Sprawl made the American Sunbelt inexpensive. Now it’s breaking it.

For the final half-century, America’s population growth has been concentrated within the sweltering, equal parts bone-dry and waterlogged, but ever-sprawling Sunbelt. Undeterred by the bounds of hydrology or local weather, metro areas from Las Vegas to Miami have gotten one factor undeniably proper. They’ve lengthy led the country in housing development, leading to a relative plenitude and affordability that shames coastal cities in California and the Northeast, in addition to a booming business of takes imploring blue cities to learn from red states on housing.