EXCERPT: “Affordable housing is tougher to find in much of rural America—home to about a fifth of the nation’s population—than in the country’s big cities and prominent suburbs. ‘Rural areas across the country have not recovered from the Great Recession as well as bigger cities [have],’ says Bob Rapoza, executive secretary of the National Rural Housing Coalition, a Washington, DC–based membership organization. ‘There are fewer people who want to live there.’ And those who do face a vicious cycle: The population decline means that no one is investing in these small towns, whether it’s to build houses or offer mortgages. Employers aren’t inclined to move to depressed areas and, of course, the reason that people left in the first place was a lack of good jobs. But rural living still holds a lure primarily for those who grew up there, and for some just looking for a change. Here are the main hurdles that they’ll face.” FULLSTORY: http://bit.ly/2DkIbUX
