In Upstate NY there are farms everywhere so food is cheap. The upside to everything being gray and snowy all the time is that water is basically free. And as for other services like telcos and electricity, we pay around the same as the rest of the country.

But then comes rent.

It is ridiculous to think that unless you live waaaaaayyy out in the sticks there's no chance you are gonna afford a mortgage down payment anytime soon after graduating college (forget high school), and even as a professional with a professional partner the idea of buying a house is still years away. If we can't own a house we can't build equity. We can't use the property as collateral if we need a loan. It all goes back to housing, and right here, it sucks.