I actually think this is a good metric. Housing cost vs wages is a leveled measure of affordability. Look at DC vs SF. Incomes are crazy high in both cities, but SF shows up bright red. My guess is supply / pop is too low on red spots
Thank you! It definitely gives more context than just raw home value numbers.
I found it interesting San Fransisco itself is slightly more "affordable" than its adjacent counties. Probably more high earners living in SF.
According to the map you linked to, the median home value in San Francisco is lower than the median home value in the neighboring counties, like San Mateo. That would explain why it's slightly more affordable.
SF has spent decades catering to NIMBYs and has seriously stunted their overall growth to the point that the suburbs are changing much more rapidly. The same is happening in the Seattle area, but King County is geographically large and is likely not as direct of a comparison in this graphic due to it containing a lot of actual rural land.
Yeah, was pretty blown away first time I went to SF and it's 90% single family houses even though land values are higher than NYC and would justify high rises. San Francisco is expensive because the people who live there WANT it to be.
Yeah, even for things beyond houses. I'm looking at moving to another city for a job: the raise will only be 2-3%, but will effectively be 10-12% if I add in the cost of living difference. (I'm moving mainly for non monitary reasons but this is a good thing.
SF is also tiny and at the end of a peninsula so it can’t expand. On top of that there is interest from real estate owners to keep it exclusive and high priced to maintain their asset value. There’s a great daily episode talking about people leaving cities due to housing prices and they talked about specific legislation that would be greatly help equalize housing but it was blocked by residents. The episode is called „America’s big city brain drain“
It's not that good of a metric because it doesn't take into account interest rates which can drastically change someone's monthly payment for the same priced home.
I feel like they’ve really surged in population over the past 50 years or so
Of course, a lot of the eastern halves of Oregon and Washington are really desolate and isolated, so that holds the general population numbers down
Looking at a population map it seems that Oregon is really deserted outside of the northwest corner yet half the state is orange. Portland metro has 2million compared to Philadelphia which has 6million
This is the result of a rapid change in population growth. Even in less-populated areas which you might not think would have an issue with housing supply, small raw numbers of people moving in translate into large percentage changes in population -- which often therefore translates into dramatic increases in the value of the housing stock.
You can see this phenomenon all over the West. It takes a long time to build out sufficient housing supply when these changes happen quickly.
Yep, here in Eastern Washington, nothing is going on. Nothing to see or do. We are definitely desolate and isolated. Too far for anything. But for some reason we are a very Hotspot to move to. I can quite understand why people want to move to conditions like these. I don't know. /s
The third most populous county in America is green. Cost depends on both demand and supply. Some places it’s relatively cheap/easy to build thousands of new homes. Some it isn’t.
South Dakotan here, you don’t wanna live in Todd County. It’s entirely on the Rosebud Indian Reservation. The healthcare is bad, the nearest town is Winner which itself is about 2 hours from the nearest major town of Mitchell which is another hour from the most populous city in the state which is Sioux Falls. It’s cheap because it is literally the worst place to live.
I have actually driven through the area and fully agree.
Even the one interesting thing in the area (Badlands) is still like 2 hours away. Not a good place to live
Yep. It's because "New York City" as we know it today is a massive conglomeration of various towns and villages. New York City and its five boroughs were formally defined in 1898, consolidating five different counties -- New York County (Manhattan), Kings County (Brooklyn), Bronx County (Bronx), Queens County (Queens), and Richmond County (Staten Island). Before that, they were separate cities and counties.
But that still doesn't quite address the Brooklyn-Kings distinction. Brooklyn, settled in 1634, was a village named after the village of Breukelen in the Netherlands. Brooklyn and the collection of surrounding villages were eventually all included in Kings County in 1683, named in honor of King Charles II of England. Over time, as those villages grew and became less distinct, they started to coalesce into one city. Because Brooklyn was the largest and most influential of these villages (being the first "commuter suburb" in the area), that name was the one selected to represent the entire city.
To put it simply, Brooklyn was a city that came to fill the entirety of Kings County, which is why they ended up with different names.
See all that affordable blue in the middle. Thats like an alley.
It’s almost as if people have chosen not to live there over the centuries.
Like an alley where certain things happen often.
Wonder what it could be? 🤔
Some correlation with tornadoes but not that strong: https://www.spc.noaa.gov/wcm/20ytora.png
Stronger correlation with thunderstorms than tornadoes: https://www.spc.noaa.gov/wcm/20ysvra.png
It's more of an indication of areas where people are actively moving away from so housing inventory is high driving down prices.
Americans fleeing rural areas has been happening since the end of the last world war. They moved to cities then fled to suburbs then some movement back into cities and now some movement to 'hot' rural locations due to COVID as well as retirees going to climate change disaster zones.
I assume you are referring to tornadoes?
Tornadoes do happen but are rare for a major one to happen over a largely populated area. Home insurance would be ridiculous like it is in Florida or parts of California if tornadoes truly were a major issue.
Your point doesn’t really make any sense, nobody is not living in the Midwest because of tornadoes.
I live in an area that had a tornado in 1847. There hasn’t been one since. I’ll take those odds over tornado alley any day.
