Selection from Forbes Article on City Value

I thought this article was interesting, but it only tells part of the story.  In a world, where you can earn you pay via the internet, you don't have to live in the big cities.  Rogers City is very affordable and also has a lot to offer.  The value for money here is very high.  Enjoy the article exerpt below and then visit Rogers City to learn the "rest of the story."

The Cities Where A Paycheck Stretches The Furthest

PRBS Great information. A lot of big companies offer Base Salary that do not reflect the cost of living in the area. Unfortunately when I accept a job offer I d [...] Rugeirn Drienborough Don’t get fooled by stats showing low housing prices and good salaries in the Detroit area. They don’t exist in the same place. If you have what it takes t [...]

12 comments, 2 called-out

+ Comment now

+ Comment now

 

see photos

Click for full photo gallery: The Cities With The Highest Income When Adjusted For Cost Of Living

Editor’s Note: This post is part of a new special section called “Reinventing America,” which we launched Tuesday. As part of this effort, famed demographer Joel Kotkin and more than a dozen other Forbes contributors and staff writers will focus attention on the challenges facing towns, cities and traditional industries across the nation–and highlight the growing number of surprising success stories we’re seeing, too. Over the coming months we’ll have stories, rankings of who’s doing it right (and wrong), and, we hope, great conversations with readers, so please join in.
When we think of places with high salaries, big metro areas like New York, Los Angeles or San Francisco are usually the first to spring to mind. Or cities with the biggest concentrations of educated workers, such as Boston.

Move up http://i.forbesimg.com tMove down

25 images Photos: The Best Places For Business And Careers

The Cities Leading An American Manufacturing Revival Joel KotkinContributor

Thunder On The Great Plains: Once Written-Off Region Enjoying Remarkable Revival Joel KotkinContributor

But wages are just one part of the equation — high prices in those East and West Coast cities mean the fat paychecks aren’t necessarily getting the locals ahead. When cost of living is factored in, most of the places that boast the highest effective pay turn out to be in the less celebrated and less expensive middle part of the country. My colleague Mark Schill of Praxis Strategy Group and I looked at the average annual wages in the nation’s 51 largest metropolitan statistical areas and adjusted incomes by the cost of living. The results were surprising and revealing.
In first place is Houston, where the average annual wage in 2011 was $59,838, eighth highest in the nation. What puts Houston at the top of the list is the region’s relatively low cost of living, which includes such things as consumer prices and services, utilities and transportation costs and, most importantly, housing prices: The ratio of the median home price to median annual household income in Houston is only 2.9, remarkably low for such a dynamic urban region; in San Francisco a house goes for 6.7 times the median local household income. Adjusted for cost of living, the average Houston wage of $59,838 is worth $66,933, tops in the nation.
Most of the rest of the top 10 are relatively buoyant economies with relatively low costs of living. These include Dallas-Fort Worth (fifth), Charlotte, N.C. (sixth), Cincinnati (seventh), Austin, Texas (eighth), and Columbus, Ohio (10th). These areas all also have housing affordability rates below 3.0 except for Austin, which clocks in at 3.5. Similar situations down the list include such mid-sized cities as Nashville, (11th), St.Louis (12th), Pittsburgh, (13th), Denver (15th) and New Orleans (16th).
One major surprise is the metro area in third place: Detroit-Warren-Livonia, Mich. This can be explained by the relatively high wages paid in the resurgent auto industry and, as we have reported earlier, a huge surge in well-paying STEM (science, technology, engineering and math-related) jobs. Combine this with some of the most affordable housing in the nation and sizable reductions in unemployment — down 5% in Michigan over the past two years, the largest such drop in the nation. This longtime sad sack region has reason to feel hopeful.
Only two expensive metro areas made our top 10 list. One is Silicon Valley (San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara), where the average annual wage last year of $92,556, the highest in the nation, makes up for its high costs, which includes the worst housing affordability among the 51 metro areas we considered: housing prices are nearly 7 times the local median income. Adjusted for cost of living, that $92,556 paycheck is worth $61,581, placing the Valley second on our list.
In ninth place is Seattle, which placed first on our lists of the cities leading the way in manufacturing and STEM employment growth. Housing costs, while high, are far less than in most coastal California or northeast metropolitan areas.
What about the places we usually associate with high wages and success? The high pay is offset by exceedingly high costs. Brain-rich Boston has the fifth-highest income of America’s largest metro areas but its high housing and other costs drive it down to 32nd on our list. San Francisco ranks third in average pay at just under $70,000, some $20,000 below San Jose, but has equally high costs. As a result, the metro area ranks a meager 39th on our list.

Full List: The Cities Where A Paycheck Stretches The Furthest

Much the same can be said about New York which, like San Francisco, is home to many of the richest Americans and best-paying jobs. The average paycheck clocks in at $69,029, fourth-highest in the country, but high costs, particularly for housing, eat up much of the locals’ pay: adjusted for cost of living, the average salary is worth $44,605. As a result, the Big Apple and its environs rank only 41st on our list.