Rent burden

Could the typical household here afford the going rent? This map shows the Chicago-metro HUD Fair Market Rent as a share of each community area’s median household income. Search your address or click any community area, and switch bedroom size — above 30% is the classic “rent-burdened” line.

Full ranking — all 77 neighborhoods

Rank	Neighborhood	fair-market rent as % of median income
1	Fuller Park	104.8%
2	Riverdale	87.7%
3	Englewood	66.8%
4	South Deering	65.4%
5	Oakland	65.0%
6	West Garfield Park	57.9%
7	West Englewood	53.8%
8	Washington Park	52.4%
9	East Garfield Park	52.0%
10	Woodlawn	50.4%
11	North Lawndale	49.3%
12	Armour Square	46.7%
13	South Chicago	45.6%
14	Greater Grand Crossing	43.2%
15	South Shore	42.2%
16	Austin	39.4%
17	Douglas	38.7%
18	Auburn Gresham	38.2%
19	Burnside	38.1%
20	Chicago Lawn	37.5%
21	Grand Boulevard	36.8%
22	West Pullman	36.8%
23	Humboldt Park	36.3%
24	Avalon Park	35.9%
25	Chatham	35.9%
26	Roseland	35.8%
27	Pullman	34.4%
28	South Lawndale	33.1%
29	Gage Park	32.7%
30	Brighton Park	32.6%
31	New City	32.3%
32	Kenwood	32.0%
33	Rogers Park	31.8%
34	Near West Side	31.0%
35	East Side	30.5%
36	Hegewisch	30.4%
37	Hermosa	27.5%
38	Calumet Heights	26.9%
39	Belmont Cragin	26.5%
40	North Park	26.5%
41	West Lawn	26.2%
42	Hyde Park	25.8%
43	Archer Heights	25.7%
44	Washington Heights	25.6%
45	Morgan Park	25.5%
46	Uptown	25.1%
47	West Elsdon	25.1%
48	Bridgeport	25.0%
49	Montclare	25.0%
50	Lower West Side	24.9%
51	West Ridge	24.7%
52	Edgewater	23.4%
53	McKinley Park	23.4%
54	Dunning	23.1%
55	Clearing	22.9%
56	Ashburn	21.6%
57	Albany Park	21.2%
58	O'Hare	20.9%
59	Garfield Ridge	20.6%
60	Portage Park	20.6%
61	Lincoln Square	19.7%
62	Irving Park	19.5%
63	Jefferson Park	19.1%
64	Avondale	19.0%
65	Norwood Park	17.3%
66	Logan Square	17.0%
67	Mount Greenwood	16.7%
68	Lake View	15.9%
69	Near North Side	15.1%
70	Loop	14.4%
71	Beverly	14.1%
72	Edison Park	13.7%
73	West Town	13.6%
74	Near South Side	13.0%
75	North Center	12.6%
76	Forest Glen	12.3%
77	Lincoln Park	12.2%

How to read this map

Fair Market Rent (FMR) is HUD’s estimate of a modest local rent, set once a year for the whole Chicago metro — so it’s the same dollar figure everywhere on this map. We annualize it and divide by each community area’s median household income (from the Census ACS), area-weighted across the tracts a community area covers. Because the rent is constant, the map’s pattern is really an affordability-of-income map: a warmer color means the same rent takes a bigger bite of local paychecks.

Above 30% is the long-standing “rent-burdened” threshold — and in Chicago’s lowest-income community areas the metro fair-market rent can exceed the entire median household income, which is exactly what a burden ratio above 100% means. Switch bedroom size with the tabs; the drawer shows the community area’s median household income and its median gross rent — what renters here actually pay, which (unlike FMR) does vary place to place.

Source: HUD Fair Market Rents (Chicago-Joliet-Naperville, IL HUD Metro FMR Area) and U.S. Census ACS 5-year median household income + gross rent by tract, intersected with Census TIGER/Line tract boundaries for Cook County. See methodology for details.