What I’m referring to is random suburb and/or middle of Kansas type areas, which generally have middling to low crime rates in the US.

They’re often not close to jobs or very interesting socially, however.

Jobs and social opportunities are why Sofia is the big draw it is in Bulgaria, for instance.

I do see Bulgaria in general as being 3.8/100k for murder? [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Bulgaria].

Inner cities and specific (relatively uncommon!) rural areas (often in the Deep South) are what are dangerous in the US, and paradoxically even inner cities are often expensive to live in. Here is a map of homicide rate on a county by county basis [https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_US_county_h...].

People often move to LCOL areas anyway to escape the crime and high costs of the cities when there are economic issues in the US.

"Cost of living" correlates fairly well with the available jobs and incomes in a region. You generally can't move to a LCOL region while also having a high paying job. Which is why the possibility of full remote work was so exciting for so many people.

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