Christian Caron, PhD

This interactive map visualizes housing market pressure across New York City, highlighting areas where residents may face greater difficulty finding available or affordable housing. Each area shown on the map represents a census tract—a small, statistical subdivision of a neighborhood typically containing 2,500 to 8,000 people, used by the U.S. Census Bureau to report local data.

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I created the index using four key indicators from the 2019-2023 Five-Year American Community Survey:

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• Rental vacancy rate: Availability of homes for rent

• For-sale vacancy rate: Availability of homes for purchase

• Median gross rent and median home value: Indicators of housing cost

• Percent of housing stock built in 2020 or later: A proxy for recent development activity, which often occurs in response to market pressure

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To combine these different measures into a single score, I used Principal Components Analysis (PCA), a statistical method that finds the strongest common pattern across variables. In simple terms, PCA helps summarize complex data into one clear, comparable index.

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Higher values indicate greater housing market pressure. Use the map below to explore how housing pressure varies across New York City.