Just scrolled through some housing data and found something interesting - there's actually a solid list of places across the US where you can get both affordable rent and low crime rates, which honestly feels rare these days. Apparently Ohio dominates this list with 7 cities making the top 15, which surprised me. The cheapest places in the US to live seem to cluster in the Midwest and some smaller towns in the Northeast. New Philadelphia, Ohio tops the list with annual living costs around 35k and violent crime rates super low at 0.69 per 1,000. Compare that to somewhere like New Ulm, Minnesota where you're looking at similar affordability but even safer with only 0.29 violent crimes per 1,000. If you're looking for genuinely affordable towns with good safety records, San Elizario, Texas is wild - home values under 170k and barely any violent crime. Most of these places have monthly mortgage costs between 1k-1.8k, which is honestly reasonable compared to what people are paying in major metros. The data goes through early 2025 so it's pretty recent. A lot of these affordable places to live are smaller communities with populations under 20k, though Columbus, Indiana bucked that trend as a larger option with 51k people and still maintained low costs. Worth looking into if you're seriously considering relocating somewhere with lower living expenses and actual safety stats to back it up.