I'm often curious why more people aren’t moving to low cost of living areas. I don’t know if I’ve just been fortunate, but I’m a college drop out who honestly hasn’t tried very hard in my “career”, but I moved out to Cincinnati which has a low cost of living at 23 (8 hours from my family) and I’ve managed to do very well for myself with a modest paying job (20ish an hour). I have 40k saved up and plan to buy a house this year. I wonder if other people who have went or started on a similar route are doing well for themselves.
And if you are in a high cost of living area, would you ever consider moving somewhere significantly cheaper?
Yeah, there's a lot that's really nice about them. But it's sad to think about how much more alive they were when there was an actual economic base. Ours in particular doesn't even really have a downtown anymore. Main street is basically a highway. I'm sure more remote work would help, but it's hard to imagine any significant revitalization happening when the only reason this place existed in the first place is because of industries that are long gone. Obviously not every small town is like that, but I feel like the demographic trends are toward most of these populations getting, smaller, older, and poorer.