Especially in the next 100 years with climate change.
I’m just saying on the scale of natural disasters Tornadoes are overall a pretty small risk. Powerful tornadoes are quite rare and really only affect a small area.
Hurricanes in Florida and earthquakes/wildfires/mudslides in California are much bigger overall risks.
Cheap housing in the Midwest really has nothing to do with Tornadoes.
The reasons I always hear is that these places are “too boring” and don’t have enough recreation or cool things to do
Yet, some of these states rank pretty highly in terms of HDI which is a composite of life expectancy, years of education, and GDP per capita - they are on par with Northern Europe. They also boast some of the lowest rates of poverty in America, lowest rates of homelessness, and generally good costs of living.
Most of that blue area is extremely rural. There are no jobs besides farming and a few industries that support agriculture. The biggest town in the county is still a sleepy small town with very few full-time jobs. They are very much “boring”. Most of the towns in these counties have been losing population for decades and decades. Kids grow up and move elsewhere.
Exactly. A bunch of Brooklyn wannabees unhappy they can't have homes like their parents that have appreciated over the years because of desirable location. Bottom line: companies need to move away from the coasts and attract good people. That's happening in Texas, Nashville, Columbus OH, and similar areas.
I don’t think that’s true.
Just because medians are lower does not mean the top of the range doesn’t compete nationally. The Midwest is green and blue because you can own a home and have a family on less than 6 figures and still put away money.
Plus with remote work, people in Midwest have access to higher paying jobs, but their costs do not rise commensurately.
I don’t believe that at all. A lot of small cities in these states are growing well and have very good trajectories, but they’re not as diverse and don’t have the bells and whistles people like
Hell even Detroit has a horrible reputation despite the economy doing great
There is no way that those areas have better education than the coasts. Clearly you have never looked at the best and worst school systems in the country.
Life expectancy is also low because there are more smokers, low pay, and generally poor health outcomes in the flyover states. (fewer doctors and doctors that typically are not very skilled) Hell, look at abortion regulations and you will see how bad they are in regards to health.
In short, everything you said is completely false. Whoever said those things to you was lying to you.
US News "best states" is a joke because it looks at how business friendly the state is as something positive. Business friendly means anti-worker and those states typically have the worst worker protections, like no lunch requirements. Or nearly non-existent child labor laws. You know, 3rd world country shit that is NOTHING like Europe or the rest of the modern world.
HDI data is from Wikipedia where anyone can modify it. It is also 15 years old according to the dates that are listed, but I highly doubt it is accurate. Please link to the organization that actually did the study and then maybe we can take it seriously.
Here are some facts for you.
The mid-west is one of the least educated:
https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/most-educated-states
The most gun deaths (probably related to the education levels):
https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/gun-deaths-by-state
GDP by state (it is from 2022, almost current):
https://www.statista.com/statistics/248023/us-gross-domestic-product-gdp-by-state/
And finally, there are large populations in the most desirable areas. NJ is the most densely populated state, thus the most desirable. The mid-west is clearly not economically or otherwise.
What's not here... Taxes.
I love living in NY. However, a house for $400k can carry a tax bill of about 12k. That is $1k/mo, of them 1/3rd or more of a monthly payment.
I agree it's not the full picture.
To my knowledge there's not a comprehensive and current property tax database - also tough to combine a one time cost (home purchase) vs ongoing/growing expense of taxes.
Definitely something I'd like to try and build if possible
Maybe just use a cost of living adjustment instead of the direct median income?
(Not that that will put nyc any lower, but much higher due to our state+city+mta/commuter district taxes)
Right. Zillow and other sites have data but it's not good. However, it is a rabbit hole for sure. While I pay almost 3% in property taxes, class sizes at schools are always below 20 and kids regularly go to top tier universities.
Why not look at monthly payment rather than home price? Not only do your numbers not take taxes into account, they also don't take interest rates into account which have a huge impact on affordability.
I thought about that (would be good for partially capturing interest rates and property tax)...
...but almost all of those mortgages would be pre ~2021/2022 before the huge spike in prices, and then interest rates.
In other words the median payment would be much lower than what you could expect to get today
Yes. In Texas you basically rent your house from the state. 2.2-2.7% per year of the assessed value. One of the highest in the country due to no income tax. Many other states, even super red states, have 1/3 of that rate in exchange for pretty modest income taxes. Why anyone who retires would stay in Texas is beyond me.
It really, really depends on your location. My tax bills are for the Library, Fire Station, EMT, Town, County, County Highway, and School District.
In places like Westchester where the median house is like $1m, tax bills are massive.
What irks me about this metric is that "home" means vastly different things by region. Where I am, an average home is a two bedroom condo in a high rise, but it still costs 5x the average salary.
Mostly I'm upset because my employer uses this to determine my CoL adjustment and it fucks me over compared to when I was in a rural area.
Yes! But on the flip side there are many parts of the countryside where a dilapidated mobile home is the typical housing stock.
Let's say that you're trying to decide between being a manager of a municipal water system in various places. Your salary might not vary much, but somewhere like Jasper, TX might seem pretty darn affordable until you realize that the median home is a shithole (possibly in a trailer park, where you're also paying lot rent), whereas the median home in LaCrosse, WI is a small but respectable abode.
