
Mapping the U.S. By Property Value Instead of Land Area - Thevet
http://www.citylab.com/housing/2015/07/mapping-the-us-by-property-value-instead-of-land-area/397841/
======
jbattle
Isn't this just the same as population density? I think there's an XKCD about
this ...

[https://xkcd.com/1138/](https://xkcd.com/1138/)

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Not quite fair. Usually the xkcd syndrome is caused by plotting density of
something that is intrinsic to people e.g. red hair. You end up with a heatmap
of population.

Here, land prices may be higher because more people are there bidding up the
prices. But its not a direct property of the individuals. So the heatmap
effect is indirect.

Maybe not big point, but there it is.

~~~
refurb
This map is measuring the land value within a county. Land values are
dependent on population density. It's not surprising that Manhattan has such a
high value when you consider how many folks are crammed into the island.

If you create a map that was land value divided by population density it would
be much more interesting.

~~~
vonmoltke
Exactly. This is making Dallas County look expensive, when in fact it is one
of the most affordable major metro areas in the US.

The "elite Texas counties" the article refers to are really a figment of data
representation. Sure, those counties have neighborhoods or small towns that
are stupid expensive, but they are the exception. All of them are highly
populous, though; all five dark red counties (Dallas, Tarrant, Harris, Travis,
Bexar) are in the top-20 most populous counties in the US.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
That doesn't jibe with the map data - land prices in that county are anything
but affordable, regardless of how many people live there, right?

~~~
dragonwriter
The map shows total land price in the county. It doesn't measure anything like
affordability of land (which would be measured by something like price / unit
area of land) or residential affordability (which would be measured by
something like price / unit area of home.)

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Got it, thanks!

------
davidw
> The demand to live in these places is soaring, but the desire among
> incumbents to accommodate newcomers is low

Sums up why we ended up in Bend, Oregon rather than Boulder, Colorado. In the
latter, there is a small but significant group of people whose idea is that
the area needs fewer jobs, not smarter housing.

Edit: [http://journal.dedasys.com/2015/06/18/boulder-colorado-vs-
be...](http://journal.dedasys.com/2015/06/18/boulder-colorado-vs-bend-oregon/)
\- more about our choice, for the curious.

~~~
ajross
But if Boulder looked more like Denver (or Bend like Portland), you might not
have made that choice, right? I'm guessing that you wanted those spots because
they were semi-rural mountain cities with low population density.

So even if you did move to Boulder, you'd probably oppose the construction of
more high-density housing, right?

~~~
eastbayjake
There are smart ways to do high-density housing while preserving the character
of cities like Boulder. The rail line from Denver to Boulder is going to help
a lot of people justify not having cars in Boulder, and traffic congestion is
probably the most harmful effect of squeezing lots of people into a small
space. There are lots of places east of downtown/CU that you could build
clusters of high-density, 4-5 story, mixed-use residential that wouldn't
obstruct mountain views for the most powerful (i.e. richest) homeowners in
Boulder. It would look ugly if you did something like the Denver Tech Center
where 15-25 story buildings are placed on a ridge on the plains with no trees,
but you could conceal quite a bit with the right placement of native trees
around smaller 4-5 story buildings.

~~~
saryant
Isn't the rail line from Denver to Boulder supposed to be completed in
something like 2044?

IOW, never?

~~~
monocasa
Probably farther out since they'd have to reimburse Goldman Sachs for lost
profits on 36 if they built the train.

------
kpennell
I recommend following Kim-Mai Cutler's Twitter if you want to find interesting
articles/takes on SF's housing crisis.

[https://twitter.com/kimmaicutler](https://twitter.com/kimmaicutler)

I especially liked this Vox piece on what actually happens in the process of
trying to build more housing in SF:

[http://www.vox.com/2015/6/15/8782235/san-francisco-
housing-c...](http://www.vox.com/2015/6/15/8782235/san-francisco-housing-
crisis?utm_campaign=vox&utm_content=chorus&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter)

------
personjerry
How can the random large splotches be translated into usefulness or meaning?
The gif seems to imply that the areas are resized based on their value, that
is SUPER not helpful. And the bucket $40b - $1tr?! Almost everything falls in
that bucket! I don't think this map is of great value.

