This tool provides a wide range of contextual information related to housing characteristics and housing market conditions in Allegheny County. The data included here is compiled from a wide range of federal and local administrative and statistical data sources, including Census responses and estimates, sales data, property assessment records, data reported by mail carriers, court system filings, output from statistical models, and mortgage records. We also include health indicators that are closely tied to housing and other neighborhood conditions. This tool uses 2010 Census tract boundaries as our common unit of analysis.

This data will be useful for residents looking to learn more about housing in their community. We also expect it will have value for people engaged in a housing search process. Housing and community development stakeholders and elected officials can also use this data to better-understand some of the local contexts important when designing policy and developing and administering programs.

We drew heavily from the work of housing researcher Alan Mallach in deciding which indicators to create and include in this tool. We found his guides, including Neighborhoods by Numbers: An Introduction to Finding and Using Small Area Data, and a chapter in a report he co-authored for the Federal Reserve Bank with Chris Walker titled “Using Data to Address the Challenge of Irresponsible Investors in Neighborhoods”especially valuable.