Can American cities grow AND stay affordable?

The Indicator from Planet Money

NPR

Business

4.7 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 15 December 2025

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Cities like Austin and Atlanta used to top lists of places people moved to looking for relatively affordable places to live. Until, one day, they weren’t that affordable. On today’s show, how a low cost of living is threatened by growth, and how one sunbelt city in Alabama is planning ahead.

Related episodes:
Why Americans don’t want to move for jobs anymore
How to build abundantly
How big is the US housing shortage?
The highs and lows of US rents

For sponsor-free episodes of The Indicator from Planet Money, subscribe to Planet Money+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Fact-checking by Sierra Juarez. Music by Drop Electric. Find us: TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Newsletter.

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	NPR.
0:02.0	N.R.
0:04.0	Huntsville, Alabama is growing fast.
0:14.0	About 18 people move there every day.
0:17.0	And you can see lots of reasons why.
0:19.0	It's where the rocket that put the first man on the
0:21.7	moon was developed. There are plenty of space and defense sector jobs, a big music venue. And in the
0:27.8	center of town, there's an art museum and a pond where Rachel Ramos and her daughter, Raina,
0:32.6	are feeding the ducks. See, it's only 25 cents for a cup of duck food. Yeah, I can't get more duckies.
0:40.3	25 cents might sound like a great price, but the price that really matters for Rachel is 1,250.
0:47.3	That's how much she pays each month for a three-bedroom apartment.
0:51.3	Three bedrooms. That is a steal.
0:53.3	Yeah, I thought my two-bedroom in Birmingham was cheap, but. That is a steal. Yeah, I thought my two bedroom in Birmingham was
0:55.7	cheap, but this is definitely a steel. And Rachel also thinks the city's pretty affordable.
1:01.5	Compared to other places that I've lived, like Montana and Florida, I find it less expensive to live here.
1:10.4	The cost of homes in Huntsville by square foot is about 25% cheaper than it is nationally.
1:16.4	But Rachel is worried about those good times and low prices lasting.
1:21.2	I am concerned about it because just with any place that I've lived where there was a lot of expansion,
1:25.7	prices tend to kind of go up.
1:27.3	This is an economic paradox that many cities face.
1:31.3	One of the drivers of high prices is people moving to a city for low prices.
1:36.8	This is the indicator from Planet Money. I'm Waylon Wong.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 20 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.