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3 words: Rust Belt Cities
You have urban living and usually a good diversity of people and jobs while having low costs.
Also aren't most southern cities cheap because they are sprawl?
I agree regarding your first assertion. If one takes a look at many of the supposed "Rust Belt cities" you'll see many have unemployment rates lower than the national average, decent wages and lower housing costs. The second assertion, not so much. Many of the southern cities are evolving in terms of sprawl and consist mainly of service sector jobs and somewhat high unemployment rates coupled with disproportionately high living costs versus salary. Prime example: my current city of residence Orlando, Florida.
For major cities...you will get the most bang for your buck in Chicago without a doubt.
My girlfriend lives in one of the most desirable parts of the city. A 3 minute walk out her door opens up literally hundreds of restaurants, bars, shops, theaters, etc and continues that way in each direction (except towards the lake) for literally miles. She is right near 4 bus stops and a few blocks from a major train line. She is 500 feet from a huge lake that has a huge park right near her including even a golf course on it and of course walking paths. She is a 15 minute train ride from the "downtown" neighborhoods even though her neighborhood is teeming with people and nightlife on the weekend nights (and of course in the summer just in general). Her place though is quiet surprisingly.
Guess how much she pays for that? $750 a month. I have other friends in the area who pay less than $600/month in a big 4 bedroom place which includes a full kitchen and not one but two living rooms. Try finding this in NYC, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Washington DC. You aren't going to find it in these cities or even close to it.
There are other big cities in the US, but they don't offer nearly as much as Chicago. As far as the "league of cities" go, Chicago is in the league with NYC, Los Angeles, Boston, DC, and San Fran. They're all in the same league, but Chicago is by far the cheapest out of all of them.
Houston? Big city, but it doesn't offer nearly as much. Phoenix? Same thing. Cleveland? Can be a cool city, but not even close. Indianapolis? No thanks. Atlanta? So so.
Chicago in many areas is a smaller, less dense version of New York City with DC and a tiny bit of Boston mixed in but it's incredibly cheaper in the areas you want to be in if you are the type to want to live in an area with tons of stuff. It all depends on what you want of course. Maybe you don't want a city of almost 3 million people and there are other much smaller cities like Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Cleveland (some of it), Pittsburgh, etc which are still cheap, great cities.
Location: where you sip the tea of the breasts of the spinsters of Utica
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The big problem with Chicago is the violent crime rate, especially homicides. I think Philly is almost as bad.
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