@thatblackgirl:

Just what I was about to say about Warren and Detroit. *snerk* Or at least, most of Detroit - there are some nice parts, I'll admit.

Troy is comparatively nice - by which I mean it's a neighborhood I'd like to live in, if I were going to choose someplace in Michigan. Weather's still awful, though, obviously.

@aliasmisskat: Oooo, didn't they have an exhibit of it before? I live in Indy as a kid and loved all the museums. There's lots to do there, see races, go to museums, the zoo, sports games, parks, etc.

Oh shit I already do.

Let me just say stay out of Michigan.

That city should be burned to the ground.. oh wait they tried that.

Indianapolis boasts one of the best art museums in the country. They have a world-renowned professional full-time orchestra (no, it's not on the same level as the Royal Philharmonic, but it's fantastic nonetheless), we're frequently host to the Big 10 NCAA basketball championship, there are plenty of sporting events to go to (and since our baseball team is minor league, tickets are dirt cheap and it's still super fun to watch), our state parks are beautiful in the spring and fall (ever been to Brown County or Turkey Run?)...

As far as employment goes, the state holds the corporate headquarters for multiple companies, including Cummins Engine, Steak 'N Shake, and Lilly.

There aren't "huge areas that are sketchy" - the area around the airport is a white trash, and the near north and east sides are ghetto because of all the Section 8 housing. Compared to Chicago or New York, it's plenty safe.

I live in a small town now, due to a job change, but I've lived the first 23 years of my life in Indy and wouldn't have wanted it any other way.

@Youthier: Pretty conservative? How about super-conservative. I drove down Michigan street today and passed seven churches in a mile long stretch of road. The per capita church rate is higher than ANYWHERE ELSE IN THE WORLD! Yeah. I think pretty conservative doesn't quite cut it.

And the area, despite being horridly conservative, is nice. We have our share of million dollar homes (East Grand Rapids), and our share of slums (Wyoming, the south east side of Grand Rapids), and a ton of mexicans (Not being racist, they really are mexican, not just hispanic) on the south side. But really, we're like a small town with a million people in it.

@howtragic: 1000$ studio sounds like the efficiencies in Florida .Yes there is something about being in a warm weather enviorment all year long .

Believe or not alot of South Floridians don't appreciate that-the transplants do but the long timers and new citizens want to go to places like New York ,they want that big time career job .Most could care less about the beach or rarely use it .

Yup, I was gonna say. I have friends who always want to know "how" I can live in LA. Rather pay $1000 for a studio and have loads of fun shit to do, sunshine all the time, great schools to go to, and great beaches than live in any of the shitty "affordable" cities they pick any day.

Plus, I earn a shitload more money than any of them. Why? Because I live in a place where there is some actual opportunity.

Oh, I lived on CA's Central Coast for four years. It was expensive but I freaking loved it. I miss it so much, especially after all the crazy weather here in MO.

Looking at housing prices out there online makes me realize that the only way I could move back is to win the damn Publishers Clearinghouse or write a bestseller. I'm working on both! ;)

@floraposte: That's what happend in south Florida over the last decade .It used to be tourist town/southern living away from the beach until the developers came in followed by contractors,realtors,speculators and just flat out greedy nasty people .

The boom did stimulate the economy to a point but with the competition from new citizens sfor new or the most basic job the local wages were kept artifically low .

During the peak of boom major manufacturers in south Florida started pulling out including Motorola and NT .There was construction were per say but most of the highly skilled labor was imported .The only major industry is tourism which is a very fickle and not a great paying industry .

Long story short a saturated job pool allowed many a company to keep their wages like 20 years behind the times .

And before the boom highway driving was a breeze .During the boom there were stretches of 6 lane highway that took you 1/2 hour-45 minutes to travel 3 miles .Point being that many employers expect you to travel 30-100 miles one way for jobs under 20$ per hour which can limit your job choice even more .

Scary part is that I've heard Californians say driving there is worse .Along with the cost of living .

