I also left the south to move to the Bay Area to make that "big money" during the dot com boom. I was making like 35K in Alabama and my wife was making 18K and we did fine, but when I got a job offer in Ca for 75K per year I was like "wow" and we went. It wasn't bad, loved the weather, still miss it, but the traffic, oh lord the traffic. And rent on the little apartment we found was 1300 per month and all things considered we didn't really live any "better" with that income as we did in N Alabama for far less income. I got laid off (dot com bust started) and got a new job making even more money and things were good and we got all kindsa stuff paid off, etc, but when THAT job was about to fail I decided it was time to move back home where our families were.
We rented a house, 3 br 1 bath in a sweet location, $500 per month, the house we bought a few years ago is less than 2 miles from "everything" (Lowes, Home Depot, Staples, 3 grocery stores, most fast food restaurants and several other restaurants, etc etc) over 2800 sq feet, 4 acres of property, and less than $145K to buy (we're too close to Huntsville to get the really cheap houses like the OP mentions, move another 20 miles away and it wouldn't be hard at all to find a nice big house for under 80K).
There is no commute, my wife works at the elementary school about 1/2 a mile behind our house and gets to work without ever seeing a road with a red light or speed limit over 35. We don't lock our doors, my garage door isn't locked right now, my car is sitting in my driveway unlocked. We dont' plan our evenings and days by the traffic, in California you always made sure to "do stuff" when traffic should be lesser, going out to eat? Go around 8 after it dies down, going to work? Either leave before daybreak or after 9am to miss "rush hour". I could leave for work in Ca at 7:30 am and get to work around 9:00 or 9:30am (20 mile commute) or I could leave at 9:00am and get there at 9:20-9:45am, same 20 mile trip. Leaving work at 4:30 or 5:00 I'd get home around 6 or 6:30, leaving at 6 or 6:30 I'd get home in 20 to 30 minutes. I don't enjoy spending mylife in my car.
When we flew back home we missed our connecting flight in Atlanta next one wasn't for 4 hours so I said screw that and rented a van, chunked our bags in it and high tailed it home, we stopped for gas outside Atlanta and the clerk was like "hot day today, where ya'll headed? We got some fresh tater wedges and chicken we just cooked if yer hungry" I was like "uh what?" then it hit me "we're home".
There's bad parts about living here, mostly a lack of concerts (unless you drive to Atlanta, Nashville or Birmingham) and the Bible thumpers can drive you to distraction fighting against anything they feel is immoral or bad (alcohol, nudie bars, etc) but all things considered I'll stay here.
People who didn't grow up here and who've lived in other places all their life just don't understand what it's like and often have very mistaken assumptions, racism for example, I found it more pronounced in California than here, people kept to "their kind" out there quite a bit, the Mexicans pretty much hung out with Mexicans, the Asians tended to hang out and socialize with Asians and the whites with whites. It's not really "better" here but it sure ain't no worse, not at all. Yeah the south of the 50's and 60's I hear was pretty bad, but thing have changed a lot in nearly 50 years and racism isn't really any worse here as it is anywhere else.
Just like Condor I too used to think the south was dumb and not a good place to live, till I checked out other places and realized it was a great place to live and hurried my ass back home where I belong