Yes, real estate is expensive. Yes, cities are filled with people who have way more purchasing power than academics. But let’s get some perspective. I could buy a larger apartment when I lived in the south, and had more free money to spend. But on what? The restaurants there were often overpriced and lousy, and there was nothing to do.

The sheer density of people in the megacities is what makes them so rich. You’ve got an infinite number of little clubs, art galleries, restaurants, etc., catering to every specialty, and they’re all in fiercy competition so they’ve got to be good. There are plenty of places in SF and NYC where you can get amazing meals relatively cheap. $100 will get you year-round admission to the MoMA, where you not only can see their massive permanent collection, but about 24 different shows a year but several hundred free modern and classic films they screen in their two theaters free of charge. There are hundreds of art galleries that don’t charge admission. There are free events all over every weekend.

People get together to play soccer and tennis in the parks for free, you can get tix to the opera and fantastic concerts last minute on craigslist, etc. Yes, housing is more expensive, especially if you’re thinking a giant suburban house. But academics can afford to own a small apartment in a lot of neighborhoods, and it’s only a short subway ride to everything.

I’m not trying to say that life can’t be hard – but c’mon, there are tons of underpaid artists and writers of all kinds making ends meet here. And they’re not all secretly thinking, “I just wish I had a giant McMansion out in West Virginia.”

I’m not going to tackle the problem you raise about CCs, except by way of raising a question to Richard: you paint a pretty grim picture of the problems of rising economic and geographic inequality in your last paragraph, but honestly, the solutions you suggest seem fairly faint-hearted and even resigned. I honestly don’t think there IS a solution to the community college issue DD suggests. My parents were raised in a rural coal community that had gone defunct. The teachers there all told their students that their only hope was to get out of the town and never come back. They did, but the ones that stayed behind are not doing well. But with ever-softening national borders and increasing global mobility of bodies, services, and capital, I just can’t see any hope for non-educated Americans to compete in the future. Especially given the state of our high schools and even many colleges in this country. You say “pump up the valleys” as if you could just turn these completely burnt out regions into places competitive with megacities, but I can’t possibly understand how? And with what? Money from megacities?