Rent Prices

My youngest son is moving to Little Rock to begin a DJ job at a radio station there. He went on an apartment search this week. Since he's a social kind of guy, and works a lot of hours with his job and extra jobs, I suggested he try to get a small apartment, since all he does is sleep there. He found a very small one bedroom for $530 a month.
That sound very high to me. But of course, I've been out of the rental market for years. When I married in 1974, our first apartment was $85 a month. It was a two car garage that had been converted into an apartment on this lady's house. She also put an adjoining door between the apt and her house, and since it only locked from her side, we suspected the whole time we lived there that the old lady had come in to snoop during the day when we were at work. I'd come home to find a kitchen cabinet rearranged, or something moved on the coffee table. One night there was a bad thunderstorm and she came running through the door into our living room. Lucky for us (and her) we were decent. We finally decided we needed to move, and our next apartment was a big jump to $120 a month, but it included utilities (also a one bedroom). After several moves due to job changes, etc, the last apartment I lived in was in 1984. It was a 3 bedroom, nice and roomy, for $375 a month including water, sewage, garbage, and cable. After that we bought a house, and our apartment days were over.
I guess I'm behind the times, then, on prices for rent. I know Alabama is very low compared to some other parts of the country, but I've been assured that $530 is not a bad price even for here, so it's probably a good price for Arkansas, too.
We have a townhome, 3 bedrooms, 3 baths. Due to some lucky circumstances, I paid the mortgage off a few years ago. Now and then, we talk about moving to a larger place. (This one is 1850 sq ft) Then we start to think about paying a mortgage payment and we change our minds.
I like not having the payment, but more than that it's a security thing to me. No matter what, I know we'll have a roof over our heads. It would be nice to have a larger place at Christmas, though.