Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject . Answer format is not limited.

Is Cost of Living overstated?
I'm not convinced that cost of living is related to ensuring greater appreciation of assets over time, especially over a 30 year window. The importance of regional differences in cost of living to anyone's decision-making should be weighted by the percentage of their income spent on indexed items.  That is, for people who spend 35%, or even 50% of their salary on indexed items, regional variances in cost of living are far more important than for people who spend 10% of their salaries on these items.  Essentially, as income goes up, the significance of cost of living goes down. See http://macromon.wordpress.com/2011/02/02/how-u-s-income-groups-get-squeezed-by-food-prices/ for a pretty picture of the relevance of cost of living across income groups (for food & gas, which are often not included in indexes due to volatility).  So, if you are wondering whether cost of living is overstated, perhaps it's because you are in an income group that doesn't need to worry about it as much.  Whether it's overstated or not will depend on how much one makes and spends.