Lab 4: Comparing Vancouver and Ottawa Housing Affordability according to housing cost and household income
Affordability shows a visual comparison of Vancouver-Ottawa housing affordability using the manual breaks classification method. As opposed to displaying housing cost, which includes price information alone, ‘affordability’ refers to the ability of a single or cumulative income to purchase a house of some cost. This makes it a better indicator of housing affordability than housing cost as it integrates income and cost information. As determined by the 12th Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey 2016 (Wendell Cox Consultancy & Performance Urban Planning: Christchurch, New Zealand), housing affordability rating categories range from a median multiple of under 3.0 being ‘affordable’ to over 5.0 being ‘severely unaffordable.’ This makes ‘affordability’ a potentially good indicator of a city’s ‘livability.’ It is worth noting also, that housing affordability analyses may only give information on single detached housing whereas a city’s livability refers to multiple residential types such as single detached housing, multiplex housing, apartments, condominiums, lane housing, and school housing.
Accomplishment/s:
Analyzed interregional housing affordability according to quantitative survey census tracts
Organized and displayed findings according to differential break classification methods