Category: Goal 6. Decent Housing

Goal: A variety of desirable housing options for all New Jerseyans, at every income level.

Sandwiched between two large cities, New Jersey’s housing and development patterns are increasingly dominated by suburban sprawl. Relative to New York home ownership is relatively affordable, which leads urban households to move to New Jersey when they are ready to buy homes instead of renting. As the state’s population has grown, development has spread further into the rural areas, which are increasingly being suburbanized. Housing options continue to be dominated by low density single family development. Although housing prices have risen in the past decade, they have risen more slowly than income, which means that our housing options have increased in recent years.

What indicators came out of the Sustainable State process, and how are we doing?

Affordability of rental housing has improved in the past decade, although a significant share of households still cannot afford fair market rents with 30% of their income.
Affordability of home-ownership has improved steadily over the past decade. The home-ownership rate has also increased, although not as steadily as its affordability.
Trends in new housing construction show slight increases in the shares being built in rural and urban areas relative to suburban areas. The vast majority of new construction continues to be outside of urban areas.
What might we add to future indicator reports?

We have information about housing quantity, but not about its quality; this is a major gap in our knowledge. Data on overcrowding would complement existing indicators as well. The sustainability of the state’s housing patterns is also strongly influenced by the area of housing consumed per person. A simple average value would not be informative, since overcrowded immigrant households would balance out the large homes being built in newly suburbanized areas. However, it could be interesting to track the share of people consuming more than a certain level of residential area.