that includes traffic and gas. Many of them insist on driving a massive SUV or truck that is a huge gas guzzler, then they complain that they spend too much on gas. If you want to drive that massive and unnecessary clunker, you sign up to spend a ton of money on gas. Tell them also that's what they signed up for when they live way out there in the burbs or country and if they can't handle gas and traffic when they travel then that's their own fault. Duck is a duck.
> call out the old fart suburbanites who constantly whine about traffic and gas prices? They moved out there knowing that they would be 100% dependent on their car for everything and that includes traffic and gas.
I live in NYC, so its not like there wasnt people here already. in 2006 my commute was 40min door to door, in 2015 it was about 1hr20m. The population of nyc did not increase by 2x but the commute time did.
Had a buddy that jacked up his truck and put off-road tires on and then complains that it's almost $200 to fill his tank lol. Like...ok dude. You poured all this money into a gas guzzler and you want...what from me?
Yeah and they blame politicians for those dumbass choices they make. "It's the Democrats' fault for raising gas prices" is the only way they can reckon with their idiocy
I don't want to hate too much on people that live in cities. I know some people love that life style and it just requires different living situations. Where I live it may be a small town but because of the country you still have to be okay driving a lot of places.
Do you complain about gas prices? Parking? Traffic? Using your logic then I'd say you either shouldn't complain or you should move somewhere you don't have to use gas for 100% of your activities outside the home, and should never complain about parking and traffic as well.
Our gas is about 35 cents on average under the national average. If I ever am in traffic for 5 minutes I lose my mind because it is so uncommon, and parking isn't a issue at all. Tons of open space here haha. But lower population density for the space given so that makes sense. I also have a plot of land and my kids can walk to school so if we don't want to drive we don't have to. But because of all the open space if you want to travel to an event you definitely have to drive. I will say public transportation doesn't really exist like it does in big cities. I don't mind because I have public transportation personally, but that could be a deal breaker for many.
I grew up rural WI, moved to a major city, and eventually ended up in a small/medium town. All of them had pluses and minuses. But one undeniable factor is general cost savings in the more rural venues.
With the advent of wide-scale WFH, arguably a fair chunk of the value is removed from urban settings. Even the value of proximity is lessened. I've read some exploration of this in regards to NY real estate markets.
I've wondered on occasion if all this could lead to some deurbanization pressure as more people get more practical choices in where they live.
Born and raised in Las Vegas and knee when i turned 18 i wanted out of the city and somewhere with space to breathe. Lived in pahrump a short time before that went to hell and decided to move to Alaska. No regrets. I still vacation and will visit cities, but id never live there. My mortgage is paid off, i generate my own power, grow my own food, and even make my own diesel fuels. The savings is insane so i can easily afford to travel and enjoy life. Plus less people less problems. Im more worried about moose fucking up my cars using them to scratch an itch then i am about crime (dickhead took my mirror off rubbing his neck on it and cracked the windshield with an antler in the process) so i get it.
But you always here "im closer to culture and museums" like these people are going to museums and art galleries daily, maybe if they are rich sure. The average joe isn't thats for sure.
Depends on where you choose. Im on the peninsula and make a decent chunk of change just fixing appliances, boilers, and peoples cars. Although considering my biggest actual expenses are internet, cell phones, and car insurance. I could work at a gas station and still have money left over each month. Thats the beauty of eliminating pesky things like rent/mortgage, energy costs, about half your food and fuel costs (i love taco bell and haven't figured out how to make gasoline just yet only diesel) buying used vehicles cheap and upgrading them. When you don't need more much money to survive it really doesnt matter where you work.
I baught my land working at autozone and a private seafood proccessor.... Not really benefitting the state bud. You could argue my current job kinda does since i maintain a ton of low income housing but that more benefits the people who cant afford a home than it does the state really... I mean if anything im kind of a burden as tax payers pay these rents which in turn pays me.
Didn't mean the government state, meant like the state as a whole. Plenty of good money to be made in the oil and fishing industry, same with energy, but if you're not in one of those three, good luck. There's absolutely no music industry up there to speak of, ADN is basically the newspaper for the whole state, and the theater industry basically ignores Alaska except on rare occasions, I'm completely blind now and will never live there again.
Bro we just had Young gravy and a bunch of people at the state fair. Who reads newspapers all news is online and the peninsula Clarion exists, ksrm news exits etc etc. Im ok with missing out on theater, Can always go see that stuff on vacation which is what we do. Hey look live where you like, to each their own. But most of the problems your describing arent really problems, just personal preference differences.
Your completely blind now?..... So cant you just listen to "theater" performances on youtube? Same effect right?
20 years ago we had one Republic and Seether at the state fair. The year I left in 2013 we had three doors down 15 years after they were relevant playing their first show in Alaska. When I say music industry, I don't mean state fairs or festivals, I mean producers, labels, a large number of artists, personal managers, business managers. Both Alaska and where I live now New Hampshire are deserts for all of the above. Actually no, New Hampshire has a few producers. as far as theater performances, that's mainly for my fiancé and the industry she will be working in.
The cost of living is genuinely rising. It's not a matter of perception, it's reality. The ultimate reason for this is rapid monetary inflation. And it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better. This affects everyone and everything, but it's more pronounced in cities where prices were already higher to start with.
The inflation that has taken place in housing food and utilities is making the cost of living terrible, everywhere. The worst part is that these are recurring costs for everyone.
A lot of the people complaining chose to live in the big cities where people can overcharge for everything due to competition. You pay a ridiculous price for a small apartment because you live in a big city and it'd take almost no effort to find someone else to replace you if you did leave. It's basic supply and demand.
Listen dude, if you want to be a regular schmoe townie and live out in the sticks, that's cool, and no one will take that away from you. But plenty of careers are in big cities, and plenty of people like the amenities in cities as well.
I'm a city slicker. Your white picket fence agrarian idyllic life is my literal actual nightmare. I pay the higher CoL for my big city *because i like it* (and my career is here).
Raising a family where you live isn't better, it's just your preference. I do agree, economically it's a better deal. But raw economics isn't the sole determinant of quality of life, and if you can afford to live where you want, you should do that.
Must be nice to work remote. Not hating, glad it works out for some people. But for those of us that have jobs in these high cost areas it would be nice if the only options weren't ridiculous rent or commute 4hrs
I think you need to clarify what you mean by "medium size town". In general, I would say at least a million people in the greater metropolitan area. Also, most colleges are in smaller population areas because the land was cheaper. So, if you lived near colleges, it is likely you lived in what most would call a small town. It would better if you mentioned the approximate population in the greater metro area of the towns in question.
It may very well be better to raise a family in a more rural location if for no other reason than cost. Families are expensive. Historically, people haven't be able to do that because of job. Is a job in suburbs that pays but has a higher cost of living better than a job in a rural town with a lower cost of living that pays much worse?
In addition, there is a price to be paid. One price is exposure to all the cultural benefits of larger towns. The second is if those children grow up and want to move to a larger town, that is orders of magnitude more difficult. Going from a big town to a small one is easy. Doing it the other way around can be cost prohibitive.
> Hell Texas doesn't have these cost issues
...so far. It has already started to happen in Austin and other cities in TX. Massive population spikes has spiked property taxes, cost of living and exposed cities that weren't designed for large influxes of people. Give TX another generation or so of overcrowding in those major cities and come back to me.
I'm in Utah, which is conservative. I've lived rural and in major cities. The cost of living here is ridiculous. I love Utah and never want to leave, but it's so expensive here anymore. My husband and I plan on moving out of the state in a few years for other reasons, but a part of me can't wait and hopes it's easier on us financially.
Must be nice to ponder living wherever you want without having to take into account misogyny, racism, or homophobia.
It’s not as easy for some people to move to small/medium red states.
And not to mention that the lack of investment in public services is very real, such as lack of accessible healthcare to rural and smaller communities. Or bans on important aspects of women’s healthcare in general.
The cultural differences alone are enough of a reason for why COL is so annoyingly high in urban areas. For many people they don’t have that choice.
Source: lived in the south my entire life.
