The time, effort, and stress of commuting easily offsets any gains from living outside of NYC. Any city with decent neighborhoods will be at least a 60 minute commute door to door, plus you have to budget another 30 minutes for delays and whatnot because the public transit is terrible.
It's very difficult to plan anything on work days if you're commuting into NYC, and you get to pay super high rents and property taxes for states with huge deficits and infrastructure debt which means the situation won't get any better. Seattle offers better food, recreational activities, growing future, and no income tax. I'd say the weather is better too, but some people really miss the sun, but you can easily fly to a beach resort for multiple weekends of the year with the savings of not living in the NYC area.
It's very difficult to plan anything on work days if you're commuting into NYC, and you get to pay super high rents and property taxes for states with huge deficits and infrastructure debt which means the situation won't get any better. Seattle offers better food, recreational activities, growing future, and no income tax. I'd say the weather is better too, but some people really miss the sun, but you can easily fly to a beach resort for multiple weekends of the year with the savings of not living in the NYC area.