"We had gunfire in our Harlem neighborhood. We have daily gunfire here, but it's from hunters and gun enthusiasts," explains Hans Hageman, a creative marketing consultant and strategist. A New York native who remembers an earlier, grittier incarnation of the city, he's doing today what would have been hard to conceive of earlier in his career—living in a rural area and working for himself.

At one point, Hageman was living in a brownstone and making six figures as a nonprofit executive, but he wanted a different life.