I lived in Montreal and paid C$675 / month for a 1 bedroom apartment 5 minutes from a metro station and another C$79 per month for monthly STM pass. Throw in a few trips outside the city with a rental car and we're still under C$10k.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/how-does-montr...
There are also much cheaper driveable cities (e.g. Knoxville, TN) and much more expensive non-driveable cities (e.g. San Francisco, CA). Also, more realistically, you would probably be commuting to the city center if you were driving. Rent in the suburb of Florissant, MO is only $618 a month [1]. And the average gas price in St. Louis is only $2.28 a gallon [2], and insurance in Missouri costs an average of only $57 a month [3].
That brings the cost of housing down to $820 a month or $9.8k a year. I'm sure you could get a cheaper and more reliable car as well.
[1] https://www.rentcafe.com/average-rent-market-trends/us/mo/fl...
[2] https://www.gasbuddy.com/USA/MO
[3] https://www.thesimpledollar.com/how-much-does-car-insurance-...