Austin, Portland, Boulder are becoming the new NY/SF because of the process of saturation. We just need to find the next Austins and Portlands.
Though in the last five years it's gotten kind of pricey in the downtown area I keep discovering clusters of artists out in the neighborhoods in my travels in the city.
https://i-d.vice.com/en_us/article/new-york-i-love-you-but-i...
Buildings are really cheap though you've got to restore them yourself. Tax valuations though are set at pre-recession values. But if you get a lawyer they can be lowered sometimes up to 75%.
I'm starting to see others following the clusters of artists and slowly these neighborhoods are in the beginning stages of gentrification.
My rent from 2013-2015 went up 35% and I eventually moved to a suburb. I tried to buy a place and even when I convinced myself to overpay would be beat out by a better all-cash offer within 24 hours of a place going on sale. It's nuts here right now.
3 years ago it was a great place to move in cheapish and be around a burgeoning scene, right now it's expensive as hell, and in 2 years will probably be back to being able to support that student/new grad/bootstrapping entrepreneur scene. We need more housing to come online, and it's being built, just not done yet.
Austin, OTOH has one of the best universities in the world and a host of large and important tech and software companies.
She basically lives in Cleveland. Cleveland, like many rust belt cities, is very old and its borders surround a small percentage of the area. But that's an entirely arbitrary line. In practice, she lives in "Cleveland."