You seem to be forgetting that there are no <i>jobs</i> in those places.  Affordable housing isn&#x27;t worth jack when the only job you can get there is working at Walmart, because there aren&#x27;t any software development jobs there (for instance).<p>The other problem is that if you&#x27;re a young professional, you may very well be single.  Moving to a small city or town means you will not get a date, unless you want to date some overweight, uneducated woman who has 4 kids and talks about Jesus and guns all the time.  If you&#x27;re on this site, that probably isn&#x27;t the right demographic for you.  You&#x27;d have better luck moving to a foreign country; rural and urban America are <i>that</i> different these days.