Author
Recent initiatives to address the housing shortage in Saint Paul, Minnesota, have highlighted the growing need for accessible, data-driven tools to monitor the state of housing and inform policy decisions. To meet this need and build upon its ongoing work tracking land use reforms in neighboring Minneapolis and the broader Ninth Federal Reserve District, the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis has launched the Saint Paul Housing Dashboard—a new data tool designed to equip housing stakeholders with data-informed insights.
The dashboard features both contextual and market-based indicators across seven key categories: household demographics, housing characteristics, production, price of housing, housing cost burden, stability, and local tax base. Integrating data from a combination of national sources, such as the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and local sources, like the Metropolitan Council and HousingLink, the dashboard captures more than 30 unique indicators. For each indicator, users can view Saint Paul’s trends over time, compare Saint Paul to its surrounding cities, and benchmark it to similar cities across the nation to gain a holistic understanding of the Saint Paul housing landscape.
The Minneapolis Fed will update the dashboard at least annually to ensure continued relevance and to support ongoing analysis as housing conditions in Saint Paul evolve. For more details about our methodology, see the Technical Appendix.
Maxine Xu is a data scientist in the Minneapolis Fed’s Community Development and Engagement division, where she develops data tools and leads analyses to explore issues affecting the economic well-being of low- to moderate-income communities.