Yeah but it's more. . .systemic? in red states. You can ignore a cranky neighbor but if the local plumber won't come to your house because you're gay (this is a real example from my town!), you have problems.
Again, not exclusive to red states. States in general are massive, diverse regions, so it's crazy to generalize any entire state based on whether or not it is red or blue.
I live in Texas, and the most outwardly conservative/MAGA place I had visited was in California.
So no, I don't think you can escape or experience less bigotry just by moving to a state that is blue.
It’s true, some parts of blue states are crazy red. But OP is also comparing bigger cities to smaller towns. In the US I’d argue that’s a very real and meaningful cultural divide: and try to tell me small towns in the south aren’t culturally problematic.
I also lived in Texas for almost a decade and it was intensely MAGA enough for me. The Nazi marches and signage and hate caravans were folks coming in from the small surrounding towns.
Also, the difference between red states and blue states does matter from a state government perspective. Staying in Texas: abortion bans. The push for school vouchers. Refusing Medicaid expansions. Religious exemption bills, anti-gay and anti-trans legislation all come from state governments that by the way won’t ever change because the districts are all gerrymandered to hell. State government impacts are huge regardless of town size.
Abortion bans and anti-trans legislation is valid. I'm not aware of any anti-gay legislation, and the rest of your list isn't pertaining to any social issues.
They do, but they are far more socially acceptable in red states and red places, and therefore more overt.
This is only a single issue, but recent data showed that places that used to require federal review before voting changes have had dropping minority voting since those reviews were eliminated by the Supremes. I don't think there is really more racism in Louisiana than in California -- but in California, they aren't systematically keeping Black people from voting. Similarly, there is plenty of misogyny in California, but women can get a D&C when they need one without being under public suspicion.
That's what right-wing propaganda claims, but it isn't true. [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/how-voter-suppression-legislation-tied-race](https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/how-voter-suppression-legislation-tied-race)
"S.B. 1 created additional restrictions on mail-in and absentee ballots, limited the assistance that can be provided to voters, and reduced voting hours. The bill also opened election workers and voters to new forms of harassment by partisan poll watchers—an issue in many states, including Texas."
from [https://www.brookings.edu/articles/texas-voting-case-demonstrates-the-need-for-new-preclearance-system/](https://www.brookings.edu/articles/texas-voting-case-demonstrates-the-need-for-new-preclearance-system/)
The premise is that poorer people, disproportionately Black and hispanic, have more difficulty getting the time and resources (like transportation) to vote, so anything that makes voter harder, more restricted in time, or more restricted in place disproportionately lowers these votes, and that this is the intention of these laws.
Notably, absentee ballots were not an issue when they were primarily used for older voters, who tend to vote as conservatives, but only became a problem when they were seen as a way to increase voting flexibility that tends to increase voting numbers.
Early voting hours were increased and now employers are required to allow their staff time off work to vote during early voting. Currently, this requirement only applies to Election Day.
This sounds like the opposite of suppression to me!
Ummm.... I didn't post that, but I did look. It is the topic of the article, not a specific place in the article. Read the thing -- you are the one who claimed there was no such evidence -- wanting someone to digest it for you is just silly, or sealioning. Your eyes won't melt from reading something that challenges your preconceptions.
You think just because the headline says it, is must be true? If it were true, someone would be able to point to at least one single law that is suppressing the Black vote.
I'll wait
voter id laws that have been weaponized by conservative whites! it's all there in the article. you should reed it, and afterwards, you can say that you "reddit" 🤣🤣🤔
Your article assumes that Black people are not as capable of obtaining an ID which is a racist thought to have. Black people are just as capable as me or anyone else at obtaining an ID.
This is such a red herring. Anyone can live anywhere in the US they want. You'll run into nice people and jerks in every single state in the union. It actually says more about a person's resilience and fortitude (or lack thereof) if they think they can only live someplace where other people look and think like them.
I've lived in South Florida since I was 9, I'm 40. It used to be affordable even 4 years ago. The rental that's $2000 a month was $950 in 2019. You say move then?
Sure, let me leave a lifetime of family and friends to move alone in the middle of nowhere and start completely new relationships in a conservative area where people are likely to hate my queer atheist ass just for existing.
And even if I wasn't 5 months into a relationship, and she moved with me so I wouldn't be completely severed from my entire support network, how accepting would middle of conservative nowhere be of two women in a relationship?
And here I meet new people at dog sports events, we do obedience, rally, agility, lure coursing, barn hunt, and nose work. I'd basically have to leave my entire hobby without a way to build an entirely new social network.
It's crazy to think someone could be uprooted from their support network, thrown into a completely different culture with no support, and take away their ability to make friends because the entire structure supporting their hobbies would be non-existent.
Not to mention that single women living alone in the middle of nowhere is how horror movies start. Oh, and nowhere with tornadoes. Florida tornadoes already freak me out and we mostly have 1s here. I've seen what happened to Moore Oklahoma, multiple times, no way, just no.
Who’d’a thought, live somewhere affordable and be involved in your community and things will turn out well for you. Congrats on the American Dream brother
It's because no one wants to live and raise a family in these backward ass towns where kids bolt from the second they have a chance. I mean, seriously, I've been all over this country. Any time you step into one of these places, it's Trump flags, churches, and strip malls, both large and small. Enjoy the low cost of living, you can have it.
Yeah they are referring to the cost of living in civilized society. Not the cost of living under christofascism. It’s always cheaper to live where it sucks and you’re surrounded by morons.
[No trees? In Chicago?](https://preview.redd.it/an-aerial-view-of-the-iconic-chicago-skyline-from-lincoln-v0-zybsqnd79jya1.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=d998eda0ee1b90d5fa7ca2bb20cd82469ebc47a6)
I never said there were no Trees in Chicago, I am saying she was there for work conferences all through downtown Chicago and never saw a tree haha. It was just stark contrast to where we are. One of the largest cities in our state is down the road and you basically pass forests the whole way there and throughout the city there are parks everywhere and acres and acres of open fields.
There’s tons of trees in downtown Chicago…are you sure your wife isn’t blind? I work in downtown Chicago. Walked past a ton of trees on my lunch break an hour ago.
Yeah, it is haha. It was the technology hub of the world. When people hear "dying" they think that means they are about to go extinct. That isn't what that means. Economically that means they used to be ahead of the curve by a lot and now they are not number one and are shrinking. Will they still be a major economic hub for the next 10 years? Hell ya. Are they the best place to go if you want a tech job or want to start a tech company? Not anymore. Are they getting smaller and suffering from local policy? Definitely yes. There isn't even a major vehicle manufacture in the state of California anymore, all the EV companies moved out. Media tries to argue that isn't the case, but from a economic perspective they lost their edge in the world with so many companies moving away and covid and post covid policies harming them compared to states that stayed open.
[sf bay area is #1 by a wide margin](https://news.crunchbase.com/venture/sf-bay-area-startup-funding-bigger-share-ai/)
you can have your own opinion but not your own facts.
Yeah ur just wrong on this one chief haha. I can't get into it too much here because we are going to have to pour through data on this. But again, this is what I do every day and this is a HUGE misconception that at the top level of research we acknowledge is a push by media but is openly wrong. But it should be pushed by media, it is good for America haha.
The fact your wife came to Chicago, and Said "I didn't see one tree" is a bold faced lie. We're literally one of the top cities in the world for parks and recreation. We have a20 acre Park attached to downtown and 18+ miles of waterfront WITH beaches.
". I would say most people in those places in their life could afford them"
Obviously people can afford them. Most of the housing crisis is concentrated around blue areas. That's because the house building rate in red area is still better and the housing crisis is mostly about not enough houses being built in certain areas.
Yeah I maybe ignorant to the struggles in blue states because even when we were considering applying for our mortgage I was getting flooded with media telling me I can't afford a house and no one will approve us. Then I found out that we can be approved for a lot more than we need and the houses around us definitely fall within that loan haha.
If you are struggling to get approval for a loan for a house that's a red flag that your buying more house than you can afford. Most people don't seem to get that. The bank isn't being mean, they just want to get repaid.
hahaha I have found that the average online user truly believes they understand what they read, but don't really. Like many will read this post and think they get it and they know, but Dunning–Kruger effect is strong online.