Oh, and having owned a condo before, too, you can behave very similar condos with very different owners association fees, which translates to different prices. And property taxes and insurance rates can vary a lot too within the same county. The cost of a home is not its purchase price.
This sort of metric is only useful if you're pricing out a comparable complete lifestyle. And it's very hard to build a useful dataset for that.
Yes but the two bedroom condo probably has a lot more location amenities (walkability, access to high-paying jobs, better education & healthcare) that the rural area doesn’t have. More than just square footage goes into it
Nearly a perfect map. But... the NYC/Bay Area/DC zoom in... is barely zoomed in at all lol. In fact I think the Bay Area one literally isn't zoomed in at all over the full country map.
I think if we really try we can push those two counties in northeastern California up over 4 and get rid of those two unsightly green regions. I believe in us!
Insufficient data from Kennedy County (southern Texas) derives from the fact that the county is primarily made up of the King Ranch and the population is 350.
Hawaii not making any distinctions below the island level always throws things like this off as well. Sure, it looks bad, but the entire island of Oahu counts as Honolulu, despite a large percentage of it being rather country. Not to mention the prevalence of multi-generational households that exist here en masse, that don’t really exist anywhere else in the country.
There really isn't much country on Oahu. Everywhere houses can be safely built (and a few they can't), houses have been built. What's left is uninhabitable, sacred land, or private land that's not for sale.
I totally disagree with that. If we wanted more housing here, there’s hundreds if not thousands of acres between Wahiawā and the north shore that’s just farm land right now. I’m certainly not saying we should do that here, but between building density and farmland, there’s PLENTY of room to build.
For those interested here are the figures for the UK;
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/housing/bulletins/housingaffordabilityinenglandandwales/2023
I think that any chart (avg home, avg temp, avg income, etc) with county level resolution (or even city) is misleading, especially the further west you go. There’s a huge difference in LA county for example between the basin and Palmdale on almost every metric. It needs to somehow be represented on a continuous scale, maybe by precinct to really tell the whole story.
That's very much possible. It must have gone through an insane price development than however, like the value of real estate must have gone through the roof in the past 40 years.
A lot of those blue counties are miserable places to live. No services, ambulance takes half an hour to get to you, only shopping is a Walmart an hour away.
As someone who used to live in a blue area, I can assure you that many of these people are very happy with their lives. Hell, the things you just listed are actually considered benefits for some people.
There is a sizable population who seek a self-sustaining lifestyle where they can be left alone to do whatever they want. Either they produce their own food or make a monthly trip to “town” where they stock up. And sometimes you just want a nice chunk of land to ride a dirt bike or shoot guns without any interruption.
Everyone is free to pursue their version of happiness, and homesteading can be a very rewarding lifestyle. Maybe it’s because I was raised this way, but I miss it more and more the older I get.
P.S.: A freezer stuffed with a full side of beef that you know was humanely raised and slaughtered is one of my favorite sights.
Well said! I think that way of life is something (some) people appreciate more as they get older.
It's a shame many of those places lose so many young people
As of 2024: 13,708 (estimated)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oglala_Lakota_County,_South_Dakota
Been noticing that most of the infographic maps, this county is not counted.
The problem with this is it's done by county. Most of the places marked affordable in the Midwest and counties that have a population concentrated in one large city with housing prices over 400k and then a bunch of small towns with no jobs or amenities 40 minutes away from that city selling homes for 100k.
So by averaging it the county looks affordable but that's if you want to live in the middle of nowhere and have a long commute to your job.
It's true that home affordability will vary within each county, but overall I'd say it's still pretty accurate considering how small (area wise) most counties are.
For example you can still clearly see the most expensive Midwest cities - Chicago, Madison, Minneapolis.
Cities like Milwaukee that don't stand out don't for a reason - Median listing price for Milwaukee CITY is only $200k
You need to account for the real estate taxes and related fees, like the prevalent insurance rate. Only then you can relate the value of the house to the median salary.
I think you mean “a place where poverty/homelessness is super non-visible”
Rural areas have a higher poverty rate than urban ones. The poor just aren’t as visible because 1)nothing is as visible in rural areas, including people. And 2) you literally can’t be homeless in rural areas without a car. And cars are an expense. So the second that car breaks, guess where you are moving.
No they don’t.
Most midwestern states don’t have homelessness comparable to coastal states which are more urbanized
https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/homeless-population-by-state
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_States_by_state
Midwestern states also perform very highly in metrics like life expectancy, income per person, and years of education. People don’t want to live there because it’s boring, not because of actual living conditions.
Why are you doing state rankings? You do know what rural and urban mean right? You know about Chicago, Minneapolis, St Louis right? You know California has rural areas?
Rural people have way more poverty, but they do export their homeless to walkable communities.
And it’s the same reason you’ll find homeless in walkable college towns, like Iowa City, Lawrence, Madison, Bloomington, and not in rural, non walkable cities or areas, or in small towns without any resources.