@MrDo: @Shadowman615: I disagree. Grand Rapids is pretty nice. Small though. And pretty conservative. But plenty of nice homes, decent schools, etc.

People seem to think that Michigan = pictures of Detroit you see on TV. Detroit is Detroit. My Michigan city is way below the national average of foreclosures and unemployment.

It was after labor day, and those places along the Oregon 101 seemed like the end of the world to me. They were beautiful, but it just seemed so remote.

I spent half my childhood in Okemos, MI and Northwest Indiana. My comment, although not marked as such, was mainly meant in jest.

Is Indy a bit behind the coasts? Yes. So much so I would pay out the ass to move to LA or NY to be hip, but very poor? No way in hell.

@ShortBus:

"Many of the suburbanites even attend the regular community clean-up events that happen in the city... while its residents just watch from their dilapidated porches."

I wonder who is the actual dummy in that situation????

No, Indy isn't a huge city, and it doesn't have access to oceans or mountains, but it does have a lot of other things. It suits my lifestyle. It's not for everybody, but then again, what city is?

Syracuse, NY was also listed as the second strongest real estate market in the nation by Forbes Magazine last month... GO 'CUSE!

@Ubik2501: I've lived in Indiana for several years, and I travel all over the US for work. I'm always glad to come home, where it doesn't cost an arm or a leg to live. What do you mean "nothing to do there"? As if there is something that New York and California have we don't? What? Like beaches? I hardly think thats work increasing you cost of living 3 or 4 fold....And there are "gigantic area's of it that are sketchy".....seriously? We're talking about New York...a place where there are areas even Taxi's won't go. Don't be bitter your paying 500K for your 3 bedroom house, and I paid $150K for mine, by saying we have nothing to do here and our city is "sketchy". I think random comments about the quality of someones city by someone who doesn't mention where they are from is "sketchy"....

If you're comparing Indianapolis to NYC, what do you expect? Downtown Indy is small enough that if you want to put an Irish bar and a Blues bar there, they are pretty much guaranteed to be within a few blocks of each other. And there isn't that much history because the city didn't naturally spring up as a settlement. It was founded in the 1820's for the specific purpose of being the state capital because of its geographic location in the state.

But Indy has it's good points, and this article mentions one of them. I can get a new 2 bedroom apartment in a nice area for $750 a month if I want. I live in a 1 bedroom apartment that's a bit older but still in a nice area for $560.

wow.. who knew?

Been to Indianapolis twice. I saw the skyline, then I walked two blocks and I was on the other side of it.

The "downtown" looked like it was put up by some city planners overnight...Hmmm. let's put an Irish bar here, and a jazz club here, and a Jillian's here.
The place had no character or feeling of history like I get when I walk around NYC.

If you live in New York City, Indianapolis is a very bizarre almost movie facade "city" to visit.

@YasashikuAstypalaea: I have heard great things about Austin, particularly the indy music scene. It would be a city I'd consider moving to, but not very high on the list. :(

Didn't say a word about black people. Crime is crime, regardless of who commits it.

Regardless, you're arguing and agreeing with me at the same time. Detroit is not a place that anyone wants to live, the reasons are many... I cited a couple of obvious examples.

@TWinter: But it's so cold in all of those places!

My only trip to the mid-west was Chicago. And it was February. And I was miserable. :(

@Eyebrows McGee: Oh, at no point did I mean to indicate that I thought mid-westerners were uneducated. Uneducated and conservative are not at all the same thing in my mind.

I fully acknowledge that my perception of the mid-west is probably not accurate. Even though I think what you are describing is more acceptance than tolerance, I really am not into the "tolerance" mantra. I tolerate the zits that pop up on my chin. Do I want them there? No, but I tolerate them. I wouldn't rule out moving to the mid-west simply based on location, but I'm not going to go looking for work there either.

I am currently spoiled by living in the Raleigh/Durham, North Carolina area which is heavily skewed to the ridiculously liberal and the under 40 crowd.

Non-scariness argument accpeted, but still wary. :)

I live in LA and used to live in SF, numbers 4 and 2 most expensive respectively. Yet I agree with your brother, I can't even begin to imagine living in Indianapolis. What on Earth do you do there?

