How are people distributed in America’s urban areas? A recent Mortgage Bankers Association “Chart of the Week” took a closer look and found that just under a quarter of US households live in relatively dense urban areas and they are twice as likely to live in multifamily housing (compared to suburbanites). As for diversity in urban housing markets, 33% are Hispanic (17% nationally), 17% Black (12% nationally), 10% Asian (5% nationally) and 3% non-Hispanic, non-White racial and ethnic groups (3% nationally). Thirty-eight percent of the population in urban housing markets identifies as non-Hispanic White.
“Every community and housing market in America is different, but they come in types. To better understand America’s housing markets, we segment its neighborhoods by the type and density of housing in a new series of short papers. We choose to look at the built environment, as opposed to the characteristics of neighborhood occupants, because these structural aspects of our cities are enduring, lend themselves to different sorts of living arrangements and different types of financing.”
