Rent in Columbus appears to be roughly comparable to Tokyo: https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou...

Those numbers are incredible. One thing to keep in mind, though, is that a lot of what we're talking about when we say "Columbus" is suburbs. And the plant Intel is building is even in a different county.

That's fair, and Japanese apartments also tend to be smaller, for sure.

Nevertheless, Tokyo is a metro of 40 million people, with national importance that's equivalent to slamming NYC, LA, and SF together into one region. That its rent has managed to stay this low is a result of zoning that's practically the opposite of the US: density by default, rather than density as exception.

For now.

I’ve travelled to enough cities that it is basically an amusing part of my checklist to hear why Area Man is mad about housing prices going up.

I could procedurally generate possible scapegoats at this point.

The nice thing about where they've located that Intel site, purely in terms of housing cost, is that you can get there quickly from plenty of cheap small towns. I'd live in Columbus if I worked there, but you could certainly go in the other direction without too much of a commute.

"Area Man" - love it. Gonna use that from now on.