Add to that expensive housing, crime out the wazoo, and a government that rules the city like Batista did...

Most of the new construction seems to be west and north of the city, and people fleeing Allegheny County taxes into Peters to build their McMansions.

Why spend 650k on the same house in So Cal when i can spend 125k here in Indy. It's not Rocket science.

I consider LA to be affordable, but probably only because I moved here from Honolulu :-/

That said, woo SF! REPRESENT!

There are lots of reasons I would never more back to Detroit, but OMG BLACK PEOPLE N CRIME is not among them.

I was thinking the same thing. Sure, Boston isn't NYC in prices, but when you look at real estate listings and a "deal" is a $350k 1 BR with no parking and an insane amount of taxes on the state and local levels, it adds up.

I "live" in Wayne.
Well, actually I barely make ends meet in Wayne NJ.

The cost of living here is utterly insane.
Have you ever seen the prices for some of these dumpy apartments here (off Valley Road)?

And all the McMansions.....

sigh.

Ewww!

I lived in Scranton, PA for many years. When I moved back to the DC area where I grew up, my rent tripled -- for a slightly smaller place. And then when I bought a house, again in the DC area, that monthly payment almost doubled!

But it's also a much better place to live. There's very little opportunity for a college graduate in Northeastern PA.

It was an insufficiently explained poor choice of words on my part.

Well actually the SNL Biden's comments are based off of Real Biden's comments to the effect of "I come from really humble beginnings" or some such. They simply extrapolated that out into making Scraton into a bad place.

What a difference an hour drive makes in terms of job market and cost of living.

Sure there are a couple nice areas (Indian Village, Boston-Edison), but the overwhelming majority of it is horrible. And if the street thugs don't rob you, City Hall will. Outrageously high property and income taxes help fuel a corrupt government.

It's funny how many of the people with "Detroit Pride" don't actually live or work in the city. They just like to identify with the hard scrabble image. The true residents don't give two shits about the place and it shows. Many of the suburbanites even attend the regular community clean-up events that happen in the city... while its residents just watch from their dilapidated porches. Screw Detroit. Seriously.

Compare Pittsburgh to Boston - my dad went to high school in the mid-50s in Pittsburgh and had black players on his basketball team (and of course, in his school). Compare this to Boston, where desegregation went Very Badly in the 70s...

The upper Midwest (Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illiois) is very laid back. If you look at the red/blue state map, you'll see the blue states are coastal states and the upper Midwest.

I've lived in NYC/Boston/DC for the past 8 years or so... but the upper Midwest is just as nice of a place to live, in my opinion.

I visited a friend in Arlington recently (in a "not so nice" neighborhood), and was surprised at what she was paying in rent. Immediately I thought, "for only x number of dollars more a month, she could be living in x neighborhood in NYC..."

That area was destroyed financially in the past 5-10 years. It's cheap, but you wouldn't want to live there.

And TERRIBLE weather.

@janetcarol:

I grew up and went to college in Suffolk County, NY but I live inside the DC beltway and work out in Fairfax. Why? Because I can afford to live here. DC just doesn't compare.

@Steve Kinney: There ain't no party like a Scranton Party, because a Scranton Party don't stop.

I noticed alot of tourist areas are the most expensive which isn't surprising .

It's ashame though,in cities like Miami it used to be cheap as soon as you got a way from the beach but the flippers and developers took care of that .Genderfication took hold in many neighborhoods and condo buildings .Even retirees are struggling .

When I say it got cheaper away from the beach I mean literally .If you rented a unit a block away from the beach it got cheaper .You moved inland away from the barrier islands it got even cheaper .The influx of developers and construction people caused inflation and greed .They're gone now but the damage is done .

What was laid back tourist town/southern living turned into big city New York style living-including the prices .

It must be similar in places like California .