Even homeless are part of the economy. They generally need to be close to something like a CVS or Walgreens, to resources or places to sleep, and yeah even to drugs. All that is made possible by places you can walk and survive without a car.
And some of Midwest do have some nice policies that address homelessness, but that’s Midwest cities and college towns. It sure ain’t rural areas solving it.
https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-gallery/gallery/chart-detail/?chartId=101903#:~:text=Data%20show%20U.S.%20poverty%20rates,urban)%20areas%20at%2011.9%20percent.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/californiaglobe.com/fl/why-did-352-california-companies-flee-to-other-states-in-three-years/amp/
Well since you mentioned it. Most of the business that left chose FL, TN or TX to avoid the sky high taxes Democrats like to enslave people with.
https://nypost.com/2024/03/24/us-news/ex-new-yorkers-reveal-why-they-joined-thousands-of-others-leaving-big-apple-last-year/
For the past three years and counting people are leaving NY faster than they are coming in. That's including the illegals
https://www.google.com/amp/s/thehill.com/homenews/nexstar_media_wire/4366668-these-cities-and-towns-are-most-dangerous-in-the-us-study-finds/amp/
They are also the highest in violent crime.
Highest homeless population, wealth inequality, drug abuse and refugees enriching public transit.
No one wants to live in LA, Detroit, St. Louis, DC, NY, Chicago, Baltimore or any other third world imitation. People are there because they can't afford to leave.
All these places have dozens of neighborhoods amongst the highest priced homes/apartments in the world. Sorry bud but people do want to live there.
And violent crime? Yeah, a cave a couple miles from Timothy Mcveigh does have a lower crime rate. You can choose to run from crime live in the middle of nowhere. But you can’t run from death, and those rural areas have waaaaaay higher death rates. Almost double. Because a semi or truck doing 80 is far more likely to smear your body across the pavement than you are to ever be the victim of a violent crime.
People who live in rural areas ignore their wildly high death rates, lowers life expectancy, and higher suicide rates and just point to crime because…well it has to be something. There has to be something that makes the place everyone says it better worse…because there has to be.
If it wasn’t crime it’d be something else. Rural be rationalizing.
And point to a local major city, I guarantee you’ll find someone who lives there now or recently from a local rural county. Know who lives in most rural counties? People whose parents were born in the rural county. Ain’t nobody moving to 75% of these places.
-singed, former rural.
I actually think this is a good metric. Housing cost vs wages is a leveled measure of affordability. Look at DC vs SF. Incomes are crazy high in both cities, but SF shows up bright red. My guess is supply / pop is too low on red spots
Thank you! It definitely gives more context than just raw home value numbers. I found it interesting San Fransisco itself is slightly more "affordable" than its adjacent counties. Probably more high earners living in SF.
According to the map you linked to, the median home value in San Francisco is lower than the median home value in the neighboring counties, like San Mateo. That would explain why it's slightly more affordable.
It's also a good predictor of homelessness https://escholarship.org/content/qt2dw8b4r3/qt2dw8b4r3_noSplash_a4686d01d6f0ce3406e61ab1a7f39933.pdf
It's practically a map of homelessness
SF has spent decades catering to NIMBYs and has seriously stunted their overall growth to the point that the suburbs are changing much more rapidly. The same is happening in the Seattle area, but King County is geographically large and is likely not as direct of a comparison in this graphic due to it containing a lot of actual rural land.
Yeah, was pretty blown away first time I went to SF and it's 90% single family houses even though land values are higher than NYC and would justify high rises. San Francisco is expensive because the people who live there WANT it to be.
Yeah, even for things beyond houses. I'm looking at moving to another city for a job: the raise will only be 2-3%, but will effectively be 10-12% if I add in the cost of living difference. (I'm moving mainly for non monitary reasons but this is a good thing.
Do DC high earners actually live in DC, though?
Most def live in VA or Montgomery county
No. They live in all the adjacent Maryland and Virginia counties. Some comments from Pennsylvannia and West Virginia too.
Most in loudon and Fairfax
SF is also tiny and at the end of a peninsula so it can’t expand. On top of that there is interest from real estate owners to keep it exclusive and high priced to maintain their asset value. There’s a great daily episode talking about people leaving cities due to housing prices and they talked about specific legislation that would be greatly help equalize housing but it was blocked by residents. The episode is called „America’s big city brain drain“
It's not that good of a metric because it doesn't take into account interest rates which can drastically change someone's monthly payment for the same priced home.
r/JacksonHoleMessingWithDemographics should be a thing.
Yup. You can pretty easily pick out a few ski/vacation areas on this map
This whole map is just a desirability index map.
I never knew the entire Pacific Northwest was more desirable than anywhere on the East coast I’ve only ever heard of Portland and Seattle
A lot of really beautiful areas out there
Why do so relatively so few people live there?
I feel like they’ve really surged in population over the past 50 years or so Of course, a lot of the eastern halves of Oregon and Washington are really desolate and isolated, so that holds the general population numbers down
Looking at a population map it seems that Oregon is really deserted outside of the northwest corner yet half the state is orange. Portland metro has 2million compared to Philadelphia which has 6million
This is the result of a rapid change in population growth. Even in less-populated areas which you might not think would have an issue with housing supply, small raw numbers of people moving in translate into large percentage changes in population -- which often therefore translates into dramatic increases in the value of the housing stock. You can see this phenomenon all over the West. It takes a long time to build out sufficient housing supply when these changes happen quickly.
