Saturday, April 2, 2016

Rent

I was going to produce a video tutorial on how to build tables like the one here, for Blogger using Microsoft Excel and Adobe Dreamweaver. For the sample data I chose rent statistics from census.gov and for kicks I made some charts, but they screamed at me. Between 1970 and 1980 rents across the United States more than doubled. There is no data from the 2010 census which raises even more questions.

I sorted the data from highest to lowest based on the 2000 rents, so the rent change becomes more extreme as you scroll down:

The first thought that popped into my head was the war on drugs because of a Redacted Tonight segment on the same topic was fresh in my mind. That war was started by Nixon around the same time. Gentrification may have been the intent, I can't help wonder why rents never went down during recessions.




Median Gross Rents: Unadjusted 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000
United States $27 $42 $71 $108 $243 $447 $602
Hawaii NA NA $72 $132 $311 $650 $779
New Jersey $36 $49 $80 $126 $270 $592 $751
California $27 $42 $79 $126 $283 $620 $747
Alaska NA NA $126 $189 $368 $559 $720
Nevada $26 $47 $91 $141 $310 $509 $699
Maryland $27 $46 $78 $127 $266 $548 $689
Massachusetts $34 $47 $75 $117 $255 $580 $684
Connecticut $34 $45 $77 $127 $260 $598 $681
New York $39 $48 $74 $111 $249 $486 $672
Colorado $22 $39 $72 $110 $252 $418 $671
Washington $22 $43 $71 $113 $254 $445 $663
Virginia $19 $39 $71 $115 $259 $495 $650
New Hampshire $26 $41 $65 $99 $251 $549 $646
Florida $16 $39 $71 $112 $255 $481 $641
Delaware $30 $46 $77 $111 $247 $495 $639
Oregon $21 $44 $70 $107 $257 $408 $620
Arizona $18 $37 $69 $109 $264 $438 $619
District of Columbia $45 $57 $81 $119 $224 $479 $618
Georgia $13 $27 $51 $86 $211 $433 $613
Illinois $33 $47 $85 $124 $246 $445 $605
Utah $23 $40 $66 $97 $235 $369 $597
Texas $17 $37 $60 $95 $246 $395 $574
Minnesota $28 $43 $72 $117 $236 $422 $566
Rhode Island $28 $40 $62 $93 $222 $489 $553
Vermont $24 $41 $62 $98 $224 $446 $553
North Carolina $14 $30 $55 $86 $205 $382 $548
Michigan $33 $47 $77 $115 $250 $423 $546
Wisconsin $31 $49 $79 $113 $234 $399 $540
Pennsylvania $27 $40 $64 $93 $224 $404 $531
Indiana $24 $42 $70 $105 $218 $374 $521
Idaho $21 $44 $65 $92 $218 $330 $515
Ohio $28 $42 $75 $105 $225 $379 $515
South Carolina $12 $26 $49 $77 $206 $376 $510
Tennessee $15 $31 $52 $82 $203 $357 $505
New Mexico $17 $41 $71 $88 $215 $372 $503
Kansas $19 $38 $66 $94 $218 $372 $498
Maine $25 $41 $64 $90 $216 $419 $497
Nebraska $22 $43 $67 $95 $213 $348 $491
Missouri $22 $36 $65 $96 $211 $368 $484
Iowa $23 $43 $68 $99 $226 $336 $470
Louisiana $15 $27 $53 $81 $214 $352 $466
Oklahoma $16 $34 $57 $82 $215 $340 $456
Arkansas $12 $28 $47 $71 $185 $328 $453
Alabama $12 $25 $45 $69 $188 $325 $447
Montana $23 $41 $66 $89 $200 $311 $447
Kentucky $16 $31 $55 $83 $198 $319 $445
Mississippi $11 $25 $43 $65 $180 $309 $439
Wyoming $22 $41 $67 $87 $252 $333 $437
South Dakota $21 $42 $67 $88 $188 $306 $426
North Dakota $21 $43 $71 $97 $206 $313 $412
West Virginia $17 $28 $53 $72 $195 $303 $401

Looking for an explanation revealed very little, but the data seems to suggest a major policy change on a national level.

Here are some of the links I found: