Perhaps not surprisingly, the majority of the cities on our Most Affordable list are located in the South or the Midwest. In the list released from Forbes Magazine Online, we see only one Western city–Colorado Springs, Colo. (No. 11)–and one in the Northeast—Buffalo, N.Y. (No. 3)—make the list. And not a single city on the West Coast appears.

The Southern U.S. dominates with 11 metro areas, including three among the top five: Birmingham, Ala. (No. 1), Knoxville, Tenn. (No. 2), and Oklahoma City, Okla. (No. 4). Reasons for the South’s low cost-of-living are rooted in history. “The industry that was located in the South was mostly labor-intensive, compared to capital-intensive industry in the Midwest or on the East Coast,” says Ahmad Ijaz, director of economic forecasting at the University of Alabama’s Center for Business and Economic Research. “Wages in labor-intensive industries (an example of that would be textiles and apparel, or farming) are much lower than they are in capital-intensive industries. So that’s where the foundation of low costs started.”  Today, the legacy remains in the form of lower taxes, wages, housing, and daily expenses throughout much of the Southern region.

But the Midwest is also strong, with eight cities on the list. Half are in the state of Ohio alone: Cincinnati (No. 5), Dayton (No. 8), Columbus (No. 10), and Akron (No. 15).