It's what we call a 'low cost of living area.'

1994: If you don't straighten up and take your education seriously you're gonna end up living in a van down by the river!
2024: If you don't straighten up and take your education seriously you'll never be able to afford to live in a van down by the river!
- 2044: if you don't straighten up and take your mining operation seriously, you'll never be able to afford middle school.
  
  2064: If you don't fight in the water wars, you aren't entitled to your daily rations of water.
- 2054: if you don't straighten up and take your education seriously, you'll never be able to afford to live
  
  You're behind on your oxygen bill again. If you don't pay by next week your nose and mouth will be sown shut.

Kentucky is currently making "unlawful camping" punishable by death now at the hands of the land owners so double check where the bog is
- Is there literally any "unowned land" left on the planet?
  
  Depends on what you mean exactly. In many countries including the USA there is land that's not owned by any private person, but the state. Not claimed by any entity is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_nullius
- As in the landowner can just shoot them right there?
  
  Yes, but it's a bill that has been introduced. It hasn't even been voted on yet.
  
  ...presuming you've asked them to leave and they've responded by threatening force or using force against you, and assuming that bill actually passes, yes.
- The whole concept of trespassing on " private property" is bullshit anyway.
  
  Sounds cool in some utopian parallel universe, but as long as there are people willing to take advantage of others it's not going to work in the real world. Imagine putting a lot of work in your garden and some random crazy person puts up a camping tent in it because they don't believe in private property? Just get out in 5 minutes or I'll call the cops.
  
  Private property was always complete bullshit, it's based on nothing but bad philosophy.
- It's always been like that to one degree or another.
- Not quite. Based on what that bill actually says, it's not legal to shoot you for "unlawful camping" unless they ask you to leave and you respond by threatening violence against them or actually engaging in violence against them.
  
  It's kinda difficult to defend your case after you've been shot dead without any witnesses nearby.

My nephew wants me to move to Tennessee. I'm a gay man that lives in New England. Just for laughs I looked at rents in his area. They are exactly the same as what I am paying now for a 1 bedroom. Not going to happen.
- Sure, but have you considered moving to a holler in Johnson County?
  
  I'd rather be in some dark holler...
- Move to Nicaragua, that's what I'm doing. Tropical beaches, 1/10th the cost of living. Not actually the warzone American news paints out everywhere else to be...
- Well you're in luck because I am here to help! You can in fact afford to live in Tennessee, if you can afford to live anywhere, because rents are as low as $200 a month for a crappy trailer in TN!
  Just look at this long-ass link from Zillow that shows all the real estate available for rent in TN sorted by lowest price. Rent starts at $200 and a decent apartment is probably at least $450/mo.
  https://www.zillow.com/tn/rentals/?searchQueryState=%7B%22pagination%22%3A%7B%7D%2C%22isMapVisible%22%3Atrue%2C%22mapBounds%22%3A%7B%22west%22%3A-91.01308386328125%2C%22east%22%3A-80.94411413671875%2C%22south%22%3A33.634606731356804%2C%22north%22%3A37.97611597302191%7D%2C%22usersSearchTerm%22%3A%22TN%22%2C%22regionSelection%22%3A%5B%7B%22regionId%22%3A53%2C%22regionType%22%3A2%7D%5D%2C%22filterState%22%3A%7B%22ah%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Atrue%7D%2C%22fr%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Atrue%7D%2C%22fsba%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Afalse%7D%2C%22fsbo%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Afalse%7D%2C%22nc%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Afalse%7D%2C%22cmsn%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Afalse%7D%2C%22auc%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Afalse%7D%2C%22fore%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Afalse%7D%2C%22sort%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3A%22paymenta%22%7D%7D%2C%22isListVisible%22%3Atrue%2C%22mapZoom%22%3A8%7D
  
  I think the $200 a month listing is an empty trailer lot. The listing below it for $360 is definitely a 2br trailer.

The flip side of the coin are people who tell me to "just move" away from my ass-backwards little shithole to a more progressive area. Like sure, I'd love to live in the city, let me just quit my job and reach into my suitcase full of gold bars...
- Wait... The free market, capitalism, it was all a lie?
  
  I wish it were all just a nightmare and we could wake up

City vs. Country
Red vs. Blue
Type A vs. Work to Live
Homed vs. Homeless
White collar vs. Blue collar
Etc
It's a shame the divide and conquer routine works so well.
Keep the peasants hating and rooting against one another so hard, they never look up at their common enemy. Credit where it's due, insatiably greedy owner class, you have us dead to rights. You keep us so busy working and hating one another, we'll never organize against your tiny population of manipulators betraying your own species and turning it into your personal livestock.
- How does type A relate to work to live?
  