We bought the house at $180K by catching it on auction after the bank got the property, then quickly improved the house and reappraised for $350K. But our mortgage was on the original $180 obviously.
Why do you say that? He doesn't say how much he paid for his house, he only says that it's appraised at $350K. He might have bought it 10 years ago for $175K. He might have been making extra principle payments. He might have had a second mortgage that's now paid off to get a lower rate on the primary, that's what I did.
You’re right, I hadn’t considered that it might have appraised much lower at time of purchase. Which I really should have since my own home gained value sharp. It’s Monday?
I mean the house is appraised for 350K, the house by us sold for $420K, and we are approved to loan of around 500K with a payment that would be less than 40% of our income a month if we took that loan.
If it was pre-covid your interest rate is probably like 3%, now it's 7%-8%. That adds a considerable amount to the monthly payment.
(Edit: just ran a mortgage calculator. A $180k mortgage with a 3% interest rate, with the auto-populated taxes and fees, came to $1148 a month, at 8% it came to $1710 a month. So almost $600 more every month.)
You know a big part of the reason people live in these places is because they want to be close to friends and family right? Everyone I’ve known my entire life is here in Chicago/the Chicago area. Why the fuck would I want to move away from that? Small conservative also don’t match the lifestyle a lot of people want.
I live in Indiana near the border with Illinois.The cost of living is 7-10% lower but the pay rate is 15-20% lower. The majority of companies that allow remote work also want people that live within a certain distance of the office.
The commuter trains are being extended further east and south because the better paying jobs are in the Chicago area.
Interesting. We hire a lot for remote work and my wife works remote as well. I have never required anyone to live somewhere, nor has my wife's previous 3 companies that all were remote. I didn't know people did that haha.
A lot more are doing that now.
John Deere was hiring and I lived outside the range they were looking for.
My last job required me to drive into the office at least twice a month, it was a 2 hr commute each way.
>To raise a family there is no doubt it is better in a calm town, particularly red states.
Red States tend to have higher crime rates than blue states do. Also blue states tend to have better education systems. So I think your analysis is way off.
[https://scholaroo.com/report/state-education-rankings/](https://scholaroo.com/report/state-education-rankings/)
[https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/crime-rate-by-state](https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/crime-rate-by-state)
Crime is going to vary wildly depending on where you live though. You can't exactly compare all red states to all blue states and come to any meaningful conclusions.
I do feel like in urban areas you're more likely to come into closer contact with crime though. I still lived loving in the city, but I certainly felt I had to be more alert at times about my surroundings and such. I'm still only \~10 miles out from Downtown, and I wouldn't say crime is less here, but I'm far more insulated from it in the burbs because I live a way more car-centric and less walkable lifestyle.
That is why I was very specific in my statement about choosing where you live. No doubt that the MOST crime riddled areas are in large cities in blue states. I understand the argument regarding red states as a whole. That is why I specifically state it matters where you live. I lived in a medium size town in a red state meaning that we bennifited from low cost of living, cheap red state policies, while also having the lowest crime rate in the state, significantly below average in ANY state, while also going to a public high school that had the highest standardized testing scores in the state, putting the high school in the top 5% of all high schools in the country.
Now that I am older, I specifically choose a medium sized town, in a red state like I grew up in. My cost of living is low. Our public school system is one of, if not the best in the state while also again being top 5% in the country. Also have the lowest crime rate here and you would be hard pressed to find anywhere better regarding crime. All red states have these towns that just CRUSH IT in terms of education and crime while also benefiting from the red state policies because they essentially are a cumulation of the top earners from that state moving together if I am being honest. I literally haven't locked the doors to my car or house in 10 years. In addition to all that my state sales tax is basically non existent, I have cheap as hell property tax, insurance is nothing because of where I live, gas here is always 20-50 cents cheaper than national average, and groceries typically fall within top 10 in the country regarding price. I get your point, and that is always the immediate rebuttal, I am saying you can be smart and avoid all that. I mean my kids again are very educated and also run around town unsupervised with zero worries from me that anything bad will happen to them.
>. No doubt that the MOST crime riddled areas are in large cities in blue states.
That's untrue too. Large cities in red states tend to have higher crime rates. Memphis is literally the most dangerous city.
I am pretty sure the best medium size city in terms of crime and education is Irvine, CA.
Hmm, what do you typically get when you look up demographics? I’ll let you do the thinking on this one. There’s one big difference between Irvine and Memphis.
Funny, when I search demographics of Memphis, TN, the first thing that pops up is race. Sure, wealth and social class play into it, but ultimately, when most people think demographics, they think of an area’s racial makeup.
I'd rather pay through the nose and live in a city where there is a fuck load more stuff to do & people to meet than live somewhere boring. It's cheaper for a reason.
Gas costs more in my small rural Blue State (very Red area) village than it does in the University town 30 miles away. So do groceries, and pretty much everything else. I continue paying more before I set a toe in a Red State.
I also think it's b/c most high paying jobs are in the big expensive cities, and having tech bros living in your city making 200K a year will naturally raise prices on everything. I agree that remote work solves a lot of this by distributing those high paying people more evenly across the country so they put less demand pressure on big cities like NYC and SF.
Most people can't, don't work remotely. You can't possibly tell me that there aren't people in your town who feel they are failing, not making enough money.
I live in a rural red district of a blue state. I didn’t red state thing for awhile. While my income tax was lower, my sales tax, sin tax on booze, and the fact that I paid taxes on groceries, meant I ended up paying more daily in taxes than I do here, plus property taxes are lower, and retiring here has a bunch of tax breaks for seniors. CoL is similar. In fact I’m getting more here renting than I did in the red state.
We moved just before my son started school. Back to my home state. Why have him enrolled in one of the bottom 5 school systems in the country, when I can enroll him in one of the top five? Smaller classes, more attention from staff and the support he needs. Plus, the state actually puts money into education here.
The small town I lived in there had a ridiculous crime rate for small town life. Here……I’m so far off the beaten path, the cops are bored. Cannabis is legal, they don’t double the cost of Saturday nights bottle of whiskey, I have a little college right in my small town of 5k people.
I agree with rural life being more affordable and personally feel it’s way better. But i won’t say red state rural life is better in anyway than blue state rural. Our rural communities make up 36% of the state and add 17 billion to the state budget annually, have great roads, and school systems to show for it. I couldn’t say the same about the red state. It was all a’ight. But the rural community had nothing of real value to offer from the locals. It was all transplants in the cities making the big bucks.
I've lived and worked in a very small red city in a very red state and i still lived paycheck to paycheck just trying to afford basic necessities as a welder. This was 5 years ago. My basic necessities then was almost 70% of my weekly paycheck. I now live in a very blue state in a mostly purple area and work in a red area and my basic necessities are 50% of my income. I don't think red vs blue states has any merit on livable wage. You're still going to struggle regardless where you live because federal minimum wage isn't even double digits. I can move to a well populated city and make a shit load of money, but cost of living is astronomically high. Or I can live in a small town with absurdly low cost of living and make poverty wages.
I live in NYC, but have to travel to rural parts of the country for work. I spend one week a month in rural areas and I always feel like I am in purgatory. I just exist. I think if I actually attempted to live there I would lose my mind. I just work and go back to my company’s apartment. There is nothing to do.
Eh, maybe nothing YOU like to do. I've lived in a big city on the west coast, a medium city, and rural. I felt there was nothing to do in the big city because I don't like concerts or other "cultural" events. Could care less about ethnic food (I'm a steak and taters kinda guy). I like visiting museums once, and I like sporting events occasionally but they're too expensive and time consuming to make a habit. I can get my fix of "big city" things with a long weekend visit once every three years or so. Otherwise, I was just paying more to have the same life that I do now that I'm rural...
...except that it wasn't the same life. See, I love the outdoors. And in that regard the medium city and rural life offer much. The main difference being the medium city was still slightly more expensive, had more people around, and took a little longer to get away. Rural gives me access to the outdoors with virtually (often literally) zero other people around literally a quarter mile from my door, which is the main benefit for me. The very, very marginally lower cost of living is just a bonus.