Let's see:
* Bad city services (only certain areas get street lights anymore)
* High city taxes.
* Horribly corrupt city government. They finally sent the self-proclaimed "hip-hop mayor" to prison.
* High crime rates - and forget about calling the police.
* All big shopping chains moved out of the city years ago.
* Horrendous school system. Even the magnet school I attended is struggling to produce kids who can actually pass the state's assessment tests.

Even the suburbs around Detroit are suffering. Foreclosures and abandoned houses are commonplace. Unemployment is very high, large companies are moving OUT of the state (or at least, out of the Detroit Metro area.)

So even if houses are cheap - very cheap - you're looking at a 20 minute drive on some of the nation's worst maintained roads to even go to the grocery store, your kids will have to be shipped out to private schools at least an hour's drive each way (bus service? what? lol!) good luck finding a job, and, oh yeah, enjoy paying Detroit City taxes alongside your 1040 and State Income Tax forms every April 15th.

heh, actually my quote is taken from the VP debate skit on SNL between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin, when Palin(Fey) suggests he is a Washington insider.

@econobiker: Barbed wire is to slow you down/stop you. Razor wire is to punish you for trying.

I've never lived in detroit, but you can't honestly say that its a beacon of hope for American cities can you? Nothing against the people of the city, but since the auto industry left in the late 60's and early 70's, crime has risen and unemployment has skyrocketed.

Again, nothing against you or other citizens of Detroit, but i don't know of too many other cities that have a blog dedicated to their poverty and exploring their abandoned skyscrapers.

www.detroitblog.org

Hardly the mainstream media, more of a man on the street account.

I heart Austin, live in Brooklyn. Portland as well makes up my golden triangle of progressive arty farty music cities :)

Actually, my major complaint about Ohio is the tollway. I really don't feel *I* should pay *you* $10 to have to drive all the way across your freakin' wide state. But maybe I'm just bitter from 22 years of driving from Chicago to DC in a cramped car with parents with a strict bathroom-stop schedule. :)

@JGKojak: I agree, being a pretty busy border crossing with Mexico there's a large population of migrant workers in El Paso. Lots of em are probably making less than minimum wage.

@Saboth:
As a guy that lives 20 minutes from Scranton, I'll say this. I'm not fond of a lot of the people around here, but last year my wife and I (23 years old at the time) were able to buy a respectable house that is within our means, and there's lots of living, whether in the city, burbs, or in the sticks that's affordable on a modest salary. Our neighbors are nice, and we stay out of town for the most part, so it's not a bad place to live. Farm team sports, casinos, shopping, skiing, and lots of other things to do, plus a regional airport right outside of town. Not a bad way to live - most of the same amenities we saw outside of Seattle, and about half the price...

I knew another guy who worked in Tysons and lived in Warrenton. Everytime I saw him he looked like he was working on an hour of sleep. He didn't make nearly as much as the accountant...The accountant seemed like he was on amphetamines, he was always wired.

@tptcat: Is serial murder that expensive?

@heybtbm: I'm originally from "the Cleve" and we like to perpetuate the idea that there's something wrong with Ohio so that everyone else doesn't invade us. It's like an Iceland/Greenland thing. Ohio is the best. Even the snow (sorry, Eyebrows).

It's a very live and let live mentality just as long as you mow your lawn on a regular basis.

@tptcat: Lots of poorly-paid military and Mexican-Americans?

I know there's a real stereotype of the backwards, conservative midwest on the coasts, but that's really all it is -- a stereotype. (And, yes, I have a few pretty backwards neighbors, but I had those when I lived in coastal cities as well, in more or less the same proportion.) But it does surprise me that the midwest is considered so uneducated and provincial when we do have such a massively strong PUBLIC university system and so much of the cultural emphasis in the midwest is on making a better life for your children -- which means college.

One of the things I like best about midwesterners is that as long as you fit a pretty short list of criteria, your quirks are charming and lovable. I live in a "mixed-collar" neighborhood that's mostly working class, and we were the first couple to move in with different last names who were all granola and organic. They basically want to know, "Do they take good care of their children/pets? Do they maintain their house to a reasonable standard for the neighborhood? Do they confine their loud parties to a couple times a year?"

If you those three things, your neighbors will like and accept you, and while at first they kind-of thought we were overeducated hippies, we now give organic yard and food advice to half the neighborhood and they all send their kids to us for college application advice. And we overhear them proudly telling friends who are grousing about, say, the green movement, "Oh, there's a couple down the block from us with an organic yard, it's really lovely, and they're very normal."

When we first arrived, most of my neighbors were against gay marriage. Then a gay couple moved in down the street. Did they take good care of their dogs? Yep. Did they maintain their house? Yep, brought the most run-down house on the block up to scratch. When they throw loud parties, do they invite the rest of us? Yep. This election cycle, when the anti-gay-marriage petition people went through the neighborhood, they did not get a SINGLE signature. Because now everyone knows a gay couple, they live up to community standards, and so everything thinks, "Hey, their homosexuality is just a lovable quirk!" (In fact, most of my neighbors are now in favor of gay marriage, because, "Look, they're not hurting anyway." And as long as you're not hurting anyway, most midwesterners don't really care what you're doing on your off time.)

All that tolerance, and we'll feed you to show our love!

(Plus, politically, we're really not all that right-wing in the midwest. Look at the red-blue-purple maps. :) )

It's only a matter of time before companies decide that they have had it with places like California. That they want to be in a place with better costs-of-living for their employees and the commute doesn't take two hours one way.

When that occurs (and it will) it will be the Midwest that sees the benefits. It's insane to think California can continue to keep up this pace - especially when you consider their unemployment rate.

Plus, don't forget that we have all the fresh water you folks out on the West Coast are going to need in the coming years once the Colorado River really starts to have problems.

I love indy, downtown is really nice and the subarbs are as well, and indiana is the crossroads of america !!! (I live in indiana, though it is closer to cincy, oh than indy )

El Paso????

I'm sure its due to the poverty rates there, but I'm guessing a house in El Paso is pretty cheap relatively.

They needed a "point of diminishing returns" cutoff on income (high and low) to correct for outliers.

Like I told Secret Agent Man above: stop believing everything the MSM tells you to believe.

But if you just want to believe what the MSM spoon-feeds you then who am I to talk to you from actual experience?

@heybtbm: And I simply LOVE that my corporate overlords have their main hub just outside Dayton. Our pay scale is based upon what the pay scale is there. Unfortunately, it results in an effective 20% pay cut when you try to live on that salary almost anywhere else.

Fancy seein' you here Gene. :-p

I wonder if Scranton had to do any pushing to be featured on the Office. It doesn't paint a glorious picture of the town, but it's the first thing I think of when I hear Scranton. (aside from the penguins)

@janetcarol: Having lived in 5 of the top 10 (SF, LA, Honululu, Santa Ana, NY) and also DC, I agree with DC not making this list. Trust me you can find ways to blow your cash just as fast in DC but I found affordable housing in good areas right outside the DC line (Bethesda and Arlington).

Did they also look at the job markets for each city?

@Excited_Utterance: Occasional Drug dealers? Are you serious? I lived in NJ my whole life and every time I had to be in Newark I thought i was gonna get shot being Downtown.

One of my Employee's lives in a bad part of Newark. they have cab drivers who aren't cab drivers they basically pull up to you you get in, and they lock in you in the cab and hold you hostage until you pay them money.

I had a neighbor who decided that he wanted to have sex with a prostitute so he went into Newark the Pimp came busting in and shot him, killing him instantly.

And Spike TV is doing their second season of DEA in Newark siting it as the worst city for being one of the worst cities in the country for drug transport.

I'm sorry that list is bunk

@narq:
I have to admit, and it's awful, but my preconceived notion of the mid-west as overly conservative is really what scares me away from there.

And that is why NJ government is so expensive. We have cities full of people that are absolutely useless that only entity that can employee them is the government.

NJ State, County and Local Governments, employing the unemployable.

Everytime I hear Scranton, PA I wonder how Dunder Mifflin is doing these days :-P

@Saboth: Is that why everyone there clings to their guns and bibles?

