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HUD Updates Location Affordability Index

HUD Updates Location Affordability Index

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The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has announced the publication of Version 3 of the Location Affordability Index (LAI) dataset.  The LAI is a nationwide database of modeled household housing and transportation costs launched by HUD and DOT in 2013, and now updated, with the goal of providing greater insight into how these costs vary by geographic and household characteristics.  Version 3 primarily uses data from the 2012-2016 American Community Survey and other national and state data products.  The LAI has seen significant use since its initial release in 2013. Policymakers have used this data for local and regional transportation and land-use planning. It has also been used by a number of researchers for a variety of topics. In 2016 it was the focus of a special Location Affordability double issue of Housing Policy Debate, which included new research on the impact of location affordability. Lastly, the LAI has proved valuable to software developers because makes a large amount of Census data on demographics and the built environment available via web service.  The data can be accessed via the LAI page on HUD Exchange or directly from HUD’s Enterprise GIS Open Data Portal. Please email locationaffordability @ hud.gov with any comments or questions.

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