Small towns with affordable home prices beckon remote workers

Score a victory for Mayberry. America’s small towns, like the iconic setting of television’s The Andy Griffith Show from the 1960s, saw more in-migration in 2023 than larger areas for the first time in decades. The remote work boom that prompted Americans to flee urban areas for mountain hamlets and seaside towns during the pandemic continued at least through last year, according to University of Virginia demographer Hamilton Lombard. An estimated 291,400 people last year migrated from other areas into America’s small towns and rural areas, which Lombard defines as...