No sane person would "feel wealthy" if they are living in a shitty 2 bedroom apartment, even if the place costs 1m$. In places where shitty apartments cost that much, a place that would be considered "luxurious" can easily cost 5m$ or more.

Of course rational thing to do would be to take the money and move to a less expensive city, but with the same logic, anyone who has 1m net-worth could liquidate their assets, move to a different country, retire and live a proper wealthy lifestyle.

But we don't see that happening all that much at all. Mostly what happens is that people are choosing to live middle class lifestyles in most expensive areas that they can afford.

I agree with your point, just not with your numbers.

Even your new numbers: $10M NW, half of it goes to luxury housing, the rest gives you $500k/yr of passive income and that's pretty damn nice by any standard that doesn't involve employing others. I get that this is HN where many of us aspire to such things, but surely that's beyond the point where one should feel wealthy?

Wait, are you accusing the wealthy of being actual humans who value things besides money?