Once called “The Queen City of the Hudson,” Poughkeepsie is situated approximately 80 miles north of New York City in the Hudson Valley region. Like many post-industrial cities in the United States, this area has faced financial hardship and disinvestment as the economic conditions began to shift and the industrial work typical of this type of city faded away. Poughkeepsie is situated about halfway between Albany and New York City, and while many people consider it one municipality, Poughkeepsie is actually a distinct city, with a township surrounding it, the town of Poughkeepsie. While in a nearly identical geographic area, and often conflated as the same place, the city and town of Poughkeepsie have stark differences in income, housing access, and educational opportunities.

Furthermore, both within the city itself, and in comparison to the town, Poughkeepsie is a highly racially and economically segregated city. There has been a historical and represent lack of investment, both on social and economic capital, in the city of Poughkeepsie. A series of urban renewal projects in the 1906’s that broke up the downtown area have highly impacted the walkability and vitality of the Main Street area and city as a whole. Large businesses, such as IBM, that opened offices in the area chose to build in the town of Poughkeepsie or other nearby towns instead of the city, as wealthier citizens, and therefore larger tax bases accumate within the region, but outside the city itself.

This project is looking at six different characteristics in the region: total population, racial demographics, housing tenure, occupancy status, housing values, and rental costs over the past twenty years. These maps directly compare the city and town of Poughkeepsie to see how they differ and also offers a visualization of how these factors have changed over time. Like many areas in the United States, the Hudson Valley is facing a housing crisis, so understanding trends in housing affordability and availability, especially for residents of the city, can be an important step in moving towards more equitable access to affordable housing.

Population

First, I looked at the total population of both the city, outlined in black, and the town of Poughkeepsie, which is physically larger, to establish the overall density of the area. While the overall population has stayed relatively the same, there is a trend of movement out of the city center, while the surrounding town has gotten slightly more populated. This data was taken from the census, which was given in 2020, and there has been a large migration out of the New York City metropolitan area into areas like the Hudson Valley that has been exacerbated by things like the cost of living and the pandemic that are currently shaping and changing the population of this area.

Race

It is starkly apparent that the city and town of Poughkeepsie are racially segregated, which is important to establish as this will have an impact on the implications for the actual impact of the disparities in access to housing in the maps below as well. While many northern cities seem to think that racial segregation is a thing of the past, even in the last twenty years it is apparent that the Hudson Valley as a whole, and specifically Poughkeepsie have notfully reckoned with the decades, of not centuries, long movements to systemically deprive marginalized communities access to education, housing, healthcare and more. For the rest of this project, I found these maps were impactful to refer back to when looking at the differences in the other factors that were investigated, as it became clear that not only are the city and towen of poughkeepsie segregatged by race, but also in access to wealth through homeownership and housing costs, as well as the burden of rent on households.

Housing Tenure

These maps look at what percentage of the occupied housing stock is either renter or owner occupied. The city of Poughkeepsie has comparatively low levels of homeownership in comparison to the town of Poughkeepsie, which both makes issues surrounding rent affordability more relevant in the city especially as housing costs rise and the ability to own and afford a home becomes a larger financial burden.

Vacancy Status

I found these maps to be particularly interesting because of the questions they raise. While the rates of vacancy decreased over time, they still do remain on the lower end overall. Vacancy rates can be an indication of an availability of housing stock, but can also signal things like disinvestment, blight, and uninhabitable or unsafe housing stock. In developing this project further, I would be interested in seeing what implications these rates of vacancy have both socially and politically when it comes to housing policy, as well as the impact on things like property values. The lower rates of vacancy could also mean that if an area is becoming unaffordable for a household, they will have fewer options for housing because so much of the housing stock is currently occupied.

Median Housing Value

While the city of Poughkeepsie sits alongside the Hudson River, with historic industrial buildings and the Mid-Hudson Bridge, as well as the Walkway Over the Hudson, the property values are still lowest within the city. This was one factor that, when compared to the racial demographics of the city, showed a striking similarity. The first image of this project is a redlining map of the city of Poughkeepsie, and it is clear that the legacy of denying the Black population access to fair and equitable housing access and assessment is a historical process that is still developing in the Hudson Valley today.

Rent as Percent of Income

A household is considered rent burdened if it is spending more than 30% of its income on rent and utilities. The majority of both the city and the town of Poughkeepsie were rent burdened, according to the 2018-2022 American Community Survey. Additionally, in the city of Poughkeepsie, a large part of the city is considered extremely rent burdened, where 50% or more of a household’s income is spent on rent. This is representative of a larger trend in the United States, where there is a cost of living and affordable housing crisis, but understanding where and how these trends develop over time is essential when trying to address the growing concerns of housing justice and equity.

Link(s) to full project:

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