QUESTION
How do the HBS findings relate to the 2022 ACS findings regarding NYC's population and housing?
1:19:58
·
151 sec
Elyzabeth Gaumer discusses the relationship between Housing Vacancy Survey (HVS) findings and 2022 American Community Survey (ACS) data, explaining the distinction between households and population counts, and the trend of decreasing household sizes in New York City.
- The focus of their study is on households, which occupy housing units, rather than individual population counts.
- It's possible for the number of households to increase while the total population remains stable or decreases, a consequence of diminishing household sizes over time.
- This trend of shrinking household sizes permits a smaller population to occupy more housing units.
- Detailed population estimates from the US Census Bureau are expected soon, which should provide clarity on overall population standings.
- Despite apparent discrepancies, the situation supports observations of a tight housing market, with an increasing number of households occupying diverse types of housing units.
Pierina Ana Sanchez
1:19:58
But then I guess my question is, actually, how do you see the HBS findings comporting with the 2022 ACS findings.
1:20:08
And in particular, ACS 2022 showing that New York City population numbers are still down, but from prior to the pandemic.
1:20:16
I have 400,000 people here listed, but I'm not quite sure that's that's right versus 275,000 more occupied units in the city of New York.
1:20:27
How do you understand that relationship?
Elyzabeth Gaumer
1:20:29
Yeah.
1:20:29
Sure.
1:20:30
It's an excellent question.
1:20:33
So let me again, give a little bit broader context to help folks understand this.
1:20:38
So first of all, when we hear today and in our report have been talking about households and housing units.
1:20:48
And we do that because the households are what lives in a housing unit.
1:20:53
Right?
1:20:53
We are here to talk about the need for housing, supply condition, and continued need.
1:20:58
So our focus is households.
1:21:00
We have not yet dug into any of the population data about individual people or the count of total people that we have, you know, living in different types of housing or those needs.
1:21:11
Historically, that always something that we do as sort of as follow-up after our selected initial findings.
1:21:16
So we're looking forward to digging in.
1:21:19
That said, it's important to note that households is not the same as people, and it is possible possible for the number of households to increase while the number of people, the total people, stays the same or even goes down.
1:21:35
If you think about household size decreasing, right, going from three people to two and a half people to two point three people, right, and so on, and that is a trend we have seen in New York City over a very long time period.
1:21:48
Households getting smaller and smaller over time.
1:21:50
So if it continues to get smaller, then obviously it's could be a fewer number of people spread out over more housing units and households.
1:21:59
So that is mathematically possible.
1:22:02
That said, we expect the USAA is bureau to issue those population estimates.
1:22:08
In fact, next week is what we've heard.
1:22:10
So we will know very soon sort of where the overall population stands.
1:22:15
But we feel very confident, and the experience on the ground, I think, comports with this idea that we are in a very tight housing market, and there are more households living in more types of units.
Pierina Ana Sanchez
1:22:26
Thank you.
1:22:27
Thank you so much.
1:22:29
Okay.