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Comment by irjustin | Hacker News Reader

One thing it doens't do is account for cost of living for a given city. Sure it looks nice that NYC, SF is higher than everyone else but I'm sure there's a very large group living in LCL areas that have far less stress compared to the bigger cities when it comes to budgeting.

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There is a small group of people who might benefit from being in a LCL area, its people with remote jobs and no kids. If you need to find work locally LCL doesn't help and is actually worse, and if you have kids the schools in these areas inevitably push you back to HCL sooner or later.

yeah knew a lot of coastal STEM types who went to LCL areas during COVID.

Boise, Portland, rural Kentucky, Central PA, one dude in Michigan, etc.

great deal until (most of them) lost their jobs or had spouses that lost jobs.

a few ran into culture shock they couldn't get past. my friends in Idaho got a shock, lol.

Kentucky dude is still there, tho. visited him, PITA to get there. great property, and thankfully he can still pull remote gigs.

> Portland

You have to be a certain kind of unlucky to consider Portland LCOL. And probably most west coast people aren't going to find much culture shock in Portland, at least. Idaho for sure, though.

Not only schools, services too ... particularly health care.

That’s why you go medium and choose Charlotte, Houston, Detroit, or Raleigh

Growing up in a LCL area, there are few jobs, and young people tend to leave for opportunities. The ones doing ok are retired or working a government job.

Yeah, LCOL areas are LCOL for a reason. The HCOL areas are HCOL because that's where everyone wants to live because that's where all the good jobs are

The financially optimal move is to make your money in a HCOL area and then move to a LCOL area

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