sardia wrote:I was wondering if I will expect a paycut in order to move to Detroit. If so, is the reduced paycheck compensated with cheaper cost of living. Based on anecdotal stuff, Detroit ain't cheap. Possibly the average is inaccurate due to income inequality, or the data here is inaccurate.
I'm guessing there will be lost income compared to finding a new job in Chicago regardless. But it might be possible to find work that pays more than I get paid now in Detroit, just less likely.
https://www.bestplaces.net/cost-of-livi ... k-mi/50000Found another cost of living website. Has fine grain data, such as affluent suburbs.
Depends on the scale of the pay cut you get. The data here indicates that on average, yeah, Detroit is a lot rougher, but your particular job may not fall into that average. I'd do some scouting of the job market in the area for your specialties. Sometimes you get some wild outliers.
Fine grained data looks awesome. There's definitely a sweet spot in terms of cost of living...you want to avoid any places that are actually dangerous(many cities have great crime maps), but that are still low cost of living. Sadly, I don't know Detroit well enough to know those, but if you can find a local who knows the area well, they can probably help you out. Failing that, I'm sure there's a subreddit where people will happily converse about their city.
Barring a particularly good setup though, it looks like Detroit will be challenging in general. If it was a move solely for employment reasons, I'd suggest looking elsewhere. Life being what it is, balancing different desires is rough sometimes. I live where I do now mainly because the job market here is particularly good for me. Your approach of considering which move involves the lesser tradeoff is a pretty reasonable approach, though.
A small plus side to moving...the first time you uproot everything is the hardest. After that, it becomes progressively easier. So, even if you end up taking a job in Detroit, get there, and find you don't like it very much, you'll find it easier to move on afterward. Sure, make sure you have a decent job lined up and do it all prudently, but there's nothing wrong with taking a bit of a chance. The more you do that, the better you'll get at it.