A Comprehensive Look at Housing Market Conditions Across America’s Cities

Anita Yadavalli
Brenna Rivett
Christiana K. McFarland
National League of Cities

In this article, the authors present an example of using economic, demographic, and housing-market data to identify common socio-economic characteristics from among a dataset of 754 U.S. cities. The authors then match six categories of similar market types that they selected to a range of potential policy solutions of the type that local officials might consider. The paper presents one possible approach to developing a policy matrix, comparing market characteristics to potentially appropriate affordable housing and economic development strategies based on local needs. The approach here may help answer the question, “how can city governments start to approach the affordable housing problems of their residents?”