"Bread, Meat, Rent, Fuels! Their Prices Must Come Down!": A History of Economic Crises and Housing Affordability in New York City

Jason Barr, Rutgers University - Newark
Ronan Lyons, Trinity College Dublin
Rowena Gray, University of California Merced

Little work has explored the long-run trajectories of housing affordability in New York City. We have collected large data sets on housing rents across the five boroughs and wages for many occupations since 1835 to see how relative wages and rents have moved over time. We have created rent indexes, wages indexes, and rents-to-wages indexes to see when New York was relatively affordable for the working classes. With these indexes, we aim to explore the role of economic crises in driving housing affordability problems in New York, with a focus on the impacts of wars and their aftermaths.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 190. New York City: Mapping Social History