Why Aren’t People Moving to This Town with Cheap Housing and Literally Nothing Else

If you’re so tired of expensive housing prices in your major city, then why don’t you stop complaining and move to this random town I found with some cheap houses for sale and exactly zero other amenities?

No place is perfect. Sure, this city is in the middle of nowhere, isn’t near major job markets, and doesn’t have maintained roads, well-funded schools, or functioning emergency services, but it does have a series of dilapidated ranch houses located between a data center and a second data center that is currently on fire.

You can’t complain about the price of housing if you refuse to move hundreds of miles away to a city I just learned about for the purposes of this bad-faith argument.

For the same amount as a down payment in New York City, you could buy an entire house in this town in upstate wherever or whatever it’s called. You could also buy absolutely nothing else in the town because any industry was decimated in a post-industrial economic order that bled regional metros dry for the benefit of a handful of global conglomerates.

So… should I rent the U-Haul?

With the money you’ll save on housing, you can afford dozens of flights and train trips across the country to see the aging relatives, friends, and entire community of people you’ve abandoned.

You’ll never worry about a ludicrously high rent payment again. Instead, you can worry about your new neighbors, most of whom have been left behind by violent austerity measures strangling the last drops of life out of previously vibrant towns and cities.

I did this exact thing when I was young. I packed my bags, left my major city, and moved all the way to a redlined suburb fifteen minutes outside that city, built specifically for people who looked like me. If I can do that, young people should be willing to live on an active Superfund site covered in broken glass.

I think moving there is something thousands of young people should consider, and no, I will not consider what would happen to housing costs if thousands of young people moved there.