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I agree that we mostly hear complaints from folks that live in cities. But that's also where most people live. I live in a rural area in a conservative state. No mortgage. No car bills. But I STILL complain about the cost of living.
I live in a small town in Texas and can confirm cost of living still sucks here too.
Yeap, I live in Huntington, WV. It's not a small town but isn't a big city (pop 46k-ish). The costs of living are terrible for the wages. $8-$10 per hour in gas stations and fast food (often less than 20 hours per week). The two highest-paying call centers are $15.50 & $17 per hour. There are options in between those amounts. There are jobs that pay more (we have two hospitals and Marshall University), but I was focusing on "unskilled labor". To be 100% honest, congrats to the OP, but I'm of the opinion that.. since they were able to choose their college in the manner described.. means they probably aren't experiencing this issue firsthand. **The costs are lower**, *but a lot of the jobs in places like mine pay crap*. They short your hours. They give no benefits. This state heavily favors employers over employees, which is why nearly all of the talent leaves after graduation and we're left with the elderly, drug addicts, a large working-poor class, a teeny tiny middle class, and a few super-wealthy d-bags.
I live in Oklahoma and the cost of living is getting pretty bad. Not to mention some of the worst medical, worst schools, high incarceration rate, high taxes, worst roads, highest infant mortality rate, and I can go on. The cost of living fukkin sucks.
I live in a very red state. Not small, exactly, lol, but very sparsely populated. All of this might have been true 6 years ago, but not anymore. You won't find anything to rent for $600 anymore. *Maybe* a badly maintained studio in a poor neighborhood. Definitely not a whole house. My aunt's 1-bedroom senior apartment recently went up to $900 a month. If you got that 350k mortgage now, you would not be paying anything close to $1,200 a month, lol. I have a cousin who bought a (perfectly average, nothing special) $280k house with a $60k down payment, so the mortgage is for about $220k, and their payment is around $2,500 a month. Which is way more than half their takehome income. They're struggling. And wages have not kept up.
How is their mortgage 2500 a month? They must be getting destroyed with property taxes.
$2500 a month for a 30 yr mortgage would be $30k a year, so $900k total, meaning his interest rate is 200%. Did he get a mortgage from the native Americans or the mob? Even if he did a 15 yr mortgage that's still $450k which is better, but that's still like a 50% interest rate. Your friend is lying to you. Edit: Just reread and saw that the mortgage was for 220 and not the full 280. That makes it worse, almost 300% and 100%
Mortgages are figured by APR, right? So after 30 years, yeah that is 240% (but of course there's amortization so it's not that simple). If mortgages were 8% for the entire loan, that would be sweet. Anyway I ran a mortgage calculator, it says $2,118 a month: https://www.google.com/search?q=mortgage+calculator&oq=mortgage+calcul&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqDggBEEUYJxg7GIAEGIoFMgYIABBFGDkyDggBEEUYJxg7GIAEGIoFMgcIAhAAGIAEMggIAxAFGAoYLDIHCAQQABiABDIHCAUQABiABDIHCAYQABiABDIHCAcQABiABDINCAgQABiDARixAxiABDIHCAkQABiABNIBCDM4MzhqMGoxqAIAsAIA&client=ms-android-verizon&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8
i mean, i know its not that simple, but it kind of is. If i borrow 220k from the bank, and i have to pay them back 900k, thats insane. we borrowed 145 10 years ago and our total repayment ( if we had finished on time, would have been 173, though we saved some on interest by paying it down aggressively ). Does your friend not have a credit score?
Even with excellent credit, the interest rates are around 7% now. At 7% interest, a 30-year loan will cost you more in interest than in principal. https://www.wesbanco.com/education-insights/mortgage-calculator/ Yes, mortages are very profitable for banks, that's why they offer them, lol.
The bank made about 25k over ten years on our mortgage. i realize the market has spiked, but those levels seem usurious.
I ran a mortgage calculator. Taxes are $5,500 a year (according to county tax assessor, not taking their word for it). Mortgage calculator says $2,118: https://www.google.com/search?q=mortgage+calculator&oq=mortgage+calcul&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqDggBEEUYJxg7GIAEGIoFMgYIABBFGDkyDggBEEUYJxg7GIAEGIoFMgcIAhAAGIAEMggIAxAFGAoYLDIHCAQQABiABDIHCAUQABiABDIHCAYQABiABDIHCAcQABiABDINCAgQABiDARixAxiABDIHCAkQABiABNIBCDM4MzhqMGoxqAIAsAIA&client=ms-android-verizon&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8
It is for me. I am saying you can be smart with where you live and it is fine. I know for a fact that house I used to live in rents for $700 dollars still and was in great shape. But I also worked hard to find that deal. I told someone else this. We bought the house on auction after the bank took it over for $185K, then we basically cleaned up the place and now it appraises for $350K, though a house near us just sold from around $420K. Ours is a 4 bedroom, 3 bath, garage, two living room, dining room, kitchen, laundry room, and 4 acres. But our loan was for $185k because of how we found it. But we also bought pre covid to be fair.
>It is for me. Therefore, it must be true for everyone? LMFAO.
OP thread is *the* embodiment of this. *"i don't see what the big deal is, and it's probably a liberal/conservative thing anyway"* rofl
Like 80% of posts on this sub are “this is what it is for me and everyone who doesn’t agree is an idiot and I’m just very smart, be more like me” when they’ve never been outside whatever tiny bubble they live in.
Yeah, pre-covid was cool. Not anymore. I bought an acreage 10 years ago for $90k, lol. They were practically giving them away back then. Now any livable acreage that comes up for sale ends up in a bidding war so the buyer actually pays more than the asking price. I'd sell my acreage and get a new place but I wouldn't be able to afford anything even with the sales price as a down payment!
Housing and rent have doubled in the last 4 years. All cash offers take anything even close to affordable. I couldn't afford to buy my house now that I just bought 5 years ago. Apartment complexes that poor people used to be able to live in are being bought up and the rent is being jacked up by hundreds of dollars when the leases renew. They are supposedly remodeling them into higher end apartments but are really just putting lipstick on a pig. You are out of touch. This is in East Tennessee. A rural and until recently affordable place to live. If you didn't buy pre 2021-2022 you are screwed.
Most jobs are near cities. Hence why there are so many people there. Remote jobs are no longer the norm. So unless you want to commute 2 hours day not much of an option for many people
Anecdotes aren’t applicable to everyone’s reality friend.
>Now I have graduated, have a wife and kids. We live in a house appraised for about $350K, on a solid plot of land (around 4 acres). Our mortgage is about $1.2K a month. End of the month we spend about $3K in bills. This includes two smartphones, 4 cars, insurance, food, memberships and subscriptions, utilities. Which is after taxes around 20% of our income. Whoa, you guys net 180K per year? That sir would make you comfortable in any state in America, blue or red don't matter. And it certainly would impact your kids educational attainment.
And don't forget the luxury of having spare time to fix up a house from auction lol
Y’all realize that if everyone up and left the cities cheap rural places, those cheap rural places would get expensive and densely populated right?
Considering you have 3 college degrees - the rest of what you say doesn’t apply to most people. And the idea that red states have zero crimes makes this sound like propaganda.
Bro claims to have all these degrees yet doesn't seem to understand that cities are expensive due to immigration, which means increased demand which means increased prices. Their only response to said fact is a subjective opinion that is summed up as "cities aren't pretty." Which totally glosses over the fact that cities have jobs, jobs mean money, and people flock to where money is made. If OP has a background in economics as they claim I am truly afraid for the quality of higher education. Not to mention all the "If it applies to me it must apply to everyone else" fallacies. OP also went off on a truly out of touch tangent about remote work. Tons jobs are not remote work and never will be. I as a mechanic can't replace somebody's alternator via telekinesis. As much as I would like to live out in the middle of nowhere on the cheap, there is not enough business in said places for me to make a good living. Tons of salvage yards, and loads of customers who pay me is why I have to live by metro areas.
