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Bigger ZIP Codes in land area cover rural areas. ZIP Codes are set up so that each one has about an even amount of mailing addresses. So ZIP Codes in cities cover the least land area, rural the most. My city ZIP Code covers 11.42 sq miles, but is kinda screwy. All the population lives in the far northern part of the ZIP Code, most of the eastern 2/3rds is covered by Sky Harbor International Airport, and the southern part is industrial land
I talked to a female friend in Minneapolis who had lived in San Francisco when I did. She told me about that city's housing shortage and verified what The Economist came up with.
There is no way Mpls is on the same level as SF. Certain parts may be comparable, but I could move to Mpls tomorrow and find a 3 bedroom home for under 300K inside the city limits
In SF that would be almost impossible
The population of the U.S. in 1955 was 166 million - half of what it is today. Could that not help to explain why cities are more crowded?
Yes, but the rate of population growth has accelerated and housing prices have gone up much faster than incomes. Where I live the median home prices is more than 10x the median household income (probably 15× the median individual income). And I don't just mean in the city proper; the suburbs are even more expensive.
Everyone reminesces about how in the 1950s an average income could easily afford a decent house in a decent neighborhood. It seems obvious why that was the case. America has SO MUCH SPACE and we made use of it. Heck, we have like 1/4th the population of India and 2x the land. We took all that flat land in "flyoever country" and built factories and communities from scratch. There was plenty to go around. Now we hollowed out flyover country and everyone is moving to a few desirable/trendy cities and that have no room for building new neighborhoods. The result? All everyone ever talks about where I live is housing prices and traffic. I think corporations probably like it because workers will put in 100-hr weeks in a desperate quest to make more money so they can upgrade from a Studio to a 1-Bdrm. No wonder the stock market has been reaching record highs? It's so weird that we hear about a "housing crisis" and all you have to do is drive 50 miles away from the city and you'll see nothing but flat, empty land.
I think it depends on where you are. Here in Louisiana it seems new subdivisions with single family homes and gated communities in the suburbs are still where most people prefer to live - along with our beautiful quiet rural areas where outdoors opportunities abound. It was the same when I lived in West Virginia.
I loved living in the outskirts of Charleston WV, where you can drive 10 minutes to the holler and shoot guns, and have large bonfires on your own property because there was so much open space on each property. 4 wheeling and mudding in the creeks and back roads. I truly miss that lifestyle. I live in suburban Baton Rouge now and this now feels like a huge city to me.
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