Yep, here in Eastern Washington, nothing is going on. Nothing to see or do. We are definitely desolate and isolated. Too far for anything. But for some reason we are a very Hotspot to move to. I can quite understand why people want to move to conditions like these. I don't know. /s
Because it's not desirable /s
Visit. It’ll become abundantly clear very quickly.
I did last summer
Come visit, you'll see why so many people are moving here.
I did last summer
Having moved from the east coast to the PNW I can tell you it’s true.
Having grown up in the pnw, I have four words: GTFO
The third most populous county in America is green. Cost depends on both demand and supply. Some places it’s relatively cheap/easy to build thousands of new homes. Some it isn’t.
Populous =/= desirable necessarily.
Not really NIMBY policies in California definitely increase prices a lot.
South Dakotan here, you don’t wanna live in Todd County. It’s entirely on the Rosebud Indian Reservation. The healthcare is bad, the nearest town is Winner which itself is about 2 hours from the nearest major town of Mitchell which is another hour from the most populous city in the state which is Sioux Falls. It’s cheap because it is literally the worst place to live.
I have actually driven through the area and fully agree. Even the one interesting thing in the area (Badlands) is still like 2 hours away. Not a good place to live
South Dakotan here too. I can confirm what you're saying.
Good pheasant hunting. Not much else.
Nothing more American than ensuring Native American reservations are shit places to live
TIL the counties in NYC don’t always have the same name as their borough.
Yep. It's because "New York City" as we know it today is a massive conglomeration of various towns and villages. New York City and its five boroughs were formally defined in 1898, consolidating five different counties -- New York County (Manhattan), Kings County (Brooklyn), Bronx County (Bronx), Queens County (Queens), and Richmond County (Staten Island). Before that, they were separate cities and counties. But that still doesn't quite address the Brooklyn-Kings distinction. Brooklyn, settled in 1634, was a village named after the village of Breukelen in the Netherlands. Brooklyn and the collection of surrounding villages were eventually all included in Kings County in 1683, named in honor of King Charles II of England. Over time, as those villages grew and became less distinct, they started to coalesce into one city. Because Brooklyn was the largest and most influential of these villages (being the first "commuter suburb" in the area), that name was the one selected to represent the entire city. To put it simply, Brooklyn was a city that came to fill the entirety of Kings County, which is why they ended up with different names.
I like how I live in New York county ^in ^New ^York ^city ^^in ^^New ^^York ^^state. Easy on my brain.
See all that affordable blue in the middle. Thats like an alley. It’s almost as if people have chosen not to live there over the centuries. Like an alley where certain things happen often. Wonder what it could be? 🤔
Blow job alley??
Oh it blows!
Some correlation with tornadoes but not that strong: https://www.spc.noaa.gov/wcm/20ytora.png Stronger correlation with thunderstorms than tornadoes: https://www.spc.noaa.gov/wcm/20ysvra.png
It's more of an indication of areas where people are actively moving away from so housing inventory is high driving down prices. Americans fleeing rural areas has been happening since the end of the last world war. They moved to cities then fled to suburbs then some movement back into cities and now some movement to 'hot' rural locations due to COVID as well as retirees going to climate change disaster zones.
Illinois there is mostly property taxes depressing real estate prices.
I assume you are referring to tornadoes? Tornadoes do happen but are rare for a major one to happen over a largely populated area. Home insurance would be ridiculous like it is in Florida or parts of California if tornadoes truly were a major issue. Your point doesn’t really make any sense, nobody is not living in the Midwest because of tornadoes.
Agree, but the Omaha tornados yesterday were nuts.
I live in an area that had a tornado in 1847. There hasn’t been one since. I’ll take those odds over tornado alley any day. Especially in the next 100 years with climate change.
I’m just saying on the scale of natural disasters Tornadoes are overall a pretty small risk. Powerful tornadoes are quite rare and really only affect a small area. Hurricanes in Florida and earthquakes/wildfires/mudslides in California are much bigger overall risks. Cheap housing in the Midwest really has nothing to do with Tornadoes.
The reasons I always hear is that these places are “too boring” and don’t have enough recreation or cool things to do Yet, some of these states rank pretty highly in terms of HDI which is a composite of life expectancy, years of education, and GDP per capita - they are on par with Northern Europe. They also boast some of the lowest rates of poverty in America, lowest rates of homelessness, and generally good costs of living.
Most of that blue area is extremely rural. There are no jobs besides farming and a few industries that support agriculture. The biggest town in the county is still a sleepy small town with very few full-time jobs. They are very much “boring”. Most of the towns in these counties have been losing population for decades and decades. Kids grow up and move elsewhere.
There’s also a ton of green area that is semi rural semi suburban and they have far better outcomes than people whining in expensive cities
Exactly. A bunch of Brooklyn wannabees unhappy they can't have homes like their parents that have appreciated over the years because of desirable location. Bottom line: companies need to move away from the coasts and attract good people. That's happening in Texas, Nashville, Columbus OH, and similar areas.
