Is there a reason that you don't leave if that is how you feel about it? As a software engineer who left a big city, even though you may end up with a 50% pay cut, your purchasing power actually increases significantly. A lot of people end up stuck in a situation like this due to other factors, like family, but far more people live with this mentality without anything that really ties them to the city except fun and the perception of better economic prospects.

Full time working from home doesn't work for me/my head, I need to go into the office a few days a week. I don't think I would thrive in a fully remote job, and I haven't seen a single job listing for a software developer outside of the major cities. In Australia for context.

I also genuinely like living in the city, not for the "fun" but because of the convenience. Everything I need is within a few minutes walk of my apartment.

No amount of personal wealth in the countryside makes it so that I can walk to the supermarket and to a couple other places. Urban life is appealing to many for reasons beyond fun, and for a lot of reasons that aren’t solvable in rural areas by purchasing power.

To your point I think there’s a lot of that which is more manageable than expected, and there are a lot of spectrums to navigate there

I think about this a lot, as I live in a big city, and it's a hard sell. I can walk to everything I need, and am an easy train / uber / car ride to anything that walking isn't practical for (e.g. big grocery store run).

My parents live in rural WA, and it's about a 30 min drive into town for, like, anything. Go to the gym? drive. Groceries? drive. Meet friends for coffee or beer? Drive. I was there for Christmas, and even a light snow made getting into town dicey. Meanwhile, it snows heavily where I live and outside of bitter winds necessitating a beard it never stopped me from getting anywhere.

Go to your local historical farm and look at what people used to live in. Or find a documentary on YouTube about any area where people still live in mud huts, tents, or other tiny houses. They manage to raise kids .

You would be reported to CPS for doing some of the things that parents used to let their kids do in the 1950s. The standard for raising children has changed quite a bit.

National statistics indicate that 1 in 3 children will have CPS called on them during their childhood.

Just "managing" is not particularly inspiring. I can have a very comfortable life without raising a family, or I can have a life of "managing to raise kids".

That's exactly the conundrum, and why birth rates are so low.

In the past, people were happy to (or did it because of social expectations or lack of contraceptives) "manage to raise kids".

Nowadays, people expect and even demand a "very comfortable life". The two aren't really compatible for most people except very high earners.