{"title":"Decomposing Housing Unaffordability","authors":"Salim Furth","doi":"10.13060/23362839.2021.8.1.523","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"A US household is considered ‘rent burdened’ when its rent exceeds 30% of its income. This simple ratio can be decomposed to better understand the sources of unaffordability across space. To demonstrate this new approach, I rewrite the equation for rent burden as a sum of four factors: rent gap, income gap, excess size cost, and demographic baseline, and show that US rental unaffordability is mostly the result of low incomes. Focusing on the New England region, however, I show that high rent is the primary cause of unaffordability in high-cost, high-wage metro areas. This decomposition can help affordability advocates prioritise strategies appropriately across space.","PeriodicalId":37598,"journal":{"name":"Critical Housing Analysis","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Critical Housing Analysis","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.13060/23362839.2021.8.1.523","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"Social Sciences","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
A US household is considered ‘rent burdened’ when its rent exceeds 30% of its income. This simple ratio can be decomposed to better understand the sources of unaffordability across space. To demonstrate this new approach, I rewrite the equation for rent burden as a sum of four factors: rent gap, income gap, excess size cost, and demographic baseline, and show that US rental unaffordability is mostly the result of low incomes. Focusing on the New England region, however, I show that high rent is the primary cause of unaffordability in high-cost, high-wage metro areas. This decomposition can help affordability advocates prioritise strategies appropriately across space.
期刊介绍:
Critical Housing Analysis is a peer-reviewed academic journal focusing on critical and innovative housing research. The journal was launched in January 2014 and publishes two online issues annually. Critical Housing Analysis is published by the Institute of Sociology of the Czech Academy of Sciences. Critical Housing Analysis aims to provide on-line discussion space for researchers who come up with innovative, critical and challenging ideas and approaches in housing-related research. The unique function of this journal is to facilitate rapid feedback on critical and innovative ideas and methods developed by housing researchers around the world. We are especially keen to publish papers that provide: 1.Innovations in methods, theories and practices used in housing-related research. We especially welcome papers applying original research strategies (such as, mixed and interdisciplinary methods) and international comparisons with a strong sense for contextual and institutional differences. Papers should provide new and fresh research perspectives allowing a deeper understanding of housing markets, policies and systems. Innovations need to be justified but they could be “work in progress”, i.e. their findings may not yet have been fully verified. 2.Critiques of assumptions, methods and theories used in housing-related research. Such critical evaluations must be well-founded (empirically or by consistently logical argument) and convincing. However, there is no particular need to provide a solution to the problems that have been identified. 3.Critiques of applied housing practices and policies in particular cultural and institutional contexts, especially for those countries that are less represented in mainstream housing policy discourse. The critical assessment of policies must be analytical, should propose new perspectives and lead to wider policy implications.