~~~
seccess
I thought that bucket was large too, but then I realized it is only used for
color, not size. So size of county is a more granular measure for housing
measure, if that's what you're looking for.

EDIT: I see, you're saying the areas are hard to compare. Good point!

------
angersock
It's kind of delightful watching NYC and SF in the gif inflate like gigantic
pustules, cysts of real estate.

~~~
tsiki
I'm the most surprised how LA blows up, I thought it was quite a bit cheaper
there than in SF/NY.

~~~
refurb
LA county has almost 10M people living in it. SF has only 800K. If housing
prices were equal, you'd expect LA to be 10 times the size (assuming an equal
number of people per dwelling).

~~~
bagacrap
Yes, it's difficult to make a fair comparison across counties of such vastly
different areas and populations. LA county includes far-off places like
Palmdale which bring the average housing price way down. If you only looked at
more central neighborhoods like Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, etc.
you'd see distortion more akin to SF.

------
aflyax
The fact that people don't all prefer everywhere equally is a "troubling
inequality"? Property value is just a reflection of demand vs. supply. People
want to live in some areas of the country more than in others, but, since the
area is limited, the increased desire drives prices up.

Is it really so shocking that more people would rather live in San Francisco
than Alabama?

------
iskander
>Folks who can’t afford to live in those places don’t get to take advantage of
those labor markets. The demand to live in these places is soaring, but the
desire among incumbents to accommodate newcomers is low. Hence NIMBYism, high
housing costs, severe inequality—the whole shebang.

NYC has had a massive residential construction boom (see Williamsburg,
downtown Brooklyn, Long Island City, &c). Almost all of the housing that goes
up is luxury and seems to do very little to bring down the city's extreme
housing costs. Maybe severe inequality is driven by factors other than just
NIMBYism? The new condos seem to attract wealthy outsiders.

~~~
briandear
Also NYC real estate is a very safe place to park cash. So many properties
simply sit empty.

~~~
abandonliberty
I've always wanted a validation of this. Vancouver, Canada supposedly has the
same problem.

I have yet to see anything beyond circumstantial evidence.

------
tuckermi
From the standpoint of at least one "user", I would have gotten a lot more
value out of the animation if I could control it (e.g. with a slider). The
pulsing back and forth makes it more difficult for me to pinpoint something of
interest (e.g. a less expensive city like Detroit) and then track it.

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rmxt
Going down into the rabbit hole, here is a JSON file [1] containing the county
level data from the Economist. I think that this is the source of the data
used by the author.

[1]
[http://infographics.economist.com/2015/ASBTest/Land/js/count...](http://infographics.economist.com/2015/ASBTest/Land/js/countyData.js)

~~~
tuckermi
The original post from Metrocosm is here: [http://metrocosm.com/the-housing-
value-of-every-county-in-th...](http://metrocosm.com/the-housing-value-of-
every-county-in-the-u-s/). It provides a link to the source data from the
Economist for the county-level data.

~~~
rmxt
Where is the link on that site? I didn't see one, which is why I went digging
for it and turned up the link above.

~~~
tuckermi
The metrocosm post links to this page on the Economist:
[http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2015/04/daily-c...](http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2015/04/daily-
chart-2), but unfortunately I am now hitting the paywall and don't have my
subscription info handy :-/

------
rwhitman
The conclusions from the article seemed a bit rushed. NYC and the Bay Area are
pretty different when it comes to NIMBY policies and commutes from low income
areas to high income.

~~~
humanrebar
> NYC and the Bay Area are pretty different when it comes to NIMBY policies
> and commutes from low income areas to high income.

How so? New York has plenty of NIMBY policies and commuters.

~~~
rwhitman
In NYC if you need a $1200 / mo 1BR apartment, sure Manhattan and north
eastern Brooklyn aren't options but you still have places like Harlem, Queens,
New Jersey, The Bronx, Staten Island all of which are under an hour commute
from Manhattan (and with a rapid transit system that respects shift workers by
running 24hrs a day).

NYC has also been adding high density (albeit market rate) housing stock by
the tens of thousands each year since 2013 or so. NIMBY-ism in Bay Area
communities tends to be opposed increased density of any sort, but for the
most part in NYC it's focused more on the boundaries of low income housing
areas.

