But how come every solution to pay these days is a dismissive "just uproot your entire life and community and move to the middle of nowhere"? If you have no social life nor reliance on modern conviniences, sure. But I've been raised in that environment and can't recommend it to most
- it's about as walk-unfriendly as you can get. Because there's a lot of empty land and the only benefit is you buy large swaths of it for housing (at least, "large" compared to urban environments).
- you have very little business to rely on locally. I had a small grocery store, an unkempt library, some liquor stores, a church, and a single burger joint. These were all 3+ miles from my home. Doing anything else required a 40 minute drive to the nearest downtown. Especially emergencies (no local hospital).
-weather in such towns is likely worse. So expect biting cold and dry environments or arid deserts. Not really places you can just walk out and take a quick jog if you're into that.
If all that is worth never coming into an office just so you can have a dedicated office, then sure. Move your life.
I will compliment the lack of light pollution, though. Amazing place if you're an amateur stargazer. Or simply want to see the night sky in the ways Hollywood portrays it.
Should I have stayed in my small town in south GA when I graduated from college in CS in the mid 90s to be close to my parents and friends?
The US is a big place with diverse weather.
I bet you I can find you a nice big house in the burbs of Atlanta, Charlotte, a hurricane mostly safe place in central Florida, rtc.
I in fact moved from Atlanta where I spent all of my adult life since 1996 two years ago with my wife because I wanted better weather and save money on taxes (no state tax) as a bonus.
You adapt, you make new friends. Honestly most of my friends in Atlanta are so busy with their own lives and family, even when I lived in the same metro area, we still had to make an effort to plan quarterly get togethers.
I still do that now - I just hop on a plane.
And some don't. It's a personal choice and comes down to a myriad of factors. Do you want to stay close to family or do you in fact want to be as far away as possible? Is your town a good place to network, if you care about networking? What are the laws/policies in your old and new town (something becoming more relevant by the month)? Is home ownership important to you, present or future? Dating scene, safety, venues. It's hard to distill all those experiences down to "what lets me have a home office for my job?" unless that is your biggest factor.
>You adapt, you make new friends.
Let me know when that happens for me. If I'm struggling in Los Angeles, I dont' want to imagine how it is for smaller scenes to make adult friends. That's a whole other topic.
>I still do that now - I just hop on a plane.
My family and I aren't meeting this holiday season precisely because "just hopping on a plane" isn't an easy expense this year. Planes don't get much cheaper with CoL.