We moved to MS deliberately seeking a LCOL...but also to opt-out of a lot of cultural 'keep up with the Joneses' aspects that we felt were sabotaging our financial responsibility in the midsize tech-oriented city we moved from.
...
Are you from the South originally? I think there are lots of great places to live in the South, but I'm worried about fitting in as a Yankee. How is it for non-obnoxious Yankees in the South (especially small towns)?
That's a complicated answer - I was raised in the South since age 3...by two intellectuals, one an Army brat, and the other second-gen Eastern European immigrant, from Cleveland Ohio...definitely a Midwesterner. (I discern that Yankees are a slightly different species.) But I attended public school, ate my share of grits, and picked up some social graces from my peers and southern lit.
The social graces seem to be much more important than "wher'your'people from?"...because as soon as you move, even state to state, that hometown advantage goes away. People do notice that my accent "isn't from 'round here" - but that's my family's doing. When mom heard me prounounce "ray-d", "theayre", and "clayay" my first week of preschool in Georgia, she nipped that acquisition in the bud, because in 1980, there weren't enough successful folks with southern accents yet to fight the stereotype of intellectual inferiority. Now of course, things are different, the South has risen again (so to speak, economically and culturally), but she couldn't have known that would happen.
This is the most congealed small town I've lived in since that one outside Atlanta (now long absorbed, 6 mil people ago), and it was counted as 12K last census. I've lived in smaller that were just sections of highway...but most of my life I've been in the 30-50K range, in shooting distance of the 1mil+ city.
Comparing it to the West, Mississippi is a bit behind the times. Stereotypes reign true and there is still a lot of segregation and income inequality. Jackson is full of poverty and the median income there is nearer to $30k and it is one of the most impoverished cities in the south. My wife and I work in fields that will help bridge the gap with income and education inequality, so it is a great place to be if you want to make a practical difference in people's lives as a tutor, mentor, or philanthropist. There are no large tech companies near by and Mississippi doesn't seem to want them. There are a lot of ways that Mississippi could see the assets they already have flourish (outdoor recreation, culture, music, etc.), but they don't seem to be interested yet. It also gets REALLY hot during the summers.
I can see how in comparison to California (which seems a bit mythical to me, raised in small places in the South where all this stuff above is a constant nearly everywhere) MS feels a bit behind. There are some interesting tech islands south of the Mason-Dixon: Huntsville AL is definitely one, Fort Walton Beach FL, parts of Atlanta, of course the research triangle in Carolina. My parents and I (eventually) landed in tech, so it's been interesting to watch the takeup rate as us nerds are becoming more visible.
We chose MS deliberately because it is both behind ...and ahead in other respects - the middle class is already smaller than either the upper or lower classes. I'm led to believe this barbell distribution is coming for other parts of the country, and I figured I'd go ahead and figure out how to make the shift. Many businesses are "just big enough" and use technology in interesting ways to make this optimization possible. We also like parts of the "behind" - the way people treat each other is mostly lovely and charming. Kind of like when you travel to non-large-city parts of Europe...they don't have everything you're used to, but you find you might substitute with the local way, and that's nice too.
Regarding making the deliberate move, when you feel you might not fit in:
We have had success when we respect the local way. Drop your expectations, do as the Romans do. Try that church that seems frighteningly conservative...especially the church suppers. (You won't have to keep going, but church is THE WAY to meet people in the Bible Belt until you can find other interests.) Hire locals to fix your stuff. Volunteer your time and treasure for the efforts they're trying to get started. Wait a while to volunteer your own ideas, though. Figure out what clubs people belong to, what Good Causes have the charity ball, etc.
We're learning to be sensitive to cliques that are based on small differences. I seem to be a magnet to folks who have moved in, and their stories are interesting. There's a "cocktail house party" crowd here, and a mostly separate "bonfire and beer" crowd. Early on we met a group that likes to go out to eat, but they eschew the regionally famous Delta Supper Club as being patronized by "those rich folks from Madison" (wink at
@poetdereves) - nevermind that they'll drop a couple hundred in a night every week. I've found my gym to be a great place to meet folks...but not much overlap with the eat-out crowd. People are tribal. Part of this adventure seems to be throwing ourselves against this set of tribes and figuring out who
we are.
Our church likes to boast of the fact that all of their members are related except for one couple that joined randomly ~20 yrs ago. It's a whole different world.
That was true of the 'highway strip' town we lived in last...we finally figured out after a year that we needed to swap churches. Far better experience in a slightly larger church, that was comprised of folks more like us - landowners, some education, some business folks. I hated the catechism, but stuck it out for the people.