East coast municipalities also have a lot more power to make mandates without
the kind of broad community consensus that California cities have to abide by.
So while residents can express opposition to a development plan and sometimes
fight it in NYC, NIMBY advocates only carry weight when they're well equipped
to battle city hall.

Basically my point is that it's kind of a stretch to draw a conclusion that
the same patterns are applicable to both housing markets. The New York metro
and the Bay Area metro are very different places with very different policies
and political landscapes. New York's inflated housing market has more to do
with legacy policies from the Bloomberg administration and real estate
speculation than too few units and NIMBY attitudes, which are a much bigger
problem in SF

~~~
humanrebar
I don't want to get drawn into a long debate on it, but I think it's clear
that NYC has competitive commute times to the Bay Area. Some even think it's
worse:

[http://fortune.com/2015/05/20/these-american-cities-have-
the...](http://fortune.com/2015/05/20/these-american-cities-have-the-worst-
commutes/)

As far as NIMBY goes... I guess I was taking that more broadly. There isn't
objections against density qua density, but projects are blocked because they
block views. And projects are blocked because of what they'd do to the
neighborhood (think highways and housing projects, Forest Hills as a popular
counterexample).

There also seems to be some empirical evidence that NYC is actually building
housing _slower_ than SF.

[http://newyorkyimby.com/2014/08/new-york-citys-is-
americas-s...](http://newyorkyimby.com/2014/08/new-york-citys-is-americas-
slowest-building-growing-big-city.html)

~~~
rwhitman
Both of those articles are a good illustration of my point actually,
sensational conclusions drawn from reports that don't take into account the
dramatic differences between the cities being compared. In this case, NYC is
so enormous that it's in another weight class where the benchmarks we're being
presented are highly flawed in context.

For example, the commute time piece in Fortune isn't looking at metro area,
only intra-city commute time. NYC having the longest average commute makes for
an interesting data point and it's technically true, but it doesn't take into
account the fact that the city of New York has an extremely large land area
spread across several islands with a population that dwarfs most of the cities
on that list. Considering how the data for NYC is influenced by situations
like the non-trivial number of Staten Islanders who commute 1 to 2 hours a day
to Manhattan (still intra-city) via ferry + subway, the 31.5 minute average
commute time in SF doesn’t look so good. Painting these pictures with the same
brush is an effort in futility, the same standards just don’t apply

------
jschulenklopper
A well-known prior art of this idea -- and perhaps not even the first -- is
Worldmapper at [http://www.worldmapper.org/](http://www.worldmapper.org/).
"The world as you have never seen before" contains striking world maps with
their areas proportional to measures like population (even the population in
AD 1), income, aircraft flights, toy exports, nuclear weapons, languages,
people killed by floods and 600 more.

------
trhway
i kind of understand why people here frequently against high-density - the way
it is done in US ends up with pretty unlivable space of towering boxes
surrounded by concrete and asphalt (which is just obvious result of profit
maximization while obeying height limits, etc.. While i think having a 200
stories tower surrounded by a park would be better than a bunch of 20-30
stories mid-towers sticking out of concrete/asphalt space)

~~~
Balgair
I feel that sound is a big part of it too. European buildings tend to be a
titch bit better about this, but American ones are downright terrible. I'd
love to live in a apartment building for a long time, but the sound is what
gets me. I can't play my sound as loud as I want, I can't stand other people
ignoring that the walls are paper thin, I hear every toilet flush and chopping
of carrots in the building. If you can find a way to really dampen the sound,
then I feel a lot of people wouldn't mind the high density quite as much.

~~~
cortesoft
That doesn't have to be the case... I live in a large apartment building on a
high floor, and I rarely hear my neighbors. Good walls and smart design go a
long way. Granted, this is a fairly new building that is a bit expensive, but
my point is that noise problems in high rise buildings aren't inherent to all
large buildings.

------
lubesGordi
> "The stubborn unwillingness of incumbent homeowners in highly productive
> places—namely San Francisco and New York City, which are barely visible on
> the land-area map, but dominate the housing value map—is a huge drain on the
> nation’s economy." Are they trying to say that if people didn't have to
> spend as much on housing then there would be greater GDP?

~~~
Balgair
I think that if rents weren't such a drain, then yes, you could spend the
money on other things and drive up GDP. SF currently has bad rents that are
hurting the local economy. Money that just a few years ago was going to eating
out, new cars, vacations, etc. is now going to a greedy landlord.

