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Is It Unethical to be a Digital Nomad?
Rising Housing Prices in the U.S. Have Led Many to Travel and Work Online. But Is It Ethical?
It was the early days of the Pandemic. I sat on a bench outside my local coffee shop, waiting for my order. Sat next to me was a guy dressed from head to toe in what someone from LA thinks a cowboy would wear. He was talking excitedly on his iPhone to someone.
“Dude, you have to get out here. It’s dirt cheap.”
[Garbled response from the person on the phone.]
“Yeah, how much do you want to spend? 3? 4?”
It took me a minute to realize that he was talking about millions, not hundreds of thousands. And that’s when I knew, at least for the foreseeable future, that I wouldn’t be able to buy a house in my hometown. The situation has only gotten worse since then.
That story has played out all over the country, in quaint little towns like Missoula and Asheville and thousands more like it, driving housing prices through the roof and displacing the locals.
From an article in my local newspaper:
“The median sales price of all homes sold in the Missoula urban area in 2021 was $450,000, an unprecedented 28.6% increase over 2020, when that number stood at…
