The big cities grabbed the headlines. The sharpest increases are happening in places with populations under 400,000.
The latest rental data contains a surprise: the fastest growth is not in the largest cities, but in the mid-sized ones, where wages are lower and affordable housing is scarcer.
In 31 mid-sized cities, rents rose by more than 11 percent over the past year, nearly double the national average.
Economists point to remote work, which has allowed people to move to cheaper places, and to a shortage of new construction. The people most affected, they say, are those who were already there.
When the last paper in Marlow County folded, a retired printer, a school librarian and two hundred neighbours decided to start another. This is how they did it, and what it cost.
After 87 years, a family-run cannery says it cannot afford another one. The town is trying to find a way to keep it open.
A new generation of plants can recover nearly all the metals in a spent battery. The bottleneck is no longer technology; it is collection.
Hundreds of small, reader-funded newsrooms have launched in five years. A new survey shows what they have in common, and what keeps them alive.
