About
While communities across North Central Pennsylvania experience common housing challenges, they are not equally shared. Across our region, our communities experience these challenges at varying levels and in differing ways.
In some communities, vacant properties are a pressing concern. In others, seasonal properties carry more weight. And yet others grapple with the unique needs of renters or manufactured housing communities.
To better understand the varying needs and experiences of our region, North Central defined data-informed housing submarkets for our region using a technique called latent profile analysis.
What is a Submarket?
A housing submarket is defined as a collection of communities experiencing similar housing conditions and market circumstances. Sometimes these communities are in close proximity. At other times, they are spread throughout the region. Submarkets help to show regional commonalities and foster collaboration between communities experiencing similar challenges.
These submarkets help to show how the housing challenges identified in the Needs Assessment present themselves differently across our region. Explore this page to learn more about the submarkets, where they are across the region, and how we created them.
Housing Submarkets
Submarket 1: Rural Core
Rural Core communities are the most common submarket in the North Central region. These communities are characterized by large, single-family home ownership and low housing density. They have relatively older populations (and lower housing turnover rates), higher housing values, and the lowest cost burden when compared to other submarkets.
Submarket 2: Manufactured Housing Hotspots
These communities are quite similar in composition to the Rural Core. They are distinguished, however, by elevated levels of manufactured housing, lower median housing values, and slightly newer housing stock.
Submarket 3: Dense Town Centers
These are the densest communities in the region, occurring within the heart of major population centers. These communities have the highest percentage of renters and new movers, as well as the fewest single-family homes. While the median housing values are lower, these communities experience elevated levels of cost burden and vacancy.
Submarket 4: Mixture Communities
These communities, while similar in form to Dense Town Centers, are slightly less dense, placing them around the edges of the Rural Core. These communities have the oldest and lowest value housing stock, as well as the highest percentage of properties for sale or rent.
Submarket 5: Recreation Centers
These communities are distinguished by very high levels of seasonal housing. They are sparsely constructed and have the highest median housing value of any submarket. These communities also have low turnover rates and few properties for sale or rent.
Resource Hub
Different housing submarkets may require different housing solutions. To learn more about identified housing solutions for our region, check out our resource hub.
Community Mapping
The map below showcases where these submarkets present throughout the region. Explore the map to better understand the needs of our varying communities.
▶How To Navigate the Map
You can navigate the map in two primary ways:
- 1. Click on a municipality on the map to learn which submarket(s) they fall within. This pop up also includes information about potentially relevant housing solutions. In the pop up window that opens, you can also click the magnifying glass to zoom into the municipality on the map.
- 2. Select the submarkets on the lefthand panel to only show certain submarkets on the map.
Technical Information
To learn more about how we defined these submarkets, check out our post on Medium.
To explore the full underlying dataset used to define these submarkets, check out the data on Airtable.