The 8 places in the U.S. where life is affordable -- do you live there? Would you?

Clusters of counties with affordable homes, jobs and good schools. Click for more data

My Restless Project stories about “sane circles” where people live touched a nerve — I still get lots of traffic and questions about the concept, so I’m going in for a closer look. In case you haven’t seen the earlier posts, I worked with RealityTrac to find the 100 zip codes in America that had the most affordable homes, lowest unemployment, and best schools. When plotted on a U.S. map, the results were fascinating. Outside of a few outliers, there were basically 8 regions where folks seem to have it pretty good — which means average earners can afford average homes without driving themselves crazy. Those eight regions are:

Florida
North Carolina
Western PA/SE Ohio/West Virginia
Upstate New York
Rural Michigan
Wisconsin (around Madison)
Illinois (both north and south)
SW Ohio/Cincinnatti/North Kentucky

Mind you, this is not a “best places to live” project. This list doesn’t consider quality-of-life issues like diversity or arts. It’s primarily an examination of affordability, meant to counter the many stories I’ve written showing how many Americans are driving themselves nuts trying to afford living in places that are by definition unaffordable. That’s a big part of the reason people are so Restless. For example, some 40 million Americans right now live in counties where their household income must be $100,000 in order for them to comfortably afford and AVERAGE-priced home.

The “sane circles” map is an attempt to find places where things aren’t so crazy. A little while ago, I wrote about Dawn Dinegan, who lives an economically comfortable life in rural Wisconsin…but only because the family is willing to tolerate 70 mile commutes.

I’d like to drill down a little more on this idea. Have you moved to one of these places recently? Are you thinking about it? Please write to me at Bob@BobSullivan.net and tell me about the experience. Do you miss big city life? Do you wonder why people insist on paying New York of San Francisco rent?