About this visualization

Explore New York’s changing housing supply, block by block. This dataset brings together housing information and detailed boundaries for **37,588 census blocks across all five boroughs**. Compiled by the NYC Department of City Planning from Department of Buildings applications, permits, and certificates of occupancy, it reveals where housing has been added, where it has disappeared, and where proposed development stands in the process toward completion. **Annual housing gains and losses** show the net change in housing units for each year from 2010 through 2025, with a separate partial-year figure for 2026. “Net” means additions minus removals: if construction adds 100 apartments while demolition removes 20, the recorded change is a gain of 80 units. Changes reflect new buildings, major alterations and conversions, and demolitions. A negative value means the block lost more housing units than it gained; zero means no recorded net change, even if some additions and removals occurred. These annual measures allow comparisons between individual years and reveal whether growth has been sustained, concentrated in a particular period, or followed by losses. **The 2020 housing count** provides context for those changes. It records the total number of housing units counted on each block in the April 1, 2020 Census. This measures housing units rather than residents: a single apartment counts as one unit regardless of how many people live there. Comparing development with this baseline helps distinguish a large numerical increase on an already densely housed block from a smaller increase that represents a substantial change to a block’s existing housing supply. The baseline is a historical Census count, rather than a current housing estimate. **The development pipeline** describes the net housing-unit changes associated with projects that remain incomplete. Three measures show active projects at different stages: | Measure | What it means | |---|---| | **Filed units** | Net housing units associated with incomplete projects whose applications are at the filed stage. Inactive projects are excluded. | | **Approved units** | Net housing units associated with incomplete projects whose applications have been approved. Inactive projects are excluded. | | **Permitted units** | Net housing units associated with incomplete projects for which permits have been issued. Inactive projects are excluded. A permit does not establish that construction is finished. | These figures describe projects’ status at the dataset’s reporting date. They measure **net housing units associated with projects**, rather than the number of applications or buildings, and they represent potential changes rather than guaranteed future homes. **Withdrawn and inactive projects** provide another perspective on development activity. Withdrawn units are the net units associated with incomplete projects whose applications have been withdrawn. Inactive units belong to incomplete projects classified as inactive but not withdrawn. Together, these measures help identify places where proposed housing changes are associated with projects outside the active development pipeline. They should remain separate from completed housing gains and active proposals. **Geographic detail** makes these patterns visible at a very local scale. Each record includes its borough, a unique census-block identifier, and identifiers for the surrounding census tract and block group, allowing results to be grouped into larger areas. The included polygons describe each block’s boundary. Block area and perimeter describe its geographic footprint; they measure the census geography rather than building floor space. Two timing details matter when interpreting the figures. **2026 covers only part of the year**, so its total is not directly comparable with a completed calendar year. The dataset also includes a special **April–December 2010** measure, originally intended for calculations beginning with the April 1, 2010 Census. That period overlaps the full-year 2010 measure and should not be added to it. The housing-change and pipeline measures focus on **Class A housing**, broadly housing intended for permanent residence. They describe recorded changes to legal housing supply. Because the underlying information comes from administrative records, it can contain reporting errors and does not capture unrecorded illegal conversions. Source: [NYC Department of City Planning, Housing Database by 2020 Census Block](https://data.cityofnewyork.us/d/8zyi-kxay), release 26q2.1, published September 30, 2026; retrieved October 18, 2026. Data preparation and visualization: Rhubarb.