Try living in the Bay Area where I'm from. Up in San Francisco, apartments START at $1200-1500, and go up from there. Even in other places around the bay, you're still lookin at starting rents in the neighborhood of $900 or so.

I'm going to ditch the whole apartment thing and get a travel trailer to live in. Cheap rent, you can just move if you want a different view, you have your hotel room behind you if you go on a trip, the neighbors are at least a little further away, and you get to hang out with the traveling folks who IMHO are some of the friendliest and most interesting folks to talk to.