Housing Vacancy in U.S. Cities

A new study from the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy defines concentrated vacancy in American cities as "hypervacancy," or vacancy so extensive it "defines the character of the surrounding area."

Many of the cities with the highest hypervacancy rates are in Midwest and Rust Belt legacy cities of the U.S. Study author and Brookings fellow Alan Mallach writes, "Although only one out of 16 census tracts in Cleveland was hypervacant in 1990, by 2010, one out of two tracts," were, adding, that vacancies above 20 percent of an area's overall properties cause the number of vacant properties and lots to "grow indefinitely," and at 100 percent, a market would stop functioning, New Geography reports. 

The number of vacant properties in the United States has been steadily rising for more than a decade. Although vacancies spiked after the foreclosure crisis and the Great Recession and have dropped significantly since then, there are still far more than there were in 2000. More importantly, the number of vacant properties has not diminished everywhere. Although they have dropped back to pre-crisis levels in Sunbelt cities like Phoenix or Las Vegas, vacancies are still at epidemic levels in many older cities, particularly in the nation’s legacy cities. 

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