Locally though there are areas that have grown quite a bit compared to others, the average misses nuance. LA has grown by a million people since 1970, while chicago has lost almost as much in that time. Are things more affordable than Chicago in Southern California? Certainly not, even if economically speaking the region is "more productive" by whatever measure.
Really what makes things cheap is a simple formulaic application of supply and demand to things like housing, which takes up the bulk of the American take home pay bar almost nothing else in comparison. Boomers had things cheap not because of riding off a population boom, but a home building boom, that zoning changes in the decades since have made impossible to replicate.
Really what makes things cheap is a simple formulaic application of supply and demand to things like housing, which takes up the bulk of the American take home pay bar almost nothing else in comparison. Boomers had things cheap not because of riding off a population boom, but a home building boom, that zoning changes in the decades since have made impossible to replicate.