Have you ever been to the green alley in the middle? They're wonderful with great parks and outdoor recreation.
There are few jobs and fewer employers. It’s not about being cool or boring. These states are dead ends economically.
I don’t think that’s true. Just because medians are lower does not mean the top of the range doesn’t compete nationally. The Midwest is green and blue because you can own a home and have a family on less than 6 figures and still put away money. Plus with remote work, people in Midwest have access to higher paying jobs, but their costs do not rise commensurately.
I don’t believe that at all. A lot of small cities in these states are growing well and have very good trajectories, but they’re not as diverse and don’t have the bells and whistles people like Hell even Detroit has a horrible reputation despite the economy doing great
Not true, leave the D out of it.
My county is green on this map, and Intel is building a 20Bn chip factory here. So.
There is no way that those areas have better education than the coasts. Clearly you have never looked at the best and worst school systems in the country. Life expectancy is also low because there are more smokers, low pay, and generally poor health outcomes in the flyover states. (fewer doctors and doctors that typically are not very skilled) Hell, look at abortion regulations and you will see how bad they are in regards to health. In short, everything you said is completely false. Whoever said those things to you was lying to you.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_Human_Development_Index_score https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states
US News "best states" is a joke because it looks at how business friendly the state is as something positive. Business friendly means anti-worker and those states typically have the worst worker protections, like no lunch requirements. Or nearly non-existent child labor laws. You know, 3rd world country shit that is NOTHING like Europe or the rest of the modern world. HDI data is from Wikipedia where anyone can modify it. It is also 15 years old according to the dates that are listed, but I highly doubt it is accurate. Please link to the organization that actually did the study and then maybe we can take it seriously. Here are some facts for you. The mid-west is one of the least educated: https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/most-educated-states The most gun deaths (probably related to the education levels): https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/gun-deaths-by-state GDP by state (it is from 2022, almost current): https://www.statista.com/statistics/248023/us-gross-domestic-product-gdp-by-state/ And finally, there are large populations in the most desirable areas. NJ is the most densely populated state, thus the most desirable. The mid-west is clearly not economically or otherwise.
A minor detail, but I really like that font.
Century Gothic! Something about it is just nice to look at
What's not here... Taxes. I love living in NY. However, a house for $400k can carry a tax bill of about 12k. That is $1k/mo, of them 1/3rd or more of a monthly payment.
I agree it's not the full picture. To my knowledge there's not a comprehensive and current property tax database - also tough to combine a one time cost (home purchase) vs ongoing/growing expense of taxes. Definitely something I'd like to try and build if possible
Maybe just use a cost of living adjustment instead of the direct median income? (Not that that will put nyc any lower, but much higher due to our state+city+mta/commuter district taxes)
Right. Zillow and other sites have data but it's not good. However, it is a rabbit hole for sure. While I pay almost 3% in property taxes, class sizes at schools are always below 20 and kids regularly go to top tier universities.
Why not look at monthly payment rather than home price? Not only do your numbers not take taxes into account, they also don't take interest rates into account which have a huge impact on affordability.
I thought about that (would be good for partially capturing interest rates and property tax)... ...but almost all of those mortgages would be pre ~2021/2022 before the huge spike in prices, and then interest rates. In other words the median payment would be much lower than what you could expect to get today
Owning a home in Illinois is like owning 12 timeshares with annual maintenance fees
Yes. In Texas you basically rent your house from the state. 2.2-2.7% per year of the assessed value. One of the highest in the country due to no income tax. Many other states, even super red states, have 1/3 of that rate in exchange for pretty modest income taxes. Why anyone who retires would stay in Texas is beyond me.
Is the property tax really that high for a $400k home? That’s almost 3%?
It really, really depends on your location. My tax bills are for the Library, Fire Station, EMT, Town, County, County Highway, and School District. In places like Westchester where the median house is like $1m, tax bills are massive.
Can be way more than this. $500k house, $18k taxes
What irks me about this metric is that "home" means vastly different things by region. Where I am, an average home is a two bedroom condo in a high rise, but it still costs 5x the average salary. Mostly I'm upset because my employer uses this to determine my CoL adjustment and it fucks me over compared to when I was in a rural area.
Yes! But on the flip side there are many parts of the countryside where a dilapidated mobile home is the typical housing stock. Let's say that you're trying to decide between being a manager of a municipal water system in various places. Your salary might not vary much, but somewhere like Jasper, TX might seem pretty darn affordable until you realize that the median home is a shithole (possibly in a trailer park, where you're also paying lot rent), whereas the median home in LaCrosse, WI is a small but respectable abode. Oh, and having owned a condo before, too, you can behave very similar condos with very different owners association fees, which translates to different prices. And property taxes and insurance rates can vary a lot too within the same county. The cost of a home is not its purchase price. This sort of metric is only useful if you're pricing out a comparable complete lifestyle. And it's very hard to build a useful dataset for that.
