housing

One of the most difficult messages to convey in the housing conversation is that the largest share of people moving to the city are high-income households earning more than 120% AMI; those are households with six figure incomes. The trend impacts everything; it does potentially drive displacement of existing residents as newer households can out-compete existing lower income households, additionally higher income households consume more housing (sq/ft) than lower income households.

This trend of urbanization of higher income households is often invisible to existing residents. And it can seem counter-intuitive to many. The cultural expectation that when people succeed they move "out" is still commonly held even though it has not been true in a general sense for ~20 years.

“A 2023 survey from the National Association of Realtors found that 77 percent of respondents would pay a premium to live in a walkable neighborhood, and for Gen Z, that figure shot up to 92 percent." - NAR research, 2023

To help understand this phenomenon of household shift let's look at a highly correlating factor: educational attainment.

In June the City Commission received, with remarkably little fan faire, the second major update to the 2020 Housing Next study. This time the study includes estimates for the years 2025 through 2029.

It has been roughly six months since we last looked at the ZORI (Zillow Observed Rent Index) 👉here👈 where we compared across the cities of the Midwest. Here is a chart from the current data showing the value for the City of Grand Rapids vs. the Census Bureau's "Metropolitan Statistical Area" (MSA).

Strongtowns' finally has guidance on housing policy in the form of "The Housing Ready City toolkit (PDF)". It is six simple land-use reforms:

2015 - 2024

How as Grand Rapids' rent changed in the last ten years?

Given that we are about to enter into a season of constant housing and land-use policy conversation it seems like a good time to update the "A"ffordable housing tables. The standard for "A"ffordabilty is for the total monthly housing costs not to exceed 30% of gross household income. For the state and federal governments this calculation is always made off of the median household income of the county; that is the number which matters in the context of block grants, tax credits, etc...

UPDATE 2025-01-27: The Mayor's Mondays website is now available.

In the first City Connection episode of 2025 newly elected Mayor David Lagrand has a pointed discussion about housing as well as introducing his planned Mayor's Mondays community conversation events.