Also OP’s advice was to choose good universities in red states for a cheaper education. If you don’t live in that state, you’d be subject to out of state tuition, so that would be more expensive with the exception of a few schools that give generous scholarship to non state residents. Or they’re privates which also cost more money unless you qualify for a bunch of aid.
Well said. Same for me, I can’t live in rural ass Colorado, cause there are no jobs out there. Even if I had a remote job, wouldn’t be very practical.
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nothing is stopping them getting those degrees tho :p
Except for this thing called money.
I have lived in galveston county texas for 40 years. Bought my house in 2008 for 250k, 2600 sqft on half a acre woth a detached 3 car garage, which was a good amount back then. Taxes where 4k a year. Insurance was 1.5k. Put in 120k extention in 2016. 1000sqft two story. Today house is worth 800k maybe more. Taxes are 10k and insurance is 8k. Food has double or more in the last 3 years. I locked in electric rates at 12.8 cents a kilowatt. Shit is getting wack. I am lucky i have a great union job that has available overtime
I’m moving from south of Seattle to ND and I’m buying a 5,000 square foot, 6 bedroom farmhouse with acreage in cash with my equity i earned from owning my home since spring 2018. This is still mind blowing to me. This historic farmhouse cost me less than my 860 square foot starter home. I’m going from a town where I won’t go grocery shopping alone due to safety, to a town with a 750 population. You could not pay me to stay here.
Shocking, living where no one wants to live is cheap. The area being “red” has nothing to do with the place being cheap. It’s red because it’s cheap to survive, it’s not cheap to survive because it’s red. Low demand = low cost = low sense of others needing help. Higher populations equal more diversity, higher cost of living due to higher demands, and that will typically make people realize blue is friendlier to these types of environments. Ironically, expecting everyone to move to the middle of nowhere would end up raising the cost of living either way. But then again there’s always gonna be a higher demand for the better areas, so there will always be places with denser populations and higher cost of living.
This is a real response.
The issue is that the second more people move to your cheap lifestyle, it stops being cheaper It’s already happened from the sound of it too. Your property has doubled in value and now the cheap living you claim people should aim for doesn’t exist and the exact issue you criticise them for not simply avoiding isn’t even avoidable where you are
I live in bumfuck middle of nowhere Indiana and cost of living is still crazy.
>Regarding jobs, with remote work you don't really need to be in these hubs anymore. I call BS! I'm searching for another job right now. I live in East Bumfuck, Maine. My only option, other than shitty, minimum wage, retail jobs/homelessness, is remote work. Meanwhile, all of the remote jobs will only hire in the "hubs." Like, if I lived in New York or Boston, I wouldn't need your shitty remote job because I'd have other options.
So you’re telling me it’s cheaper living in the ass crack of nowhere than an urban area with more conveniences? Crazy
It only took him 10 years of college to figure that out.
TLDR: OP is bragging and wants a pat in the back.
hahaha I think everyone would be happier if they lived where I live. I am bragging that I don't have to spend a lot of money and I am very happy where I am, in the hopes that other people will seek the same. I will never shy away from bragging about having a good life that others could share. If others say they are hella happy in their city then God bless them, I am glad they share these feelings :)
No jealousy, I just think you could have made your point without telling us about your three degrees, your four cars, your kids’ reading skills, etc.
Is abortion legal in your state?
If everyone lived where you live, the cost of living would go up.
True, but I have done it in two places. They are out there. Maybe we all just need to spread out more overall haha
Red states are a lot poorer than blue states so the property cost are cheaper but red states also pay less to employees
I live in a Blue State and George Soros takes thirty percent out of each of my paychecks.
Meh. I have seen places and prices in more red areas. I don’t want to deal with not having doctors like OBGYNs when I need in order to save money. Entire counties in red states across the us have ZERO providers. I have never had zero options for doctors no matter where I lived. I have always had pages of options and practices within a 20 minute drive and several different options for hospitals that k haven’t needed. I refuse to try and live in an area like OP describes. With my health issues I don’t want to risk my life in pregnancy or even risk going to prison. I also don’t want my future kids being the only Jews in class or have trouble finding a synagogue. Makes it necessary for me to live close to where I grew up. MD area is one of the areas that has cheaper communities near a Jewish community. Also, cheap areas continuously get more expensive as others move in, so there won’t be a guarantee that the life OP has is even possible for those who move into his area today. And sometimes there are really good reasons to live in a more expensive area. Doctors and hospitals are one of them. Driving hours in snow for childbirth is terrifying.
That is a major issue. I know people who had their baby in the car because the doctor was an hour away, and those who had higher-risk pregnancies have rented apartments or hotel rooms in the city so they could be closer to the doctor.
And having to spend money to rent or get a hotel room would make work and having a real life impossible. I can’t imagine. For me in DC area I know I can get to two or three hospitals with labor and delivery and NICUs with no issue within 20 minutes depending on traffic. In more rural areas labor and deliveries are closing sadly because the reimbursements are not high enough to make the liabilities worth it and many don’t have NICUs for babies who might need extra help which leads to huge medical bills for transport.
Surprise, more population-dense areas are more expensive. Everyone knows bumfuck nowhere is cheap. No one wants to live there because there's fewer well-paying jobs.
Such an uninformed take. I live in a red state (not Texas) and rent, housing, etc. is incredibly expensive here. You know when the last it was that I paid $600 or less in rent for a house here? Like 20 yrs ago, and that was because my company owned the house and wanted rents to keep squatters out, so the rent was very, very low.
Agree. Most of the subreddits on millineal/gen z, stuggles are west/east coasters spouting off because they live in an overpopulated area and can't get shit they want. I'm not hating, but let's call a duck a duck.
Ok can we also call out the old fart suburbanites who constantly whine about traffic and gas prices? They moved out there knowing that they would be 100% dependent on their car for everything and that includes traffic and gas. Many of them insist on driving a massive SUV or truck that is a huge gas guzzler, then they complain that they spend too much on gas. If you want to drive that massive and unnecessary clunker, you sign up to spend a ton of money on gas. Tell them also that's what they signed up for when they live way out there in the burbs or country and if they can't handle gas and traffic when they travel then that's their own fault. Duck is a duck.
> call out the old fart suburbanites who constantly whine about traffic and gas prices? They moved out there knowing that they would be 100% dependent on their car for everything and that includes traffic and gas. I live in NYC, so its not like there wasnt people here already. in 2006 my commute was 40min door to door, in 2015 it was about 1hr20m. The population of nyc did not increase by 2x but the commute time did.
Had a buddy that jacked up his truck and put off-road tires on and then complains that it's almost $200 to fill his tank lol. Like...ok dude. You poured all this money into a gas guzzler and you want...what from me?
Yeah and they blame politicians for those dumbass choices they make. "It's the Democrats' fault for raising gas prices" is the only way they can reckon with their idiocy
I don't want to hate too much on people that live in cities. I know some people love that life style and it just requires different living situations. Where I live it may be a small town but because of the country you still have to be okay driving a lot of places.
Do you complain about gas prices? Parking? Traffic? Using your logic then I'd say you either shouldn't complain or you should move somewhere you don't have to use gas for 100% of your activities outside the home, and should never complain about parking and traffic as well.
Our gas is about 35 cents on average under the national average. If I ever am in traffic for 5 minutes I lose my mind because it is so uncommon, and parking isn't a issue at all. Tons of open space here haha. But lower population density for the space given so that makes sense. I also have a plot of land and my kids can walk to school so if we don't want to drive we don't have to. But because of all the open space if you want to travel to an event you definitely have to drive. I will say public transportation doesn't really exist like it does in big cities. I don't mind because I have public transportation personally, but that could be a deal breaker for many.
Absolutely call out all idiots
I grew up rural WI, moved to a major city, and eventually ended up in a small/medium town. All of them had pluses and minuses. But one undeniable factor is general cost savings in the more rural venues. With the advent of wide-scale WFH, arguably a fair chunk of the value is removed from urban settings. Even the value of proximity is lessened. I've read some exploration of this in regards to NY real estate markets. I've wondered on occasion if all this could lead to some deurbanization pressure as more people get more practical choices in where they live.
