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Title: Is Remote Working Causing an Exodus to the Exurbs?

Link: https://it.slashdot.org/story/24/11/16/205824...

Last year 30,000 people moved into central Florida's Polk County - more than
to any other county in America. Its largest city has just 112,641 people,
living a full 35 miles east of the 3.1 million residents in the metropolitan
area around Tampa. But the Associated Press says something similar is
happening all over the country: "the rise of the far-flung exurbs." Outlying
communities on the outer margins of metro areas - some as far away as 60
miles (97 kilometers) from a city's center - had some of the fastest-growing
populations last year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Those communities
are primarily in the South, like Anna, Texas on the outskirts of the Dallas-
Fort Worth metro area; Fort Mill, South Carolina [just 18 miles from North
Carolina city Charlotte]; Lebanon, Tennessee outside Nashville; and Polk
County's Haines City... [C]ommuting to work can take up to an hour and a half
one-way. But [Marisol] Ortega, who lives in Haines City about 40 miles (64
kilometers) from her job in Orlando, says it's worth it. "I love my job. I
love what I do, but then I love coming back home, and it's more tranquil,"
Ortega said. The rapid growth of far-flung exurbs is an after-effect of the
COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Census Bureau, as rising housing costs
drove people further from cities and remote working allowed many to do their
jobs from home at least part of the week... Recent hurricanes and citrus
diseases in Florida also have made it more attractive for some Polk County
growers to sell their citrus groves to developers who build new residences or
stores... Anna, Texas, more than 45 miles (72 kilometers) north of downtown
Dallas, is seeing the same kind of migration. It was the fourth-fastest
growing city in the U.S. last year and its population has increased by a
third during the 2020s to 27,500 residents. Like Polk County, Anna has gotten
a little older, richer and more racially diverse. The article points out that
in Anna, Texas, "close to 3 in 5 households have moved into their homes since
2020, according to the Census Bureau."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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