Data: Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University. Cartogram: Andrew Witherspoon/Axios
The rent is too damn high across huge swaths of conservative states, and it's getting worse fast.
Why it matters: The housing crisis gripping coastal cities has now gone national.
The big picture: “The lowest-income people have always had an absurdly high cost of living,” Whitney Airgood-Obrycki, a research associate at Harvard's Joint Center on Housing Studies, which produced the report, told Bloomberg.
- “But the affordability crisis that we’re seeing now is hitting middle-income renters, and it’s hitting them across the country.”
- Bloomberg notes: An "influx of high-income renters ... are increasingly delaying home ownership either out of choice or necessity, driving up rents by fueling competition for existing units and spurring new construction designed primarily for the upper end of the market."
By the numbers: The top 10 U.S. cities, in terms of their rising share of renters making $30,000 to $45,000 who pay more than 30% of their income on rent:
- Nashville
- Greenville, S.C.
- McAllen, Texas
- Boise City, Idaho
- Raleigh
- Denver
- Palm Bay, Fla.
- Austin
- Omaha
- Louisville
Go deeperThe new housing crisis
