> within an hour of a bigger city, but small enough where the real estate is still reasonably priced

This is more rare than you would think, depending on your definitions of "bigger city" and "reasonably priced". It's definitely more rare than it used to be.

Part of that is the increase in housing prices, as detailed in this and other articles. But part of it is a contraction of what's "within an hour", due to crumbling public transit infrastructure.