Housing prices cause many to flee big cities

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Nickel Diner in downtown Los Angeles. Photo by Ryan Vaarsi via Flickr/CC.

We got official word earlier this month about something most of us in LA already knew. Housing is ridiculously expensive here.

A new study by the listing site Redfin found middle class families in the area can only afford about 12 percent of homes on the market. Housing prices are up, while incomes in the area are stagnant. And that’s leading a lot of folks to find other, cheaper places to live – in many cases, far away from Los Angeles.

It’s part of something bigger going on in other parts of the country as well – where people are leaving expensive large cities, for cheaper, medium-sized markets.

Karen Weise chronicles this phenomenon in this week’s Bloomberg Businessweek, and spoke with KCRW’s Steve Chiotakis.

We also hear from Fred Turko, who moved from LA to Richmond, Va. last year so he and his girlfriend could afford to start a family, buy a home, and launch a food photography business.