So I live in one of the red states, and I live in one of the more expensive areas of that red state (but by no means the most expensive of those areas). But the

So I live in one of the red states, and I live in one of the more expensive areas of that red state (but by no means the most expensive of those areas). But the vast majority of the state is pretty rural and correspondingly cheap. Maybe not Blue-state (on this map) cheap, but definitely tan -- since I know more than one person that gets by on $15-20 and has a two bedroom or better. No surprise, extremely rural areas are cheaper and states with massive urban areas are more expensive. Wyoming is cheaper than Colorado despite being similar-ish states next to one another. In Wyoming, you're glad to see another human, in Colorado, a similar sized state with 10x the population, there's a lot more people around. There's a similar pattern with Oregon and Washington. So it's basically a population map [1] with a few outliers - Alaska, Hawaii, Pennsylvania and perhaps Michigan and Illinois. It would probably just be better to focus in on those weird states and show why they're weird -- above or below their expected categories. 1 - https://xkcd.com/1138/ https://xkcd.com/1138/