“Plus, for $45 thousand in Detroit you can live as if you were making $100 thousand in NY.”
Who the hell would want to live in NY...especially in NYC. And a $100,000 income in NYC would get you a place slightly elevated above ‘slum’.
This is the unspoken issue with all of these cities. Nobody wants to live in the slums.
In all cities, you will pay a premium price to live in nicer neighborhoods. And there will be areas of all of these cities where you would not consider saving money and living in, just because housing is cheaper in certain areas.
There are other considerations as well. Not to make a long list, but there are the issues of traffic congestion, spouse’s job and his/her commute from certain locales in the area, quality of schools, crime rates, and other factors which affect where people live. It’s not all just dollars and cents.