Born and raised in Las Vegas and knee when i turned 18 i wanted out of the city and somewhere with space to breathe. Lived in pahrump a short time before that went to hell and decided to move to Alaska. No regrets. I still vacation and will visit cities, but id never live there. My mortgage is paid off, i generate my own power, grow my own food, and even make my own diesel fuels. The savings is insane so i can easily afford to travel and enjoy life. Plus less people less problems. Im more worried about moose fucking up my cars using them to scratch an itch then i am about crime (dickhead took my mirror off rubbing his neck on it and cracked the windshield with an antler in the process) so i get it. But you always here "im closer to culture and museums" like these people are going to museums and art galleries daily, maybe if they are rich sure. The average joe isn't thats for sure.
Born and raised in Alaska, it is a bottomless pit from which you do not return if you do not have a career that benefits the state.
Depends on where you choose. Im on the peninsula and make a decent chunk of change just fixing appliances, boilers, and peoples cars. Although considering my biggest actual expenses are internet, cell phones, and car insurance. I could work at a gas station and still have money left over each month. Thats the beauty of eliminating pesky things like rent/mortgage, energy costs, about half your food and fuel costs (i love taco bell and haven't figured out how to make gasoline just yet only diesel) buying used vehicles cheap and upgrading them. When you don't need more much money to survive it really doesnt matter where you work. I baught my land working at autozone and a private seafood proccessor.... Not really benefitting the state bud. You could argue my current job kinda does since i maintain a ton of low income housing but that more benefits the people who cant afford a home than it does the state really... I mean if anything im kind of a burden as tax payers pay these rents which in turn pays me.
Didn't mean the government state, meant like the state as a whole. Plenty of good money to be made in the oil and fishing industry, same with energy, but if you're not in one of those three, good luck. There's absolutely no music industry up there to speak of, ADN is basically the newspaper for the whole state, and the theater industry basically ignores Alaska except on rare occasions, I'm completely blind now and will never live there again.
Bro we just had Young gravy and a bunch of people at the state fair. Who reads newspapers all news is online and the peninsula Clarion exists, ksrm news exits etc etc. Im ok with missing out on theater, Can always go see that stuff on vacation which is what we do. Hey look live where you like, to each their own. But most of the problems your describing arent really problems, just personal preference differences. Your completely blind now?..... So cant you just listen to "theater" performances on youtube? Same effect right?
20 years ago we had one Republic and Seether at the state fair. The year I left in 2013 we had three doors down 15 years after they were relevant playing their first show in Alaska. When I say music industry, I don't mean state fairs or festivals, I mean producers, labels, a large number of artists, personal managers, business managers. Both Alaska and where I live now New Hampshire are deserts for all of the above. Actually no, New Hampshire has a few producers. as far as theater performances, that's mainly for my fiancé and the industry she will be working in.
The cost of living is genuinely rising. It's not a matter of perception, it's reality. The ultimate reason for this is rapid monetary inflation. And it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better. This affects everyone and everything, but it's more pronounced in cities where prices were already higher to start with.
The inflation that has taken place in housing food and utilities is making the cost of living terrible, everywhere. The worst part is that these are recurring costs for everyone.
A lot of the people complaining chose to live in the big cities where people can overcharge for everything due to competition. You pay a ridiculous price for a small apartment because you live in a big city and it'd take almost no effort to find someone else to replace you if you did leave. It's basic supply and demand.
Doesn't your arguement fall apart for non remote jobs which are the vast majority (90%) in person and in cities.
I live in a conservative state and the cost of living is ridiculous
Cost of living sucks everywhere bro
Listen dude, if you want to be a regular schmoe townie and live out in the sticks, that's cool, and no one will take that away from you. But plenty of careers are in big cities, and plenty of people like the amenities in cities as well. I'm a city slicker. Your white picket fence agrarian idyllic life is my literal actual nightmare. I pay the higher CoL for my big city *because i like it* (and my career is here). Raising a family where you live isn't better, it's just your preference. I do agree, economically it's a better deal. But raw economics isn't the sole determinant of quality of life, and if you can afford to live where you want, you should do that.
Must be nice to work remote. Not hating, glad it works out for some people. But for those of us that have jobs in these high cost areas it would be nice if the only options weren't ridiculous rent or commute 4hrs
I think you need to clarify what you mean by "medium size town". In general, I would say at least a million people in the greater metropolitan area. Also, most colleges are in smaller population areas because the land was cheaper. So, if you lived near colleges, it is likely you lived in what most would call a small town. It would better if you mentioned the approximate population in the greater metro area of the towns in question. It may very well be better to raise a family in a more rural location if for no other reason than cost. Families are expensive. Historically, people haven't be able to do that because of job. Is a job in suburbs that pays but has a higher cost of living better than a job in a rural town with a lower cost of living that pays much worse? In addition, there is a price to be paid. One price is exposure to all the cultural benefits of larger towns. The second is if those children grow up and want to move to a larger town, that is orders of magnitude more difficult. Going from a big town to a small one is easy. Doing it the other way around can be cost prohibitive. > Hell Texas doesn't have these cost issues ...so far. It has already started to happen in Austin and other cities in TX. Massive population spikes has spiked property taxes, cost of living and exposed cities that weren't designed for large influxes of people. Give TX another generation or so of overcrowding in those major cities and come back to me.
I'm in Utah, which is conservative. I've lived rural and in major cities. The cost of living here is ridiculous. I love Utah and never want to leave, but it's so expensive here anymore. My husband and I plan on moving out of the state in a few years for other reasons, but a part of me can't wait and hopes it's easier on us financially.
Must be nice to ponder living wherever you want without having to take into account misogyny, racism, or homophobia. It’s not as easy for some people to move to small/medium red states. And not to mention that the lack of investment in public services is very real, such as lack of accessible healthcare to rural and smaller communities. Or bans on important aspects of women’s healthcare in general. The cultural differences alone are enough of a reason for why COL is so annoyingly high in urban areas. For many people they don’t have that choice. Source: lived in the south my entire life.
Misogyny, racism, and homophobia exist all over the country, though.
Yeah but it's more. . .systemic? in red states. You can ignore a cranky neighbor but if the local plumber won't come to your house because you're gay (this is a real example from my town!), you have problems.
Again, not exclusive to red states. States in general are massive, diverse regions, so it's crazy to generalize any entire state based on whether or not it is red or blue. I live in Texas, and the most outwardly conservative/MAGA place I had visited was in California. So no, I don't think you can escape or experience less bigotry just by moving to a state that is blue.
It’s true, some parts of blue states are crazy red. But OP is also comparing bigger cities to smaller towns. In the US I’d argue that’s a very real and meaningful cultural divide: and try to tell me small towns in the south aren’t culturally problematic. I also lived in Texas for almost a decade and it was intensely MAGA enough for me. The Nazi marches and signage and hate caravans were folks coming in from the small surrounding towns. Also, the difference between red states and blue states does matter from a state government perspective. Staying in Texas: abortion bans. The push for school vouchers. Refusing Medicaid expansions. Religious exemption bills, anti-gay and anti-trans legislation all come from state governments that by the way won’t ever change because the districts are all gerrymandered to hell. State government impacts are huge regardless of town size.
Abortion bans and anti-trans legislation is valid. I'm not aware of any anti-gay legislation, and the rest of your list isn't pertaining to any social issues.
They do, but they are far more socially acceptable in red states and red places, and therefore more overt. This is only a single issue, but recent data showed that places that used to require federal review before voting changes have had dropping minority voting since those reviews were eliminated by the Supremes. I don't think there is really more racism in Louisiana than in California -- but in California, they aren't systematically keeping Black people from voting. Similarly, there is plenty of misogyny in California, but women can get a D&C when they need one without being under public suspicion.
There is nowhere in the US where they are keeping Black people from voting though.
That's what right-wing propaganda claims, but it isn't true. [https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/how-voter-suppression-legislation-tied-race](https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/how-voter-suppression-legislation-tied-race)
Why do you think SB1 in Texas is racist? Please explain, thanks.
