A family of 3? Did your sister move out?
Yes, the pace of life is slower outside of NYC. Is this supposed to be a bad thing? I can’t stand all the crowds, noise, pushing and shoving, with everyone in a hurry to go nowhere!
In NYC you can buy kosher food at 2 A.M. and learn with geonim. But once you have a family and are working full time, I doubt you will be making after midnight excursions to restaurants anyway, and with the modern age of technology you can access any shiur you want online or on tape. Are those things really worth the tens of thousands of dollars difference per year in cost of living? Think about it.