Cheaper places are cheaper for a reason.

Yes, and I agree I prefer higher density, but ultimately some people living in less desirable areas is more reasonable than trying to build ever taller skyscrapers in city centers- in a country with massive amounts of empty land.

Worse health care.

It depends, there are plenty of cheaper cities with very good healthcare, I grew up in Louisville, KY, spent a lot of time in LA, CA, and now live in Prague, CZ. Louisville has had the cheapest rent/purchase price and had by far the best quality healthcare(at least that I and my family received) out of anywhere I’ve lived.

Worse education for your kids.

This is valid in some cases, and there are plenty of valid reasons to desire living somewhere else more, that doesn’t mean there aren’t costs to that. Furthermore, there are plenty of expensive places with terrible school systems, plenty of cheap places with passable school systems, but more importantly traditional schools systems in general suck. Kids now days have access to the internet, that combined with parents who encourage curiosity and creativity will be much more important to them learning than the school system they go to.

For instance St Louis has a median home price of 207k but they also have 10x the murder rate of Seattle a worse jobs outlook.

That is cherrypicking, compare Chicago to Fargo, ND. Or a less distant example, Seattle to Spokane.

You’ll make less money etc.

Assuming you don’t work remotely, but you’ll also spend less.

Who in their right mind would want to live in a red state?

Not about being red or blue, its about not being a HCOL megalopolis. You can also move to Maine.