~~~
cheald
Monies spent on rent are already included in the GDP; they don't depress it.

~~~
asabjorn
I think he is alluding that high rent leads to wealth concentration. A lot of
salaried people can invest a tiny bit in a much larger variety of interests
than a few wealthy, or choose to work on something less profitable while still
making rent. These investments by a lot of people will at some point lead to
unexpected value creations that increase GDP. At least that is the tenet of a
consumer and market economy.

~~~
Balgair
Bingo.

------
shasta
I'm guessing you generate these by fixing three points along the boundary and
then find the conformal map with the prescribed scale ratio at each point.
Cool tech. If only this was a useful way to present the information. Color
contours work much better.

------
vegabook
Talk about big city distortion.

I can't help thinking this trend is at its zenith. Where economic growth is
faltering, we're seeing de-urbanization, and I would be long the yellow areas
and short the red, because if there is any upset to the JIT way our cities
operate (London for example is said to have a mere 4 days worth food in
stock), for reasons of climate change or political upheaval or some other
reason (no more opportunity in overcrowded cities?), the rural areas on which
we still enormously depend for food and water may suddenly revalue upwards.

~~~
boomshucka
Look outside the US. The US is not anywhere near as distorted as several asian
countries and even mexico has a more extreme situation. Asia suggests it's not
even close to it's zenith

------
herdrick
This appears to be housing value, not property value. So this is leaving off
commercial property, which is probably usually proportionate to housing value,
and agriculture land, which isn't.

------
nickhalfasleep
It would be interesting to see areas cross referenced by job creation and
relative affordability over time. Perhaps there are counties whose plans did
provide growth without economic isolation?

------
amenghra
I wonder how things will change once self driving cars become the norm.

~~~
vvladymyrov
and something like hyper loop will be built

~~~
MarkPNeyer
if you can live in Fresno and work in SF with a half hour commute, expect huge
changes here.

------
SilasX
Awesome idea! If they could make it less ugly, I would prefer standardizing on
this as a way to plot geographic data in certain cases.

Graphing by land area often means spending huge chunks of the map where
nothing (relevant to a particular purpose) happens, and cramming all the
interesting stuff into a few places on the coasts.

(Note all the hedges and caveats; I don't want to trivialize anyone's home
here, but we definitely see this effect a lot.)

------
tripzilch
While it looks extremely cool, is this really the best way to visualise this
data?

Every method of visualisation has its strengths and pitfalls. One of the
pitfalls of this method is that it always looks rather _dramatic_ , regardless
of the data. Changing the shape of well-known things gives an uneasy feeling,
regardless of what you map.

Only data that is perfectly equal will not result in arbitrary distortions.
The amount of distortion, magnitude of the local scale factor, is (or should
be) a parameter of the visualisation, just like the decision of using a fiery
red-yellow colour gradient.

Linked source has a bit more info on what exactly they did. Which is simply
substituting area for value in dollars. Only makes sense if the data somewhat
follows a normal distribution. And I'm going to guess here, property value
does not, at all. It's not even bounded. I'd have picked log value, because an
exponential distribution for the value is a much more reasonable assumption.

In case of a visualisation like this, I might actually decide to do something
that is generally frowned upon: change the "origin" of the data. That is, add
some constant value to the scale factors, to smooth out the severity of the
distortions a little. If I were mapping the log value that wouldn't be
necessary since it'd be equivalent to scaling dollar values to $1000 or $1M,
etc.

I'm trying to remember other examples where data was mapped to local scale in
a non-shape preserving way.

The only thing I can come up with was a sort of homunculus visualisation (I
forget if it was just a drawing or actually made into a 3d clay statuette). It
scaled our body parts roughly proportional to the volume of our brain
dedicated to it. So you'd get a giant head with huge bulging eyes, etc. It
looked weird, funny, still somewhat human/cartoonish. It showed things as
"this is MUCH bigger than that" or "huh I didn't realise my tongue was that
important". It wasn't a very _clear_ visualisation, but I'm also hard pressed
to come up with a better way to do it.

In other words, this type of visualisation helps to show the data in a mostly
_qualitative_ way, not quantitative. And like the homunculus example, the data
doesn't need to be super exact (we can't estimate relative area/volume of
irregular shapes very well).

But it looks cool.

------
transfire
This situation is exacerbated by government cost of living increases which
take location into account. (i.e. New Yorkers get bigger raises)

It is also a consequence of the lack of a quality passenger rail system.

------
bobbles
I'd love to see this for Australia, so much of the population is in like 5
cities it would just look like one of those plastic ball molecule model things

------
lordnacho
How does the transformation work? It must be something that keeps the same
borders regardless of what numbers you put in.

