[usefulcat]

You can find cheap housing, the problem is it's all in places where most people don't want to live. For example, Detroit, or any of thousands of small towns all over the US.

Not picking on Detroit, it's just an obvious example of a large city that used to have a much larger population.

[WillPostForFood]

There is a lot of cheap housing in places that people are willing to live, but people need a push to change. Allowing work from home, schools, and lockdowns have been helping provide the push. Most cities have reasonable housing prices, it is just distorted by a few areas which have become extremely unaffordable.

Detroit is an interesting example. People did want to live there, but as the jobs declined, so did the city. If jobs can come back, the city can come back.

[im3w1l]

Ah that reminds me, we should not discount racism as a factor. Many would rather become debt slaves for life or forgo children than live cheaply around black people.

[rufus_foreman]

I did live cheaply around black people when I was younger, I lived in a maybe 90% black neighborhood in a literal mansion, for a few hundred a month. It was a dilapidated mansion, and the gunshots from the open air drug market a couple streets over started around 7 most evenings, but it was a mansion and it was cheap. I have fond memories of those times.

But when you talk about raising children...

Here's a link to another story that was on the front page today, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26361352.

It's about a student in Baltimore who failed every class but 3 in his four years of high school, skipped class half the time, and got a 0.13 grade point average.

That put him just short of being in the top half of his class, he was an average student in that school. Can you think of any reasons other than racism that a parent might choose a different neighborhood to live in?

The neighborhood with the mansion has been gentrified for years now, I don't have kids but I still wouldn't seek out a similar neighborhood to what I lived in back then now. My attitudes towards risk and crime are different than they were when I was younger. I guess I am a racist now too?

But yeah, that's certainly one way to save on rent. Worked for me.

[Lammy]

Very sad to see this downvoted. I don't know how people can see things like "WTF Happened in 1971?" without realizing the date correlations to the 1968 Fair Housing Act and especially especially to the 1974 Equal Credit Opportunity Act:

https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1968#Title...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Credit_Opportunity_Act

[Infinitesimus]

I don't quite follow - what's your hypothesis here?

[frongpik]

Using the word racism so liberally devalues its meaning.

[Frost1x]

That's a sort of two way street though. In areas affordable housing exists, there often aren't many opportunities financially speaking, especially in the labor market.

It's one thing to live in a city, work for awhile to bank up capital, and then move somewhere with a low COL area to live comfortably with some supplemental income from the region with knowledge of that nest egg if investments you currently have.

It's an entirely different story to live in such an and accumulate enough capital to purchase a home. Often, jobs are few and far between that are competitive, even after adjusting for COL. Employers in these areas often have less competition for positions and therefor have more leverage. Acquiring debt in these areas when you start your career could make it difficult to climb out of. Its not true with all positions. A lot of healthcare positions can pay better in these areas due to what are essentially government subsidies through medicare/medicaid. You'll occasionally have some industrial organization doing specialized work people with advanced degrees can prosper in but they need to strategically target these areas.

[bonestamp2]

That does make sense at least. The places with the least opportunity and/or desirability are going to be the cheapest.