Housing affordability in New York City not surprisingly varies widely across the five boroughs. Staten Island, for instance, is the only borough where median household income aligns with average rent costs. This highlights a substantive geographic mismatch that results in the burdening of low-income residents in other boroughs, where incomes lag far behind housing costs.

Staten Island: The Exception

Staten Island is the only of the five boroughs where a resident earning the median income can rent a median-priced apartment without being classified as rent-burdened (spending more than 30% of income on rent). The suburban nature and lower demand for rental housing help maintain affordability. However, Staten Island’s relative affordability comes with trade-offs: fewer economic opportunities, limited public transportation, and less connectivity to the city’s job centers, making it less viable for many residents.

Affordability Challenges in Other Boroughs

The remaining boroughs—Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx—show stark mismatches between incomes and housing costs:

• Manhattan: Median rents exceed $4,000, requiring more than 50% of the median household income to afford a typical unit—double the ideal affordability threshold.

• Brooklyn & Queens: Gentrification and limited housing supply push rents higher. Median-income residents in Brooklyn need a 40% income increase, while Queens residents require a 30% boost to avoid rent burden.

• Bronx: Although rents are lower, incomes remain the lowest in the city. Residents often exceed the rent-burden threshold even for modest apartments. This disparity highlights how housing costs are disconnected from local incomes, forcing lower-income households into difficult trade-offs, such as enduring long commutes or facing displacement.

Implications of the Mismatch

The geographic mismatch creates systemic challenges for NYC residents:

• Longer Commutes: Lower-income households often live farther from employment hubs, leading to longer and costlier commutes.

• Gentrification & Displacement: Rising rents in historically affordable neighborhoods push out long-time residents, worsening economic segregation.

• Limited Opportunity: High housing costs restrict access to neighborhoods with better schools, jobs, and amenities, perpetuating cycles of poverty.

Addressing the Geographic Imbalance

NYC needs policies that directly address these geographic disparities:

1. Expand affordable housing in expensive neighborhoods.

2. Improve transportation to connect outer-borough residents to economic centers more quickly and reliably.

3. Recalculate AMI using borough or ZIP code specific data to better reflect local needs.

The city is not a monolith and understanding housing affordability as a geographically nuanced issue which is currently missing from affordable programs but critical to building an equitable city where all residents have access to both housing and opportunity.

April, 2023

RESEARCH TEAM

Galia Solomonoff, Director

Eddie Palka, Adjunct Associate Research Scholar, ‘18 M.Arch

Kavyaa Rizal, Graduate Research Assistant, ‘23 MSUP

Jamon Mok, Graduate Research Assistant, ‘23 MArch

Lula Chou, Graduate Research Assistant, '24 MSRED, MArch