~~~
maxerickson
It's up to the producer what properties of the original map are preserved.
Wikipedia seems reasonable:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartogram](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartogram)

(Note especially the table of algorithms)

------
ggchappell
Interesting.

BTW, there is a glitch in the animation. One city -- Lincoln, Nebraska, I
think -- does not expand smoothly.

------
rufugee
Where would one find the source data for property value analysis like this?

~~~
maxerickson
It's discussed at one of the links:

[http://metrocosm.com/new-york-city-property-values-in-
perspe...](http://metrocosm.com/new-york-city-property-values-in-perspective/)

~~~
rufugee
Thanks!

------
birk5437
It'd be nice to see the values adjusted for household income.

------
petercooper
So the US mapped by property value looks like China.. :-)

------
sgnelson
I don't think I've ever seen a worse Cartogram. At least they did an animation
to make it easier to understand, but a regular map with simple choropleth
would be a thousand times better.

~~~
vegabook
I think the animation turns it from one of the worst visualizations I have
ever seen to one of the best. Its point is ultra clear when you see tiny red
dots become huge swathes of overvalued crimson. Texas is amazing. Look how
even intra-state, cities crush rural (for now).

This is exhibit A on how animation can transform data visualization.

------
galfarragem
Supply and demand explain most of phenomenoms..

------
lubesGordi
Why should land values be homogenous?

~~~
VLM
General cultural belief in equality of both opportunity and outcome. Why
should a real estate developer, and the whole horde of commissioned vampires
that follow them, make 10x as much "over there" as "over here" when its the
same product for the same people making mostly the same money at mostly the
same jobs, just a different location?

Various standard of living effects, the $3M I'm not spending on similar
housing in CA is improving my standard of living and retirement plans far
beyond folks living there, after all its not like CA pays much more (maybe 30%
tops, but the cost of living is like 2 times higher) or that stuff ordered
from Amazon costs people in CA any less. Is it fair that I get a 90th
percentile national salary but because I don't live in CA I get to experience
a roughly 95th percentile lifestyle locally?

In post industrial world, once capital investments are worthless (capital as
in giant factory, enormous milling machine, whatever its all scrap iron moved
to China now) then the only worth is people, who can move around anywhere very
quickly, yet they don't. This also impacts multi-site multi-office sized
companies... the mantra for very small companies is everyone has to be at the
same site in the same place in the same open office for 12 hours a day
breathing each others coughs and sneezes because thats modern business, but
how this interacts with multinationals is mysterious. I'll be honest, I have
no idea how many offices my employer has, but I assure you its very large, I
can't even be sure how many timezones... Work no longer requires physical
plant investments, so where do / should people live if they no longer need to
live in walking distance of the foundry or factory? If my boss lives and works
at an office three states away, why do I need to drive 20 miles each day into
an office to "work" "with" him? Its an aspect of economic belief that is in
considerable turmoil where common beliefs when mashed up against observation
create all kinds of strange cognitive dissonance.

~~~
oldmanjay
>General cultural belief in equality of both opportunity and outcome. Why
should a real estate developer, and the whole horde of commissioned vampires
that follow them, make 10x as much "over there" as "over here" when its the
same product for the same people making mostly the same money at mostly the
same jobs, just a different location?

This might be a general subcultural belief. It's hardly generally accepted
that equality of opportunity and outcome needs to be spread geographically
spread out. In fact, I've never ever heard a serious case for it.

>Is it fair that I get a 90th percentile national salary but because I don't
live in CA I get to experience a roughly 95th percentile lifestyle locally?

Fair in what sense? Without a definition of what you're considering to be
fair, such questions are purely rhetorical.

------
michaelochurch
s/value/price/g

