Ask HN: Cheap places to live with a good intellectual atmosphere? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Cheap places to live with a good intellectual atmosphere?

14 pointsRomanPushkin13 comments

I'm a software engineer in the bay area and have been thinking about moving somewhere cheaper (in USA) where I can live cheaply and focus on my own intellectual pursuits. I'd love to be in a place where the living costs are low, and ideally where a thriving intellectual community exists. I haven't traveled too often and would love to hear from HN community about any places that match this general description. Thank you in advance!

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I find it odd that the text of this post is plagiarized from the last time this question was posted in 2018: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18164189

It is strange. How did you notice this?

I personally remembered it, and looked at a bookmark I had to verify.

maybe another alt?

The US is dotted with college towns. Sure the town center is more expensive, but the costs drop off pretty quickly from the town center. They can be a good bang for the buck compared to large cities. Nice restaurants, shops, and coffee shops with a university anchor for the local economy. Often universities can spin off a bit of a startup ecosystem.

Lawrence, KS is nice, and inexpensive. College towns will be going through lots of changes this year. Regardless, Lawrence is literally the heart of bleeding Kansas. The Django web framework got its start in Lawrence as well.

I would say look for communities online. In person would be better, but with the current events it would be tough. You could find cheap areas to live with high speed internet in large parts of the rural US.

I can't wait to move out of my expensive area, and it isn't even that bad compared to the really expensive places. $5k per year in property taxes is just ridiculous. If this trend continues, nobody will be able to afford to even rent.

Small towns with a good college.

Ithaca, NY is a prime example.

I really enjoyed Bellingham Washington.

Maybe digital nomad hotspots? Ones in SEA for example are in pretty inexpensive locations. I'm not too sure honestly, I'm also looking for the same thing as you.

Probably Vancouver wa, you get to pay no income tax the cross the border and shop in Oregon for no sales tax

You’re saying it’s an intellectual town because the residents have optimized their lives for tax savings? (I’d actually agree with you)

College towns used to be a good place for that. It sure about anymore though.

Ithaca, NY comes to mind

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