MURFREESBORO, Tennessee. This bucolic town, 30 miles southeast of Nashville, Tennessee, was once again known for its nearby Civil War battlefield and its state college. It is now one of the fastest growing places in the country.
Rising housing costs and remote labor send crowds of people to live in lush new fast-growing neighborhoods of southeastern metropolitan areas, where suburban life has long been concentrated closer from the city.
Nashville, Charlotte, NC, Charleston, SC, and Jacksonville, Florida, are among the places where the type of residential development with outer rings was found that was only found in the largest cities in the country.
In 2020, net migration to a large group of ex-urban counties increased 37 percent, according to an analysis of U.S. Postal Service permanent change of direction data by The Wall Street Journal. Nearly two-thirds of the flow came from large cities and their nearby suburbs.
Exurban areas, which include 240 counties defined by the Brookings Institution, have grown nearly twice the national rate over the past decade, a change that began before the pandemic. There are indications that it is accelerating this year, as Americans are preparing for a projected post-pandemic outlook, where increasing work from home reduces the need to travel.