I see some folks talking about only having to live in said undesirable location for a couple years and then moving. That would make a difference, but that’s not how I interpreted the OP. I could grudgingly live in FL or most anywhere for a year but I honestly can’t picture myself spending the rest of my life anywhere but my current state. Heck, there are many states I won’t even visit / spend my tax dollars.
I left Wisconsin 40 years ago during its downturn in the agricultural/industrial downturn, but would return for the food. The food and the people who believe in it.
Do you like beef jerky? Do you like sausage? Then imagine their marriage: landjaeger If you can dream it, you can live it. Not just a dried hunk of slim-jim gnawed on in a fuck-you bar where everyone is sitting there with their thumbs up their asses, but a gastronomic lovefest with all the Wisconsin fish-fry, and cheese on pumpernickel with mustard, and everything imaginable pickled bar food washed down with beer and schnapps; and overall the gemütlich of everyone else enjoying this with you there.
If you haven’t been there it’s hard to make those judgments. Camden is bad but not nearly as bad as it was decades ago. Camden isn’t even in the top 20 in murder rate anymore. You can live comfortably in some nice parts of town. More importantly Camden is small. You might live there but anything you need to do is a short drive away. Depending on the direction, in no time you will be in suburban or rural territory. Camden only has a population of around 70,000. I’m sure there are nice areas of Detroit too.
$25,000? You could live like a king. $10,000 would get you a beautiful apartment in a great neighborhood. Not huge like a house but more than enough living space. I think I would grow to dislike some aspects of living there but I would easily live in Manhattan for a couple of years if I could afford it. My entertainment spending would be through the roof.
I saw an article about buying and tearing down vacant homes in Detroit. The city saves money by turning off city services.
They’re returning entire streets to natural fields. It looks much nicer than dilapidated buildings filled with rats. It should cut crime too.
Similar article that I read.
Link Last Detroit house demolished in $265M blight-removal effort
I never lived in Camden proper but a little town just outside of Camden named Maple Shade (close to Cherry Hill.) It was a nice life. Camden has one of the best aquariums I’ve ever seen. Possibly better than Shedd.
Maple Shade is a very nice town and I agree about the aquarium. Went there many times when the kids were little.
San Francisco and anywhere else within five to ten miles of the Pacific, is very humid. It’s just chilly and humid. One year mushrooms grew in our closet. You don’t get that in New Mexico.
FIORELLO: Can he live in New York on $3.00?
DRIFTWOOD: Like a prince. Of course, he won’t be able to eat, but he can live like a prince.
Regardless of the money on offer, I won’t live anywhere that is a) not near the ocean and b) has high humidity. That eliminates at least 90+% of the United States, even some places I like to visit, like Hawaii.
I love a high desert climate. (got to have elevation or it’s too hot)
It costs $200 for a 3,000 sq ft dehumidifier. You have $5,999,800 left.
Spending all day indoors is a nonstarter.
I’ve lived on the Eastern Seaboard all my life. Not ON the ocean, but within a 3-4 hour drive. The humidity is brutal here. As in, “walk outside and you feel like you can’t breathe” brutal.
The times I’ve been on the West Coast, for whatever reason, it has never felt like that. It may well have shown a high reading on a humidity reader (hygrometer) but for whatever reason, it’s more tolerable. Sample size: one summer in Orange County, CA back in the early 90s, a visit to Seattle in the mid 1980s, and a trip to Hawaii in the late 1980s. I don’t know why it felt so much better there. Places often didn’t even have air conditioning.
I’m curious as to where in the US you might go that is both near an ocean, and has tolerable humidity?
ETA: We have spent most of our lives from NY on south with frequent visits to Florida. Very brief visits to the coast in Maine, where the humidity was tolerable, if unpleasant. We could breathe, outside, we just didn’t like it.
The high readings are just our marine layer which disappears as soon as the temp gets into the mid-60s. I live on the Central Coast of California and it almost never gets uncomfortably humid. I never experienced noticeable humidity growing up in Orange County, either.
A more enlightening form of the question might be: think of the place you’d least enjoy living in the US. What annual compensation would you require to relocate within easy commuting distance for 5 years?
Hard to pick from all the deep-south locations that has no easy access to anything resembling a modern international city, or a beach, or mountains.
I’ve done a lot of driving through lower Alabama and my thought is always “I would hate living here.” But for $3 million compensation a year, I could do it for 5 years. $10 million after tax is a nice retirement sum. If my kids have to finish high school there, then it would be more, like $5 million a year.
Depending on the locale, you might need to use some of that extra 2M to send them to boarding school, so they’re indoctrinated in Lib’rul Eeeeevil Wokeness (assuming that’s your leaning).
Ah - and the only time I was on the west coast where this was remotely an issue was back in March 2002, near San Diego, where it was cold and rainy. All the other times were in the summer. So I wouldn’t have been there during swamp season.
We drove up into the mountains to visit the Wild Animal Park (I think it’s been renamed) and it was like going from late winter to early summer, and back, in one day.
A beach or mountains I get, but what’s in a “modern international city” that you can’t do without? In particular, what’s missing from a southern city that you can’t do without? Legitimate question, as I generally shun cities, am from the midwest, and don’t really know what southern cities offer or don’t offer.
Sports, if that’s your cup of tea? Chinese restaurants indicating their region? Abortion clinic? Gigabit internet?
Same here. For $6Mill I would work anywhere in the USA- with an hour commute. For $250K, there are areas I have to seriously think about it.
Florida? You’d have to get me one of those homes in Disney Golden Oak- rental or lease is fine. The ability to go to Disney pretty much any day with a 10 minute bus ride would outweigh the horrors of Florida.
There are a couple places I am not sure i could afford on $250K before taxes- NYC or Frisco.
But I have a nice house and life here- I am not sure if $250K would temp me that much- maybe for a year- renting.
Yep.
My buddy is fairly wealthy- and that is where he lives, becuase he loves it. 
Yep. Hell, I’d work for one year, renting, then retire and move back home.
Just do what I suggested- lease or rent for a year, then move back home.