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The affordable housing shortage is reshaping parts of rural America

A surge in home prices over the past several years is pushing homebuyers further out from city centers with big implications for America's small towns.

Farmers wearing overalls gathered for morning coffee, teenagers packed the local pizzeria after Friday night football games, and neighbors prayed together at church on Sunday. While the expansion of the suburbs is nothing new, a surge in home prices over the past several years has supercharged the trend, pushing homebuyers across the country further out from city centers to areas like Celina where land is cheaper and more plentiful and local barriers for developers tend to be lower. For those coming to Celina, which is about 40 miles north of Dallas, the development boom has provided a refuge from soaring housing prices, allowing newcomers to have the suburban lifestyle they are seeking at a lower cost than they could find elsewhere.

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