It's hard to really elaborate because everything is a package deal. California is silly expensive, but comes with a lot of social problems. New York is the same

It's hard to really elaborate because everything is a package deal. California is silly expensive, but comes with a lot of social problems. New York is the same to a large degree. The midwest is cheap, but opportunity is more scarce. Most places in Europe just don't pay well, charge way too much tax, and then don't provide nearly the quality of social service many Americans believe they do. Nevada is the middle ground of a lot of these places. You have mountains if you like snow, you don't have to deal with snow (ever) if you don't want to. You have pretty good infrastructure if you want to work remotely, you can fly to LA in 45 minutes if you have to for work. (I'm convinced there are instances where it's faster to commute from Las Vegas to LA than from...outside of LA to LA). Typical commute time in Las Vegas is probably on the order of 15-20 minutes. Under normal traffic conditions you can make it from one end of the city to the other in 45 minutes or less. Socially, there's less politics here in general. Less of the NIMBY folks pushing for poor policy and zoning. Less protesting/rioting/looting. If I had to guess, the average person here owns a firearm, but nobody ever really seems to notice or care. Crime is comparable to California overall but there's more places in LA that I would put on my "never go to" list than in Vegas. And, while we definitely have homelessness, it's substantially less than when I was recently in LA. With all of that having been said I think the most important thing is cost. My fiance, at 22 (and with no college degree) makes 17/hr doing admin work for a local construction company. She just bought her own house and is living comfortably. She did that without any financial assistance from me, or her parents, because it wasn't necessary. Her mortgage is under 1k/m for 1800(ish?) square feet of a reasonably modern house.