Map Of The Day: Income Distribution In NYC

Where can you afford to live in the city? Here's a visually pleasing way to find out where your paycheck will allow you to live in the five boroughs. According to this map from Envisioning Development, the fat cats are on the Upper East Side, where the median income in 2006 was $178,000. Compare that to the neighboring East Harlem, where the median income that year was $29,200. There are even rent sliders to tell you what you could afford in each neighborhood, and what percentage of that neighborhood's population can afford, say, a one-bedroom for $954. And you can compare all the boroughs as a whole.

Enjoy this beautifully depressing map, here, and learn more about affordable housing after the jump.

What Is Affordable Housing? from the Center for Urban Pedagogy on Vimeo.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Jen Carlson in Arts & Entertainment on December 2, 2009 11:35 AM

Comments [rss]

books

CUP - its a very pretty looking map I like the income stacks changing on the bottom. data wise I dont get much out of it - but maybe thats just me

CUP

Thanks for all the comments on our map! Just for context, we created this as part of a kit called "What is Affordable Housing?" that explains the terms used by the government so that residents can be involved in the planning decisions being made in their communities. So it's the federal government that's saying that $40-60,000 is low income in New York City, for a family. And the focus on families (as opposed to individuals living along) is because the tool was made to help families, particularly in lower income categories, to understand how to get involved in planning issues. (Also, all of the New York City, including the Bronx is on the map, but you have to scroll around from the initial page view.)

Anyway, thanks again for checking out our map! And, Amabaie, we're definitely interested in looking at other cities! - CUP

amabaie

Very cool. Can you do this for other cities, too.

cutlass

Boy, do the projects ever skew this thing.

Kevin Walsh

According to them, $40-60K is low income. Hallelujah, I'm a bum

www.forgotten-ny.com

youngpro

not too bad overall although they've totally missed a lot of neighborhoods where neighboring areas have actual deep differences between demographics, ie east village (apparently absorbed right into the les), west village (absorbed right into greenwich village), etc.

pastaboy12

cheers to the bottom rung

TheMactastic

This map is pure BS. The neighborhood breakdown is horrible.

Shit, they dont even have parts of the Bronx as being part of the city.

HOTCUP

this map has obvious flaws... you can't just go and conflate huge swaths of land in new york city like that and expect to get an accurate snapshot of what's going on "there".

also, it's only accounting for families, not individuals or people who live with roommates. wtf is that?