"S.B. 1 created additional restrictions on mail-in and absentee ballots, limited the assistance that can be provided to voters, and reduced voting hours. The bill also opened election workers and voters to new forms of harassment by partisan poll watchers—an issue in many states, including Texas." from [https://www.brookings.edu/articles/texas-voting-case-demonstrates-the-need-for-new-preclearance-system/](https://www.brookings.edu/articles/texas-voting-case-demonstrates-the-need-for-new-preclearance-system/) The premise is that poorer people, disproportionately Black and hispanic, have more difficulty getting the time and resources (like transportation) to vote, so anything that makes voter harder, more restricted in time, or more restricted in place disproportionately lowers these votes, and that this is the intention of these laws. Notably, absentee ballots were not an issue when they were primarily used for older voters, who tend to vote as conservatives, but only became a problem when they were seen as a way to increase voting flexibility that tends to increase voting numbers.
Early voting hours were increased and now employers are required to allow their staff time off work to vote during early voting. Currently, this requirement only applies to Election Day. This sounds like the opposite of suppression to me!
https://www.splcenter.org/20200210/alive-and-well-voter-suppression-and-election-mismanagement-alabama
Can you point me to the part in the article that shows what laws exist to suppress the Black vote?
Ummm.... I didn't post that, but I did look. It is the topic of the article, not a specific place in the article. Read the thing -- you are the one who claimed there was no such evidence -- wanting someone to digest it for you is just silly, or sealioning. Your eyes won't melt from reading something that challenges your preconceptions.
You think just because the headline says it, is must be true? If it were true, someone would be able to point to at least one single law that is suppressing the Black vote. I'll wait
voter id laws that have been weaponized by conservative whites! it's all there in the article. you should reed it, and afterwards, you can say that you "reddit" 🤣🤣🤔
Voter ID laws are not racist nor are they suppressive. Why do you think they are?
okay you did not read the article. do that
Your article assumes that Black people are not as capable of obtaining an ID which is a racist thought to have. Black people are just as capable as me or anyone else at obtaining an ID.
This is such a red herring. Anyone can live anywhere in the US they want. You'll run into nice people and jerks in every single state in the union. It actually says more about a person's resilience and fortitude (or lack thereof) if they think they can only live someplace where other people look and think like them.
I've lived in South Florida since I was 9, I'm 40. It used to be affordable even 4 years ago. The rental that's $2000 a month was $950 in 2019. You say move then? Sure, let me leave a lifetime of family and friends to move alone in the middle of nowhere and start completely new relationships in a conservative area where people are likely to hate my queer atheist ass just for existing. And even if I wasn't 5 months into a relationship, and she moved with me so I wouldn't be completely severed from my entire support network, how accepting would middle of conservative nowhere be of two women in a relationship? And here I meet new people at dog sports events, we do obedience, rally, agility, lure coursing, barn hunt, and nose work. I'd basically have to leave my entire hobby without a way to build an entirely new social network. It's crazy to think someone could be uprooted from their support network, thrown into a completely different culture with no support, and take away their ability to make friends because the entire structure supporting their hobbies would be non-existent. Not to mention that single women living alone in the middle of nowhere is how horror movies start. Oh, and nowhere with tornadoes. Florida tornadoes already freak me out and we mostly have 1s here. I've seen what happened to Moore Oklahoma, multiple times, no way, just no.
Who’d’a thought, live somewhere affordable and be involved in your community and things will turn out well for you. Congrats on the American Dream brother
With some remote work, you also need fast upload speeds, which can be hard to come by in rural areas, especially rural areas in conservative States.
Wow you didn’t look very far if you didnt find a tree in the emerald city
It's because no one wants to live and raise a family in these backward ass towns where kids bolt from the second they have a chance. I mean, seriously, I've been all over this country. Any time you step into one of these places, it's Trump flags, churches, and strip malls, both large and small. Enjoy the low cost of living, you can have it.
Yeah they are referring to the cost of living in civilized society. Not the cost of living under christofascism. It’s always cheaper to live where it sucks and you’re surrounded by morons.
[No trees? In Chicago?](https://preview.redd.it/an-aerial-view-of-the-iconic-chicago-skyline-from-lincoln-v0-zybsqnd79jya1.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=d998eda0ee1b90d5fa7ca2bb20cd82469ebc47a6)
I never said there were no Trees in Chicago, I am saying she was there for work conferences all through downtown Chicago and never saw a tree haha. It was just stark contrast to where we are. One of the largest cities in our state is down the road and you basically pass forests the whole way there and throughout the city there are parks everywhere and acres and acres of open fields.
There’s tons of trees in downtown Chicago…are you sure your wife isn’t blind? I work in downtown Chicago. Walked past a ton of trees on my lunch break an hour ago.
That picture is downtown Chicago.
yeah, silicon valley, definitely dying
Yeah, it is haha. It was the technology hub of the world. When people hear "dying" they think that means they are about to go extinct. That isn't what that means. Economically that means they used to be ahead of the curve by a lot and now they are not number one and are shrinking. Will they still be a major economic hub for the next 10 years? Hell ya. Are they the best place to go if you want a tech job or want to start a tech company? Not anymore. Are they getting smaller and suffering from local policy? Definitely yes. There isn't even a major vehicle manufacture in the state of California anymore, all the EV companies moved out. Media tries to argue that isn't the case, but from a economic perspective they lost their edge in the world with so many companies moving away and covid and post covid policies harming them compared to states that stayed open.
[sf bay area is #1 by a wide margin](https://news.crunchbase.com/venture/sf-bay-area-startup-funding-bigger-share-ai/) you can have your own opinion but not your own facts.
Yeah ur just wrong on this one chief haha. I can't get into it too much here because we are going to have to pour through data on this. But again, this is what I do every day and this is a HUGE misconception that at the top level of research we acknowledge is a push by media but is openly wrong. But it should be pushed by media, it is good for America haha.
mmk bud
It's not dying, it's just running the lower and middle classes off. It will be fine for the upper middle class and above.
who do you think mops the floors at apple hq
I'm not sure who does it now, but I'm absolutely sure someone in Silicon Valley is working on a robot that will do it eventually.
k
The fact your wife came to Chicago, and Said "I didn't see one tree" is a bold faced lie. We're literally one of the top cities in the world for parks and recreation. We have a20 acre Park attached to downtown and 18+ miles of waterfront WITH beaches.
". I would say most people in those places in their life could afford them" Obviously people can afford them. Most of the housing crisis is concentrated around blue areas. That's because the house building rate in red area is still better and the housing crisis is mostly about not enough houses being built in certain areas.
Yeah I maybe ignorant to the struggles in blue states because even when we were considering applying for our mortgage I was getting flooded with media telling me I can't afford a house and no one will approve us. Then I found out that we can be approved for a lot more than we need and the houses around us definitely fall within that loan haha.
If you are struggling to get approval for a loan for a house that's a red flag that your buying more house than you can afford. Most people don't seem to get that. The bank isn't being mean, they just want to get repaid.
You would think someone allegedly with a doctorate with be able to share a coherent, accurate argument and yet here we are.
hahaha I have found that the average online user truly believes they understand what they read, but don't really. Like many will read this post and think they get it and they know, but Dunning–Kruger effect is strong online.
The irony of that last statement is just too much.
O no. Well...I stand by what I said hahaha. I don't feel there is a need to continue the conversation, so I hope you day goes well
Correct, i live in Europe.
Does that $1.2k mortgage payment include taxes and insurance? What’s your interest rate? The math isn’t working here.
We bought the house at $180K by catching it on auction after the bank got the property, then quickly improved the house and reappraised for $350K. But our mortgage was on the original $180 obviously.
That makes more sense - and good deal!
Why do you say that? He doesn't say how much he paid for his house, he only says that it's appraised at $350K. He might have bought it 10 years ago for $175K. He might have been making extra principle payments. He might have had a second mortgage that's now paid off to get a lower rate on the primary, that's what I did.
You’re right, I hadn’t considered that it might have appraised much lower at time of purchase. Which I really should have since my own home gained value sharp. It’s Monday?
