Not to mention people saying, "just ignore every major metro in the US which happens to make up a majority of the population" in response to housing being expensive is ignoring that most people are dealing with housing being way too fucking expensive. Like sure if I go buy a plot of dirt with a house 2 hours from a major population center then of course it'll be affordable. Too bad there's 0 jobs out there and 0 reason to live in the sticks for most people.

274 million people live in or near population centers, with only ~57 million living in rural areas. We can't just ignore that the places with most of the people are becoming unaffordable due to draconian zoning policy and lack of government push for more housing.

Yeah the small town (less than 15k population) I live in is getting close to $1k/mo for a 2br apartment and just 5 years ago it was about $500/mo for a 2br apartment

2br in Austin are around 1500 rn for decent ones. 775/mo per person is doable

I bet if you looked at the average in your area, it'd be below $800. Now, whether any of those units would ever become available without the current occupant dying? That's another question entirely. I think COVID was an excuse for the entire economy to go stupid, but the utter lack of new housing everywhere has a lot to do with why costs are nuts. Especially in cities. Here on the east coast if you're in literally any city, you're paying out the ass. But the second you leave the city you can find decent places at decent prices still.