As we wrap up 2018, we looked back to see what were the most popular articles on our blog this year.

The top five posts on our blog this year were:

1. Digging Deeper: Ten Striking Findings from Our Latest State of the Nation’s Housing Report
This year marked 30 years since the Joint Center released its first State of the Nation’s Housing report and the 2018 edition, like its predecessors, includes a number of statistics that surprised even the researchers who prepare it.

2. Even Fully-Employed and Moderate-Income Households Struggle to Pay the Rent
The nation’s almost 21 million cost-burdened renter households are not just low-income or unemployed. Rather, a growing number of moderate-income and fully-employed renter households are also cost-burdened, spending at least 30 percent of their income on housing costs.

3. Our Shrinking Supply of Low-Cost Rental Units 
Between 1990 and 2016, the number of rental units in the US priced below $800 per month (in real terms) shrank by nearly 2.5 million. However, over the same period, the number of low-income renters paying cash rents grew by more than 4.5 million households.

4. Reconciling the Back-to-the-City Thesis with Sustained Suburban Growth
Are cities growing faster than their suburbs? Some argue that a “back-to-the-city movement” is bringing back America’s cities. Others disagree, pointing instead to more rapid population growth in the suburbs.

5. Not Just the Sunbelt: Millennials and Baby Boomers Increasingly Head West
When Americans decide to pick up and move, over the past fifty years they most commonly have left the Northeast and Midwest and headed for warmer southern states. While this remains largely true, states in the West have also become popular destinations for domestic migrants in the last decade.