The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI)
Housing determines where people live, what they can afford after rent, how safe they are from hazards and how secure they are against eviction. When housing costs rise faster than incomes, people crowd, move to cheaper risky land, or lose their homes. This page sets out how housing markets and policies shape affordability and risk, how they are measured, and what evidence serves the governments and housing bodies that act on them.
GCRI · In development · service level R0
Housing affordability is the relationship between housing costs and household income. When costs outpace incomes, people crowd, move to cheaper and often hazardous land, or lose their homes, and insecure tenure leaves them more exposed after disasters. Cost overburden, crowding and tenure surveys measure the gap.
For housing and affordability, in GCRI's spatial-intelligence reading, the map opens on population density, night lights and true-colour imagery, framed on India; 3 further NASA layers wait in the list.
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NASA GIBS / EOSDIS · ASTER GDEM (METI, NASA) · Blue Marble (NASA) · © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL) · Natural Earth
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For housing and affordability, in GCRI's spatial-intelligence reading, the map opens on population density, night lights and true-colour imagery, framed on India; 3 further NASA layers wait in the list.Satellite and model products as NASA publishes them, each with its own date; indicators, not assessments of any place; claim ceiling INTEGRATED.
Layers and dates
Housing systems and climate exposure. The dossier below sets out how the risk develops, what is measured, where the data come from, how it is modelled and who decides.
Land prices, construction costs, interest rates and investment demand raise housing costs. When incomes lag, households spend more of their budget on housing or move.
Households squeeze into less space, older stock or informal housing. Crowding and poor conditions raise exposure to disease, heat, fire and damp.
The cheapest housing is often in flood zones, on unstable slopes or far from jobs. Affordability problems become exposure and travel problems.
Renters and people without recognised tenure are more easily displaced after disasters and less able to invest in protecting their homes.
Each term as this page uses it. Where a standard-setting body defines the term, the wording follows that body.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Housing cost overburden | Spending on housing above a set share of disposable household income. |
| Security of tenure | Protection against forced eviction and recognition of the right to occupy a home or land. |
| Adequate housing | Housing that meets human rights criteria including tenure, services, affordability, habitability and location. |
Each indicator carries its unit, its cadence, the kind of source behind it and the evidence label a value would carry. No values are shown: a programme supplies them under its own authority.
| Indicator | Unit | Cadence | Source type | Label |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Housing cost overburden | percent of households spending above a stated share of income on housing | annual | Household surveys | ESTIMATED |
| House price to income ratio | ratio | annual | Price and income statistics | OFFICIAL |
| Overcrowding rate | percent of population in overcrowded dwellings | annual | Household surveys | ESTIMATED |
| Households with secure tenure | percent of households | per survey | SDG indicator 1.4.2 surveys | REPORTED |
| Homelessness | people counted by a stated definition | annual or per count | Administrative records and point-in-time counts | REPORTED |
| New dwellings completed | count | annual | Building completion statistics | OFFICIAL |
The topic as a computational graph: named sources feed the methods, an evidence review gates the outputs, and the decisions stay with the authorities that hold them.
Fig. 02Nodes carry their type, two metric rows and a state; connectors show what feeds what; dashed frames name the owners; the timeline is the cadence. Design of the pipeline, not a record of a run.
Named public datasets and institutional records, each with its licence class. Sources by agreement are used only under their terms and never republished.
| Source | What it gives | Licence class |
|---|---|---|
| OECD Affordable Housing Database | Housing costs, conditions and policies across OECD countries | Public, OECD terms |
| UN-Habitat housing and SDG 11.1 data | Population in slums, informal settlements or inadequate housing | Public, UN-Habitat terms (to check) |
| Eurostat housing statistics (EU-SILC) | Overburden, overcrowding and housing deprivation in Europe | Open, Eurostat reuse policy |
| Demographic and Health Surveys housing modules | Dwelling materials, crowding and services | Free with registration, DHS terms |
| Global Land Tool Network and SDG 1.4.2 tenure data | Tenure security measurement | Public, terms per source |
Cities and Built Environment prepares evidence. The decisions below are taken by the authorities named, under their own rules, and never by the platform.
| Who decides | The question | Evidence this page serves |
|---|---|---|
| Housing ministries and agencies | Which housing programmes and subsidies to fund and where | Affordability profiles; supply statistics |
| City governments | Where to zone for affordable housing outside hazard zones | Affordable housing and hazard maps |
| Recovery agencies after disasters | How to protect renters and informal residents in recovery | Tenure evidence; displacement data |
How income, tenure, age and disability correlate with hazardous locations and poor building quality.
How insurance costs, repair costs and energy bills change the true cost of housing in exposed areas.
How damage to housing affects rents, displacement and recovery for owners and tenants.
Which improvements to existing stock reduce risk and at what cost to occupants.
Housing markets capitalize some risks and ignore others. Visible hazards may lower prices, drawing lower-income households to exposed areas, while slow-onset risks such as heat and subsidence are rarely priced. When insurance becomes unavailable or unaffordable, the risk shifts to occupants and lenders.
Tenants have limited control over the buildings they live in. They cannot retrofit, may lose their homes after disasters and often receive less recovery assistance than owners. Insecure tenure deters investment in safety.
Reconstruction can raise housing costs. Rebuilding to higher standards, land speculation and reduced supply can push former residents out of the areas they left.
| Method or data | What it shows | Its limit |
|---|---|---|
| Housing condition surveys | Quality and structural defects | Costly and infrequent |
| Census and tenure data | Who lives where and on what terms | Lags behind fast change |
| Exposure overlays | Housing stock in hazard zones | Depend on hazard map quality |
| Post-event studies | Displacement and recovery paths | Hard to follow people who move |
The current service level is R0: information and enquiries. An enquiry receives a reference and names the next step; applications, payments, compute allocations and registrations open only when their team, terms and review capacity exist.