Montgomery County is a county located in the Valley and Ridge area of the U.S. state of Virginia. As population in the area increased, Montgomery County was formed in 1777 from Fincastle County, which in turn had been taken from Botetourt County. As of the 2020 census, the population was 99,721. Its county seat is Christiansburg, and Blacksburg is the largest town. Montgomery County is part of the Blacksburg-Christiansburg metropolitan area. It is dominated economically by the presence of Virginia Tech, Virginia's third largest public university, which is the county's largest employer.
Blacksburg is an incorporated town in Montgomery County, Virginia, United States, with a population of 44,826 at the 2020 census. Blacksburg and the surrounding county is dominated economically and demographically by the presence of Virginia Tech.
Christiansburg is a town and the county seat of Montgomery County, Virginia, United States. The population was 23,348 at the 2020 census, up from 21,041 at the 2010 census. Christiansburg, Blacksburg and the city of Radford are the three principal municipalities of the Blacksburg–Christiansburg Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses those municipalities, all of Montgomery County, and three other counties.
Public housing, also known as social housing, refers to affordable housing provided in buildings that are usually owned and managed by local government, central government, nonprofit organizations or a combination thereof. The details, terminology, definitions of poverty, and other criteria for allocation may vary within different contexts, but the right to rent such a home is generally rationed through some form of means-testing or through administrative measures of housing needs. One can regard social housing as a potential remedy for housing inequality. Within the OECD, social housing represents an average of 7% of national housing stock (2020), ranging from ~34% in the Netherlands to less than 1% in Colombia.
Inclusionary zoning (IZ) is municipal and county planning ordinances that require or provide incentives when a given percentage of units in a new housing development be affordable by people with low to moderate incomes. Such housing is known as inclusionary housing. The term inclusionary zoning indicates that these ordinances seek to counter exclusionary zoning practices, which exclude low-cost housing from a municipality through the zoning code. Non-profit affordable housing developers build 100% of their units as affordable, but need significant taxpayer subsidies for this model to work. Inclusionary zoning allows municipalities to have new affordable housing constructed without taxpayer subsidies. In order to encourage for-profit developers to build projects that include affordable units, cities often allow developers to build more total units than their zoning laws currently allow so that there will be enough profit generating market-rate units to offset the losses from the below market-rate units and still allow the project to be financially feasible. Inclusionary zoning can be mandatory or voluntary, though the great majority of units have been built as a result of mandatory programmes. There are variations among the set-aside requirements, affordability levels, and length of time the unit is deed-restricted as affordable housing.
The affordability of housing in the UK reflects the ability to rent or buy property. There are various ways to determine or estimate housing affordability. One commonly used metric is the median housing affordability ratio; this compares the median price paid for residential property to the median gross annual earnings for full-time workers. According to official government statistics, housing affordability worsened between 2020 and 2021, and since 1997 housing affordability has worsened overall, especially in London. The most affordable local authorities in 2021 were in the North West, Wales, Yorkshire and The Humber, West Midlands and North East.
The Blacksburg-Christiansburg Metropolitan Statistical Area, formerly the Blacksburg-Christiansburg-Radford Metropolitan Statistical Area, is a Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) as defined by the United States Office of Management and Budget (OMB) located in the New River Valley of Southwest Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the MSA had a population of 181,863.
Affordable housing is housing which is deemed affordable to those with a household income at or below the median, as rated by the national government or a local government by a recognized housing affordability index. Most of the literature on affordable housing refers to mortgages and a number of forms that exist along a continuum – from emergency homeless shelters, to transitional housing, to non-market rental, to formal and informal rental, indigenous housing, and ending with affordable home ownership. Demand for affordable housing is generally associated with a decrease in housing affordability, such as rent increases, in addition to increased homelessness.
Workforce housing is a term that is increasingly used by planners, government, and organizations concerned with housing policy or advocacy. It is gaining cachet with realtors, developers and lenders. Workforce housing can refer to any form of housing, including ownership of single or multi-family homes, as well as occupation of rental units. Workforce housing is generally understood to mean affordable housing for households with earned income that is insufficient to secure quality housing in reasonable proximity to the workplace.
Medium-density housing is a term used within urban planning and academic literature to refer to a category of residential development that falls between detached suburban housing and large multi-story buildings. There is no singular definition of medium-density housing as its precise definition tends to vary between jurisdiction. Scholars however, have found that medium density housing ranges from about 25 to 80 dwellings per hectare, although most commonly sits around 30 and 40 dwellings/hectare. Typical examples of medium-density housing include duplexes, triplexes, townhouses, row homes, detached homes with garden suites, and walk-up apartment buildings.
Affordable housing in Canada refers to living spaces that are deemed financially accessible to households with a median household income. Housing affordability is generally measured based on a shelter-cost-to-income ratio (STIR) of 30% by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), the national housing agency of Canada. It encompasses a continuum ranging from market-based options like affordable rental housing and affordable home ownership, to non-market alternatives such as government-subsidized housing. Canada ranks among the lowest of the most developed countries for housing affordability.
Howard County Housing is the umbrella organization for the Howard County Department of Housing and Community Development and the Howard County Housing Commission. The Department is Howard County Government’s housing agency, and the Commission is a public housing authority and non-profit. Both have boards that meet monthly.
The term housing crisis refers to acute problems with the provision or market for shelter and lodging. These include shortage and affordability crises as well as financial crises related to the real estate sector.
Housing insecurity is the lack of security in an individual shelter that is the result of high housing costs relative to income and is associated with poor housing quality, unstable neighborhoods, overcrowding, and homelessness.
Affordable housing is housing that is deemed affordable to those with a median household income as rated by the national government or a local government by a recognized housing affordability index. A general rule is no more than 30% of gross monthly income should be spent on housing, to be considered affordable as the challenges of promoting affordable housing varies by location.
For many decades, the New York metropolitan area has suffered from an increasing shortage of housing, as housing supply has not met housing demand. As a result, New York City has the highest rents of any city in the United States.
Silicon Valley, a region located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, is one of the most expensive regions to live in the United States, and many residents lack access to affordable housing. In 2018, the median home price across the area was $1.18 million, the highest of the 100 largest metro areas in the U.S. The growth of the technology industry in the area, including major companies like Google, Facebook, and Apple, is frequently cited as a major cause of the issue. There have been local efforts to address affordable housing, as well as state measures in response to housing issues across California.
Housing in the United States comes in a variety of forms and tenures. The rate of homeownership in the United States, as measured by the fraction of units that are owner-occupied, was 64% as of 2017. This rate is less than the rates in other large countries such as China (90%), Russia (89%) Mexico (80%), or Brazil (73%).
Single-family zoning is a type of planning restriction applied to certain residential zones in the United States and Canada in order to restrict development to only allow single-family detached homes. It disallows townhomes, duplexes, and multifamily housing (apartments) from being built on any plot of land with this zoning designation.
The term "affordable housing" refers to housing that is considered economically accessible for individuals and families whose household income falls at or below the Area Median Income (AMI), as evaluated by either national or local government authorities through an officially recognized housing affordability index. However, in the US, the term is mostly used to refer to housing units that are deed restricted to households considered Low-Income, Very Low-Income, and Extremely Low-Income. These units are most often constructed by non-profit "affordable housing developers" who use a combination of private money and government subsidies. For-profit developers, when building market-rate developments, may include some "affordable" units, if required as part of a city's inclusionary zoning mandate.
