Housing Crunch Sends Bigger Populations to Smaller Towns

Cities with fewer than 200,000 residents grew faster than larger metropolises between 2017 and 2018 as high housing prices chased many people away from big cities and their closest suburbs.

The biggest cities grew by a collective 326,000 people, less than half the number earlier in the decade, and less than the number for smaller cities — 421,000 for cities with populations between 10,000 and 50,000.

And small towns of fewer than 10,000 people grew more quickly than earlier in the decade, attracting more than 142,000 new people last year, according to a Stateline analysis of U.S. Census Bureau estimates, driven in part by retirees seeking affordable housing.