Hello and welcome to our very first data story series at Plotthestory. We take the themes you hear in the news, podcasts, and social media and bring them to life in visual format. Because this is our debut series—and we don’t yet know where these explorations will lead—we’re calling it The Rabbit Hole.
Story 1 – The Rent is too damn high – an exploration of NYC Rents
This data dive explores the dramatic rent swings across NYC census tracts, where one neighborhood lands you in relative affordability and the next sends you straight into sticker shock. Whether you’re a policy wonk, a housing advocate, or simply rent‑curious, we’ve charted the chaos one tract at a time—
Key Takeaways
- Brooklyn and Queens account for most tracts where renters spend over 30% of income on rent
- According to 2023 data majority of census tracts in Brooklyn and Queens the median income of renter was $50K-$100K
- According to 2023 data the median rent in Brooklyn was approaching $1800/month and Queens was almost $2000/month.
So go ahead take this visual for a spin, click around, and use the filters to uncover the stories that matter most to you. P.S. Map courtesy of OpenDataNYC; median rents, median renter household income, and census tract geography courtesy of Census Bureau ACS Five‑Year Estimates.