The Wall Street Journal recently published an op-ed piece about “the housing crisis that is plaguing rural America.” Using Orange County in southern Indiana as an example, the writer, Kerry Thompson, frets that “There simply isn’t enough housing for the people who want to live there,” which is “having a devastating effect on rural America’s economy.”
Evidence of a housing crisis? This 2,900-square-foot home in rural Orange County, Indiana is currently for sale for $265,000, or $91 per square foot. A Wall Street Journal op-ed somehow argues that this low price is evidence of a rural housing shortage. Note the Trump banner; I suspect this is really evidence of the divide between urban and rural areas, as the Journal writer doesn’t seem to understand rural areas despite running an organization that is supposedly devoted to rural problems.
This is a problem, Thompson claims, because the pandemic has led to “upticks in interest in rural areas, as more Americans determine to flee the cities for greener pastures.” If there is a rural housing crisis, there may not be any greener pastures for them to move to. Continue reading
