In 1975 my husband was transferred to Virginia from Long Island. We had a huge 4 bdr. 3 bath house, with a large piece of property, in a really nice suburb. Naively we expected Northern Virginia to be fairly inexpensive being a mostly southern state. Wow, were we in for a surprise. We did have the option of moving further from his office, in Falls Church, but decided the commute wasn’t worth it. We bought a brand-new house in a brand new subdivision. The smallest house in the neighborhood and it was awful. Most of our neighbors were NOT gov’t workers. We had a doctor and a fellow who wound up being the vice president of the Marriott Corp. Happiest day of my life was being transferred out of there, to southern NJ which was very affordable, and ,at the time, had very reasonable property taxes. We eventually wound up in an idyllic town in MA.
My husband grew up in rural Kentucky. Something we've both noticed in talking to people from there, vs. people from here (central MD) -- when you ask "how far is it from A to B?" In KY they'll give you the distance in miles. Here, they'll give it to you in time (i.e., "it's about a half-hour drive").