This sounds very much like where I'm living. Asheville, NC is among the highest costs of living in NC but has among the lowest wages (cost of beer may be low, b

This sounds very much like where I'm living. Asheville, NC is among the highest costs of living in NC but has among the lowest wages (cost of beer may be low, but I pay about the same for restaurant meals as I did in the DC area). But this is misleading because Asheville has among the richest of all zip codes in NC and even the US as well (Biltmore Forest's median household income in the zip code is $150k+). What also makes the statistics misleading is that a massive percentage of the population is retired which leads to a high percentage of cash-only home purchases which combined with the general lack of concern for value by many well-off retirees (many retirees here have multiple homes either in Florida or New Jersey) inflates housing for those that are still working. The kids that keep flocking here seem to be fine with low wages in exchange for better quality of life than big cities - myself included. But "getting ahead" doesn't really exist here unless you're an incredibly talented restauranteur typically given the general lack of fast-growing industries that support much of a middle class besides healthcare. The culture here really does not respect greed very well unless you're already in the right social cliques that respect greed to some degree. In short, I'd say that this socioeconomic is actually very representative of the problems that the US as a whole faces with generational gaps and opportunity gaps and shows that even if we eliminated race as an issue we'd still be left with surprisingly little difference in economic outcomes for labor (I think Asheville is something like 89%+ caucasian).