My hometown of South Lake Tahoe has experienced a major housing market boom, an event that led me with the impression that those of means were vacating cities en masse and buying up property in small towns. Tales of people fleeing dense cities for regions with low COVID-19 rates have been widespread. New York City and San Francisco, for example, have each experienced plummeting median rent prices as residents escaped to quieter, less crowded neighborhoods. But a mass exodus of city dwellers isn’t the only demographic shift we’re seeing come from this pandemic. The skyrocketing price of property in South Lake Tahoe can help us understand how small towns are impacted by transplants from cities, for better or worse.