The coast is only a correlation. There is a direct tradeoff between economic opportunity and cost of living. I live in an East Coast city with a crap local job market and a 2 hour rush hour commute to the high-wage regional economic center. Living here is pretty cheap. Living in Chicago isn't. If you are professionally and financially established enough to pick and choose remote work or have a pied-à-terre, then sure, moving to a less expensive area is a great move. If you're working in a structured trade that will yield work most anywhere, that works too. Beyond that, it just doesn't work. Cost of living is so much higher now than it was 20 years ago that is just not feasible for most young people to build up enough money to break away from professional hubs. Most people's wages are not double what they were 10 years ago, but getting a room in a shared apartment is way more than double, as is health care, and other major expenses— not to mention student loans. The difficulty that imposes when accumulating capital for down-payment is not linear. Hovering around the break-even line is stressful, but falling below it pulls you under fast, like an undertow. A few overdrafts leading to a missed credit card payment plus a broken car or illness can fuck you over for a few years if you're treading water.