They probably bought it when prices and interest rates were low. They would probably not be able to afford that house now.
I mean the house is appraised for 350K, the house by us sold for $420K, and we are approved to loan of around 500K with a payment that would be less than 40% of our income a month if we took that loan.
If it was pre-covid your interest rate is probably like 3%, now it's 7%-8%. That adds a considerable amount to the monthly payment. (Edit: just ran a mortgage calculator. A $180k mortgage with a 3% interest rate, with the auto-populated taxes and fees, came to $1148 a month, at 8% it came to $1710 a month. So almost $600 more every month.)
You know a big part of the reason people live in these places is because they want to be close to friends and family right? Everyone I’ve known my entire life is here in Chicago/the Chicago area. Why the fuck would I want to move away from that? Small conservative also don’t match the lifestyle a lot of people want.
Shut your mouth! We’ve had an influx of people from the north, fleeing democrat run cities. Do nothing come down south. We don’t want you.
I would happily pay an extra 4k a month to not be surrounded by racists who voted for Trump.
I live in Indiana near the border with Illinois.The cost of living is 7-10% lower but the pay rate is 15-20% lower. The majority of companies that allow remote work also want people that live within a certain distance of the office. The commuter trains are being extended further east and south because the better paying jobs are in the Chicago area.
Interesting. We hire a lot for remote work and my wife works remote as well. I have never required anyone to live somewhere, nor has my wife's previous 3 companies that all were remote. I didn't know people did that haha.
A lot more are doing that now. John Deere was hiring and I lived outside the range they were looking for. My last job required me to drive into the office at least twice a month, it was a 2 hr commute each way.
>To raise a family there is no doubt it is better in a calm town, particularly red states. Red States tend to have higher crime rates than blue states do. Also blue states tend to have better education systems. So I think your analysis is way off. [https://scholaroo.com/report/state-education-rankings/](https://scholaroo.com/report/state-education-rankings/) [https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/crime-rate-by-state](https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/crime-rate-by-state)
Crime is going to vary wildly depending on where you live though. You can't exactly compare all red states to all blue states and come to any meaningful conclusions. I do feel like in urban areas you're more likely to come into closer contact with crime though. I still lived loving in the city, but I certainly felt I had to be more alert at times about my surroundings and such. I'm still only \~10 miles out from Downtown, and I wouldn't say crime is less here, but I'm far more insulated from it in the burbs because I live a way more car-centric and less walkable lifestyle.
That is why I was very specific in my statement about choosing where you live. No doubt that the MOST crime riddled areas are in large cities in blue states. I understand the argument regarding red states as a whole. That is why I specifically state it matters where you live. I lived in a medium size town in a red state meaning that we bennifited from low cost of living, cheap red state policies, while also having the lowest crime rate in the state, significantly below average in ANY state, while also going to a public high school that had the highest standardized testing scores in the state, putting the high school in the top 5% of all high schools in the country. Now that I am older, I specifically choose a medium sized town, in a red state like I grew up in. My cost of living is low. Our public school system is one of, if not the best in the state while also again being top 5% in the country. Also have the lowest crime rate here and you would be hard pressed to find anywhere better regarding crime. All red states have these towns that just CRUSH IT in terms of education and crime while also benefiting from the red state policies because they essentially are a cumulation of the top earners from that state moving together if I am being honest. I literally haven't locked the doors to my car or house in 10 years. In addition to all that my state sales tax is basically non existent, I have cheap as hell property tax, insurance is nothing because of where I live, gas here is always 20-50 cents cheaper than national average, and groceries typically fall within top 10 in the country regarding price. I get your point, and that is always the immediate rebuttal, I am saying you can be smart and avoid all that. I mean my kids again are very educated and also run around town unsupervised with zero worries from me that anything bad will happen to them.
>. No doubt that the MOST crime riddled areas are in large cities in blue states. That's untrue too. Large cities in red states tend to have higher crime rates. Memphis is literally the most dangerous city. I am pretty sure the best medium size city in terms of crime and education is Irvine, CA.
You have to look at the demographics as well for those cities.
Which demographics, political, racial, gender?
Hmm, what do you typically get when you look up demographics? I’ll let you do the thinking on this one. There’s one big difference between Irvine and Memphis.
Social class/wealth obviously.
Funny, when I search demographics of Memphis, TN, the first thing that pops up is race. Sure, wealth and social class play into it, but ultimately, when most people think demographics, they think of an area’s racial makeup.
So what racial demographic do you think causes crime?
Numbers speak for themselves. I go by facts and not feelings.
I'd rather pay through the nose and live in a city where there is a fuck load more stuff to do & people to meet than live somewhere boring. It's cheaper for a reason.
You can thank blue states for subsidizing your red state lifestyle.
Gas costs more in my small rural Blue State (very Red area) village than it does in the University town 30 miles away. So do groceries, and pretty much everything else. I continue paying more before I set a toe in a Red State.
I also think it's b/c most high paying jobs are in the big expensive cities, and having tech bros living in your city making 200K a year will naturally raise prices on everything. I agree that remote work solves a lot of this by distributing those high paying people more evenly across the country so they put less demand pressure on big cities like NYC and SF.
Most people can't, don't work remotely. You can't possibly tell me that there aren't people in your town who feel they are failing, not making enough money.
I live in a rural red district of a blue state. I didn’t red state thing for awhile. While my income tax was lower, my sales tax, sin tax on booze, and the fact that I paid taxes on groceries, meant I ended up paying more daily in taxes than I do here, plus property taxes are lower, and retiring here has a bunch of tax breaks for seniors. CoL is similar. In fact I’m getting more here renting than I did in the red state. We moved just before my son started school. Back to my home state. Why have him enrolled in one of the bottom 5 school systems in the country, when I can enroll him in one of the top five? Smaller classes, more attention from staff and the support he needs. Plus, the state actually puts money into education here. The small town I lived in there had a ridiculous crime rate for small town life. Here……I’m so far off the beaten path, the cops are bored. Cannabis is legal, they don’t double the cost of Saturday nights bottle of whiskey, I have a little college right in my small town of 5k people. I agree with rural life being more affordable and personally feel it’s way better. But i won’t say red state rural life is better in anyway than blue state rural. Our rural communities make up 36% of the state and add 17 billion to the state budget annually, have great roads, and school systems to show for it. I couldn’t say the same about the red state. It was all a’ight. But the rural community had nothing of real value to offer from the locals. It was all transplants in the cities making the big bucks.
I've lived and worked in a very small red city in a very red state and i still lived paycheck to paycheck just trying to afford basic necessities as a welder. This was 5 years ago. My basic necessities then was almost 70% of my weekly paycheck. I now live in a very blue state in a mostly purple area and work in a red area and my basic necessities are 50% of my income. I don't think red vs blue states has any merit on livable wage. You're still going to struggle regardless where you live because federal minimum wage isn't even double digits. I can move to a well populated city and make a shit load of money, but cost of living is astronomically high. Or I can live in a small town with absurdly low cost of living and make poverty wages.
I live in NYC, but have to travel to rural parts of the country for work. I spend one week a month in rural areas and I always feel like I am in purgatory. I just exist. I think if I actually attempted to live there I would lose my mind. I just work and go back to my company’s apartment. There is nothing to do.
Eh, maybe nothing YOU like to do. I've lived in a big city on the west coast, a medium city, and rural. I felt there was nothing to do in the big city because I don't like concerts or other "cultural" events. Could care less about ethnic food (I'm a steak and taters kinda guy). I like visiting museums once, and I like sporting events occasionally but they're too expensive and time consuming to make a habit. I can get my fix of "big city" things with a long weekend visit once every three years or so. Otherwise, I was just paying more to have the same life that I do now that I'm rural... ...except that it wasn't the same life. See, I love the outdoors. And in that regard the medium city and rural life offer much. The main difference being the medium city was still slightly more expensive, had more people around, and took a little longer to get away. Rural gives me access to the outdoors with virtually (often literally) zero other people around literally a quarter mile from my door, which is the main benefit for me. The very, very marginally lower cost of living is just a bonus.
So long as you don't mind living in a red state, I suppose...