I live in Europe and I pay €250 in rent. So I can't relate to this at all. How much of your salary goes into rent if you pay $1500 and you're a senior web developer in NYC?
I'm going to guess you don't live in Paris/London/Copenhagen/Rome then! I live in Europe and there aren't any €250 rents that I know of near me. About 35% of my after-tax salary goes to rent.
I live in Berlin and pay 750 euros for a two-floor 90 m^2 (~970 ft^2) apartment with a nice view. It's nothing compared to the salaries a senior web programmer gets.