my wife and i earn a million dollars roughly every 6 years. After tax, rent and bills (we have no particularly lavish outgoings – non essentially include netflix, Spotify, sirius xm in our cars, we get a slightly more expensive cat litter than the cheapest… ), i.e. “net” earnings we earn a million dollars over 38 years. We have about that long left until retirement. So I think you’re vastly underestimating how much it costs to live and work in a city.