A website called The Sparefoot Blog says Detroit is No. 15 and Grand Rapids is No. 4 in its analysis based on the following criteria:
– Total apartments per person
– Population growth
– The percentage of people spending more than 35 percent of their income on rent—lower numbers are better, as they indicate housing affordability
– Per-capita personal income growth
– Per-capita gross domestic product (GDP) growth
– Growth in per-capita construction permits for new apartments
The list’s top three: San Jose, Austin and Houston.
The website’s explanation of why Detroit made the list:
“First, we focused our growth analysis on 2009 to 2012, so the starting point for measurement of growth in Detroit was when the Motor City essentially hit economic rock bottom.
Second, while GDP and personal income in Detroit have grown, the population hasn’t. We focused on per-capita numbers to adjust for cities of different sizes, meaning that no population growth plus economic growth helped a city’s ranking.”