@Skankingmike: Quote: The index was created by calculating what percentage of a city's residents making the median income can afford a house in that city.
It's based upon how affordable housing is to the resdients of the area. Metro-Newark is a poor area, thus putting most housing out of reach for residents. I suspect that's why El Paso makes this list too.

I just recently moved away from Newark after living there for a few years, and I'm not surprised to see it on this list. It's all very recent developments, like the new waterfront, the new Devils stadium, the corporate HQs that are downtown, and overpriced condos that are pushing some of the rabble further up the hill. Pair that with a 10 minute PATH ride into WTC and a salivatingly high concentration of Brazilians Down Neck, and Newark's not a bad place to be! Occasional drug dealers, sure, but there isn't much by way of gangs and downtown's not unsafe even at night.

That's all downtown though; the West Ward is still a mess, and the problems from the tax base that come out of Essex County are more from towns further up the hill like Irvington, which is a hot mess.

@zlionsfan:
why? i couldn't wait to leave after high school. housing may be cheap, but if i can't find a job, i don't see the point in staying.

I'm surprised Chicago is not on the least affordable list. I know people who work out this way and make the commute from Indiana because cost of living is cheaper and it's not all THAT far of a drive.

Boston isn't on the list? Really?

Detroit?

How about "livable" cities...

Newark, NJ only benefits because it looks cheap against NYC...unless it has had a renewal of some sorts. Last I heard the Newark city gov't was cracking down on the outlawed razor wire topped fences to try to make the city more presentable. Problem was that the businesses without razor wire topped fences were getting hit more often... For those who don't know razor wire is bad-ass sheet metal coils with spikes on it, it makes standard barbed wire look like nursey school level...

Some places (like Detroit) are cheap because they are crime ridden and have massive unemployment, so you can buy homes for a dollar. taking the median income doesn't really paint the full picture because if there are no jobs then there is no demand for housing, and people with very low income can afford to live in the squalor that is available.

It would make the difference between showing where there is cheap housing in crumbling cities versus showing where people have jobs and live comfortably. I would imagine the lists would show less rust belt and more Oklahoma, Nebraska, Kansas, and Texas.

@janetcarol: I moved to Alexandria from Denver and while my rent is exactly double, my car insurance and electric and local sales tax are half what they used to be. But, if I was making minimum wage, or anywhere near it, I would find the area to be prohibitively expensive

also, lol at half the cities being in michigan/ohio. egad, poor auto industry...

Yep. they're affordable. Are they places I'd want to live? Nope.

But Washington is still cheaper than NYC or SF.

Seriously in NJ the rest of the state (minus the other cities that are on this plan) pay their property taxes, so what exactly about that city is expensive? other than it's in NJ :P

Affordable yes, but who'd want to live in any of those places? [ducks].

So much for leaving the Midwest! *sobs, unpacks*

I think the main conclusion I've drawn from this article is this...

There's something wrong with Ohio.

Just my understanding on it.

In NYC, I made a respectable income at a respectable job, I lived in the ghetto with roommates (literally, my roommate and I were the only white people in our building or on our street), I lived on $20 a week's worth of bread, pasta, and peanut butter, I went over a year without buying new clothes or shoes, until mine finally cracked beyond repair, and I was still unable to save a cent. NYC is seriously endangering itself with regards to a middle class, because only the very bottom rung and top couple of rungs of society have a place to live in the city anymore. Harlem, Brooklyn, and Queens are all gentrifying into million-dollar condos.

In Arlington, my fiancé and I do well enough together for a pair of late-20somethings. We can't afford one of the $750,000 houses, to be sure, but my grocery bills are about 25% less than in NYC, consistently, on everything, and our electric and gas bills are less than 1/3 of what they were in NYC. So yeah, DC's expensive, but... New York is just astronomical.

As my roomates often say, "The middle of the country is cheap, man, dirt cheap".

I wonder if that's related somehow... hmmm...

How is that PA? Also, I can attest to how incredibly cheap it is to live there. Too bad there are so few jobs that pay well.