Yes, this was my point. Leaving NYC or the Bay Area does not mean you have to live in a sod hut and fend off the James Gang. You might just have to live in, like, Lansing or Huntsville.
Or even a further suburb/exurb of a major city. The Bay Area probably throws a lot of people off because it's hard to do a day-trip out of high priced areas. That's not really true of a lot of major cities.