America’s capital of cheap retail is confronting an affordability crunch.
The cost of housing in Walmart’s base of north-west Arkansas has shot up by 60 per cent in the past five years with 33 people moving there every day. Houses within pedalling distance of the retailer’s new bike-friendly headquarters are on the market for more than $1mn — more than double the national average.
The rising prices reflect north-west Arkansas’ transformation from a rural backwater into a metropolis enriched by Walmart’s commercial success and investment from the billionaire descendants of the company’s founder, Sam Walton. The region’s job growth, art museum, new medical school and cycling trails around the Ozark Mountains have lured highly paid workers to its streets.