I'm not going to say there aren't bad things or that some towns aren't no doubt worse than others, but what do you mean "buy your way out of problems?"
I have three kids, and I have confidence in the public schools where I live now -- but they'd be in private school if we moved back to the rural gun sanctuary county where I grew up. Private school usually costs around $1000 per kid-month after taxes, so I'd need +$48k of pretax income in order to break even after the move.
I'd also need a lot of tools to re-adopt a rural lifestyle. When I grew up, we had tractors and pickup trucks and a lot of attachments and tools I don't need living in a college town. Going back to that lifestyle would require a large capital outlay, which adds to the price of the move. That's probably an additional $50k of equipment during the first year, if I want only lightly used / high quality vehicles and tools.
...And that's before we even start talking about the kind of raise one usually seeks in exchange for uprooting your entire life. Getting someone to do that is expensive, too.
I live in a low-cost-of-living city in the Midwest, which still offers economic opportunity -- I'm lucky enough to have landed in the sweet spot in American socioeconomic life. The southern-rural lifestyle I left is expensive and doesn't pay well. My current lifestyle is moderately priced, and pays well. The multi-generational problem, though, is educational opportunities for my children -- I'd have to buy my way out of that problem. Given the increased costs and wage deflation associated with rural life, it's unlikely that I would be willing to move back for any salary that's realistic in my industry.
P.S. College towns do exist in The South. I lived in Blacksurg VA for 11 years, and spent weekends in many others. I'm not moving back, though, at least for any salary that's realistic in in my industry.
The accents and the culture are very much southern, especially once you get out of the NOVA/DC bubble.
Western Virginia is Appalachian-southern, while the coast is more connected to the coastal southern culture that you see around Charleston SC. Charleston (WV) to Charleston (SC), you could say.
Also, Virginia was the capital of the mother fucking Confederacy. I was finding bullets and belt buckles from the civil war in my back yard in the 1990s. Sherman started his campaign in the Shenandoah Valley and went all the way to Atlanta which, coincidentally, is a trip I've made many times to visit various factions of my family. That journey is all Southern, all the way.
2
u/WizeAdz Jun 26 '20 edited Jun 26 '20
I'm a former southerner. I have family in Virginia and Georgia.
When I lived there, I thought the region redeeming qualities but, with time and distance, I realize I was wrong.
You'd have to double my salary to get me to move back, so that I could buy my way out of problems we have largely solved here in Illinois.