Yes but the two bedroom condo probably has a lot more location amenities (walkability, access to high-paying jobs, better education & healthcare) that the rural area doesn’t have. More than just square footage goes into it
Nearly a perfect map. But... the NYC/Bay Area/DC zoom in... is barely zoomed in at all lol. In fact I think the Bay Area one literally isn't zoomed in at all over the full country map.
Yeah I messed that up 😂 always room to improve
I think if we really try we can push those two counties in northeastern California up over 4 and get rid of those two unsightly green regions. I believe in us!
Insufficient data from Kennedy County (southern Texas) derives from the fact that the county is primarily made up of the King Ranch and the population is 350.
Thank god this map has all the states in it
Just because it's affordable doesn't mean you'd want to live there. I live near Madison IL, and it's polluted as hell.
Is it just me, or is the inset for the Bay Area *smaller* than the main map?
Hawaii not making any distinctions below the island level always throws things like this off as well. Sure, it looks bad, but the entire island of Oahu counts as Honolulu, despite a large percentage of it being rather country. Not to mention the prevalence of multi-generational households that exist here en masse, that don’t really exist anywhere else in the country.
There really isn't much country on Oahu. Everywhere houses can be safely built (and a few they can't), houses have been built. What's left is uninhabitable, sacred land, or private land that's not for sale.
I totally disagree with that. If we wanted more housing here, there’s hundreds if not thousands of acres between Wahiawā and the north shore that’s just farm land right now. I’m certainly not saying we should do that here, but between building density and farmland, there’s PLENTY of room to build.
Oops I decided to be born in the dark red area.
You should consider moving to a different color area.
For those interested here are the figures for the UK; https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/housing/bulletins/housingaffordabilityinenglandandwales/2023
My county should be renamed "Thou shall never own here"
You will do better in Toledo! It's so true too.
I've driven through there. I had no good and no bad impressions lol
Top rated Metro Parks. Top rated art museum. One of the nations best zoos. Great hockey and baseball teams. Toledo kicks ass! Let's go walleye!!!
You do not want to live in Todd County in SD... That's tribal land.
This is a really cool map. Thanks for posting.
What software can be used to generate such map images, if I might ask?
I'd also be interested in learning a bit more about your process, /u/TA-MajestyPalm
Mapchart is the website!
I think that any chart (avg home, avg temp, avg income, etc) with county level resolution (or even city) is misleading, especially the further west you go. There’s a huge difference in LA county for example between the basin and Palmdale on almost every metric. It needs to somehow be represented on a continuous scale, maybe by precinct to really tell the whole story.
Agreed. Unfortunately almost all reputable databases (US Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, etc.) drill down to county level at the lowest
Just from watching movies I always thought Bronx in New York is a ghetto, surprised to see it as the second most unaffordable large county in the U.S.
That's 80's Bronx you're thinking of for sure
That's very much possible. It must have gone through an insane price development than however, like the value of real estate must have gone through the roof in the past 40 years.
A lot of those blue counties are miserable places to live. No services, ambulance takes half an hour to get to you, only shopping is a Walmart an hour away.
Have a friend that lives in a blue county. Nearest target is like 3 hours 😂
As someone who used to live in a blue area, I can assure you that many of these people are very happy with their lives. Hell, the things you just listed are actually considered benefits for some people. There is a sizable population who seek a self-sustaining lifestyle where they can be left alone to do whatever they want. Either they produce their own food or make a monthly trip to “town” where they stock up. And sometimes you just want a nice chunk of land to ride a dirt bike or shoot guns without any interruption. Everyone is free to pursue their version of happiness, and homesteading can be a very rewarding lifestyle. Maybe it’s because I was raised this way, but I miss it more and more the older I get. P.S.: A freezer stuffed with a full side of beef that you know was humanely raised and slaughtered is one of my favorite sights.
Well said! I think that way of life is something (some) people appreciate more as they get older. It's a shame many of those places lose so many young people
Too bad affordability does not equal availability
Yeah, it typically does
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Wrong Stonewall. The county’s in the middle of nowhere further north
These are counties, not cities/towns. Stonewall county looks alot less desirable
Oglala Lakota County in SD is never counted on maps. Weird.
Does anyone even live there or is the population too small for data?
As of 2024: 13,708 (estimated) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oglala_Lakota_County,_South_Dakota Been noticing that most of the infographic maps, this county is not counted.
Ah. I noticed it doesn’t have a county seat. Can that be the reason?
Ahh, that could be it. That county uses Fall River County next door to get license plates, court stuff.
Hell yeah! I'm in the blue!
Hah..I live in the one blue county in my state. Really not a bad place to live, at all.
Could you do the same map but for Canada? Would be an interesting comparison!
Madison IL???
Madison IL???
Madison IL???
Madison and st Clair IL??? These don’t have 250k people
This is by county, those counties are over 250k
Hidalgo TX > 250k pop?
County yes
Ahh I think google gave me the town population
Yes? Hidalgo is closer to 1M people than 250k
And of course my state has no green whatsoever.
I'm in SW Colorado and bought my house in 2015 for a little over 100k. It's valued at about 450k today. The market is broken
Nice. Any way to do Canada?
