New data released Thursday shows that the five fastest-growing cities in the United States-every single one-are in Texas. Four clusters in the suburbs of Dallas-Fort Worth. The fifth sits outside Houston. None has more than 65,000 residents. And collectively, they represent a snapshot of how-and where-American aspiration is moving.
Ask most people what's wrong with housing affordability, and the answer comes quickly: rates are too high. It's an easy diagnosis, clean and intuitive, and it fits neatly into headlines and political talking points. But it's also incomplete, and increasingly, misleading. To understand why, it helps to start with something personal. The first home I bought was in 1989. It cost $259,000. My mortgage rate was 10 percent.
The United States is short 4 million housing units, with a particular dearth of starter homes, moderately priced apartments in low-rises, and family-friendly dwellings. Interest rates are high, which has stifled construction and pushed up the cost of mortgages. As a result, more Americans are renting, and roughly half of those households are spending more than a third of their income on shelter.