From Curbed: Mapping New York City’s affordability gap (with a 535 Carlton cameo)

Curbed published a strong piece 12/21/17, Mapping New York City’s affordability gap, noting how the median income in each neighborhood (or Community District) compares with the actual Area Median Income (AMI), set by the federal Department of of Housing and Urban Development:

To see the gap between AMI and what New Yorkers are actually making, we mapped the 2015 median household income for each neighborhood area (PUMA district) in New York City and compared that to HUD’s AMI number for 2015. In 47 of these 55 neighborhoods, the AMI was higher than the area’s actualmedian income, and in nearly half of the city (24 neighborhoods), 60 percent AMI was still higher than the area’s income.

Of the four Community Boards within which residents get preference for half the Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park units, Brooklyn's CB 2 (which has housing projects within it) is slightly below AMI, CB 6 well above it, and CBs 2 and 3 well below it.

Click through to the map.

And guess what--their poster child is 535 Carlton, representative of a mismatch between real and actual affordability, with numerous empty middle-income units.

Note that the AMI is inflated by including incomes wealthier suburban counties: Rockland, Putnam, and Westchester.