  Type As are the people that kill themselves at work and show frustration at those that don't. The annoying true believers of the workplace. They live for "that grind culture," and in many to most cases, brag about the toll it's taken on their personal lives if they still have one. Their sense of self is tied to their job.
  People who work to live are just that. They don't derive their sense of self of life's purpose from their job. They do what they have to for their pay check and leave.
  For this, Type As often mock them as lazy, while work to liver's mock type A's intensity and values.

"When I first came here, this was all swamp. Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built it all the same, just to show them. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up. And that's what you're going to get, Lad, the strongest castle in all of England!"
- One day, lad, this will all be yours.
  
  What, the curtains?

Become the man of the bog. The one who occupies the swamp. Only then are you truly free.
- I genuinely believe this is true.
- NO! WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MY SWAMP?
- How much bog would a brog fog hog if a bog frog could hog bog?
- snuggle up with Old Greg at night
- Essentially the plot of Where the Crawdads Sing

Listen, show me where to find WFB jobs, and I'm there. Bog life!
- Seriously... I'd kill for a WFB job, even a WFF job but no one seems to want to build businesses out in the forest either...
  Joking aside, it's literally why I can't move out of my HCOL area... The affordable places are affordable because they're summer homes/winter getaways... There's no work near them whatsoever. :/
  
  I've had WFB jobs for the last decade or so. It's super nice. You know those meetings where they have way too many people in a conference room and it's after lunch so you smell everyone's hot breath while some VP's jerk each other off? Those are much nicer from the seat of a riding lawn mower with a beer in hand.
  
  Yep. It's always either take the lower paying job that comes with the lower cost of living, or commit to a horrible commute that will suck the will to live from your body within about 3 weeks just as much as being flat broke does.

Why is there an HOA in me swamp 🧌
- Shrek’s kids moved out so now he has nothing better to do
  
  "At least three feet of water in stagnant dikes at all times. Mosquito abdomen circumference must not exceed 2.5mm"

Honestly, groceries are pretty much the same price or higher in rural areas and you'll be spending a lot of money driving around. Might get some cheap rent, though, if you'd rather rely completely on online shipping for anything other than the absolute basic resources than live a life of convenience and opportunity.

I’ve lived in a bog. It’s rather nice, actually
- Okay there, Shrek.
  
  They might be one of the Cranberries…
- Lived in the forest, same. Most liberating experience of my life. Fuck society.

Checks available listings: Ah yes, bog witch it is
- "I live in a bog"
  "Which bog?"
  "Yes, how did you know?"

Brought to you by the ones who also made the statement "Hey, is that MY air you were breathing there?" :-|

I’m not totally convinced that huge super-cities is the best way for society to move forward. Maybe we need more small towns and people living in the countryside.
- What about dense, moderately sized cities with excellent city-planning? Well-developed intra-city and inter-city public transport? Cities are more efficient space-wise, but don't have to be depressing or expensive.
  
  I think that the key word here is moderately sized. If I would guess, the optimum could be somewhere around 5’000 to 75’000 inhabitants. With those numbers you would probably not need any public transport within the city since you could bike or walk everywhere. At the same time you will be able to support some local shops for the most essential goods.
  
  I think we should cull 95% of the human population and the problem will sort itself out.
- Nobody said huge super-cities, any moderately sized metropolitan area would benefit from being a population hub.
  
  I mean, with centralization going the way that it’s going we will end up there. If the cost of living in densely populated places is so high, I think it hints at an inefficiency with the arrangement. Maybe people should live in fields and bogs a bit more?

- test

- Most servers are there temporarily as they look for a high paying salary job, either directly or by getting an education.
  And in most cases, you need to be in the city to apply for those jobs, to make the social connections that can help you find jobs, or to be where the good schools are.
  Once you leave the city to go get a medium-paying job in a low cost of living area it makes it that much harder to eventually find the career a person wants.
  Sure it's a decent life, small town livin', if that's what you're into, but people shouldn't be forced into that lifestyle because it's impossible to live in a city on an entry level wage.
- So who's supposed to tend bars and wait tables for people in cities?
- Curious how you feel about custodians, and if one of the lowest paid essential jobs should ask the worker to drive two+ hours a day.
- Maybe you're irresponsible and a bad move.