Sounds like you live in a bad neighborhood. My rust belt neighborhood doesn't have those issues, and it's very affordable on a tech salary. Vote with your feet.
This could be true. I definitely am not in the cheapest part of town. And people sometimes get wide eyes when they hear how expensive my place is. But it's also certainly not the "fancy" part of town either.
I could probably find a place that's about 25% cheaper. and a "fancy" place would be about 2x.
You don't even need to move that far. I moved away from Seattle but still in WA and it's been quite nice. Issaquah, Tacoma, Olympia, Gig Harbor are all quite nice, for instance. Especially in the burbs. Seattle is still close enough to some of them even. I'm lucky enough to have been in software for the last decade so it's plenty affordable.
> People are noisy as fuck and dont seem to give a shit. Seems like every night there's someone with loud as exhaust on "sportish" car ripping around the neihborhood. For months this guy would start up his loud car at 7am and no one care when I complained.
That is a very local problem, and is not a global question or observation.
> Landlords seem extremely greedy and do terrible rent seeking tactics like fees upon fees
I've had a few landlords in my life, and none of them nickel and dimed me with fees like that. They just raised the rent by maybe 5% every year. If it bothers you, try a new landlord, neighborhood, or city. Or buy a house.
"But houses are expensive where I live" I hear you say. You are the only person forcing yourself to live in California, NYC, London, Vancouver, or wherever. Smaller cities and less densely populated areas are generally cheaper, quieter, and less polluted. The people might be friendlier, too.
> General worker apathy
> Police seem to not give a shit anymore. I've noticed what seems to be total lawlessness going on in my world.
There's lots of places and cultures in the world that still show humanity towards strangers.