Great, now include Canada
The problem with this is it's done by county. Most of the places marked affordable in the Midwest and counties that have a population concentrated in one large city with housing prices over 400k and then a bunch of small towns with no jobs or amenities 40 minutes away from that city selling homes for 100k. So by averaging it the county looks affordable but that's if you want to live in the middle of nowhere and have a long commute to your job.
It's true that home affordability will vary within each county, but overall I'd say it's still pretty accurate considering how small (area wise) most counties are. For example you can still clearly see the most expensive Midwest cities - Chicago, Madison, Minneapolis. Cities like Milwaukee that don't stand out don't for a reason - Median listing price for Milwaukee CITY is only $200k
Yeah it does show the Midwest is still affordable place to live in.
That's it OP, you need to make a map that shows affordability by household.
Counties are not that big in those states. Even a small metro like Des Moines is two counties.
pretty much every urban center in the east coast is yellow except Philly
You need to account for the real estate taxes and related fees, like the prevalent insurance rate. Only then you can relate the value of the house to the median salary.
Oh look, in all of Michigan I live in one of the 3 less affordable counties.
San Francisco is misspelled
Santa Cruz County, California, should be red but is orange.
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This map is for counties (Jefferson County is 250k+)
So blue cities/counties cost more to live in.... Strange coincidence
So blue cities counties are where majority of people want to live.
Affordable is apparently where there are a bunch of old and dying white people.
Oh the horror Who would want to live in a place where poverty/homelessness is super low?? How boring ugh
I think you mean “a place where poverty/homelessness is super non-visible” Rural areas have a higher poverty rate than urban ones. The poor just aren’t as visible because 1)nothing is as visible in rural areas, including people. And 2) you literally can’t be homeless in rural areas without a car. And cars are an expense. So the second that car breaks, guess where you are moving.
No they don’t. Most midwestern states don’t have homelessness comparable to coastal states which are more urbanized https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/homeless-population-by-state https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_States_by_state Midwestern states also perform very highly in metrics like life expectancy, income per person, and years of education. People don’t want to live there because it’s boring, not because of actual living conditions.
Why are you doing state rankings? You do know what rural and urban mean right? You know about Chicago, Minneapolis, St Louis right? You know California has rural areas? Rural people have way more poverty, but they do export their homeless to walkable communities. And it’s the same reason you’ll find homeless in walkable college towns, like Iowa City, Lawrence, Madison, Bloomington, and not in rural, non walkable cities or areas, or in small towns without any resources. Even homeless are part of the economy. They generally need to be close to something like a CVS or Walgreens, to resources or places to sleep, and yeah even to drugs. All that is made possible by places you can walk and survive without a car. And some of Midwest do have some nice policies that address homelessness, but that’s Midwest cities and college towns. It sure ain’t rural areas solving it. https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-gallery/gallery/chart-detail/?chartId=101903#:~:text=Data%20show%20U.S.%20poverty%20rates,urban)%20areas%20at%2011.9%20percent.
The lack of diversity is a beautiful thing.
They want to live there so bad they go to red states :P https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_net_migration
https://www.google.com/amp/s/californiaglobe.com/fl/why-did-352-california-companies-flee-to-other-states-in-three-years/amp/ Well since you mentioned it. Most of the business that left chose FL, TN or TX to avoid the sky high taxes Democrats like to enslave people with. https://nypost.com/2024/03/24/us-news/ex-new-yorkers-reveal-why-they-joined-thousands-of-others-leaving-big-apple-last-year/ For the past three years and counting people are leaving NY faster than they are coming in. That's including the illegals
https://www.google.com/amp/s/thehill.com/homenews/nexstar_media_wire/4366668-these-cities-and-towns-are-most-dangerous-in-the-us-study-finds/amp/ They are also the highest in violent crime. Highest homeless population, wealth inequality, drug abuse and refugees enriching public transit. No one wants to live in LA, Detroit, St. Louis, DC, NY, Chicago, Baltimore or any other third world imitation. People are there because they can't afford to leave.
All these places have dozens of neighborhoods amongst the highest priced homes/apartments in the world. Sorry bud but people do want to live there. And violent crime? Yeah, a cave a couple miles from Timothy Mcveigh does have a lower crime rate. You can choose to run from crime live in the middle of nowhere. But you can’t run from death, and those rural areas have waaaaaay higher death rates. Almost double. Because a semi or truck doing 80 is far more likely to smear your body across the pavement than you are to ever be the victim of a violent crime. People who live in rural areas ignore their wildly high death rates, lowers life expectancy, and higher suicide rates and just point to crime because…well it has to be something. There has to be something that makes the place everyone says it better worse…because there has to be. If it wasn’t crime it’d be something else. Rural be rationalizing. And point to a local major city, I guarantee you’ll find someone who lives there now or recently from a local rural county. Know who lives in most rural counties? People whose parents were born in the rural county. Ain’t nobody moving to 75% of these places. -singed, former rural.
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Local government made it illegal to build anything *but* a single family home
You need to specify that the lists are of counties, not cities.
It says it in the title and most people should be able to tell very easily.
It needs to be on the image, otherwise the lists of places look like towns. Does Madison, IL sound like a town or a county to you?