this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2026
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Did I miss it? That article is quite long and mentions “affordable apartments” about eleventy-seven times but never once describes what definition of “affordable” they are using.
Without that I have no clue what these numbers mean or whether they mean anything.
Affordable housing is legal jargon. When developers construct an apartment building in Seattle, part of it is “market rate” and part of it is “affordable.” Affordable here doesn’t necessarily mean affordable in the sense that most people can attain it, it means that it is subject to stricter rent control laws and other protections and is less expensive than the market rate housing because it is partially subsidized by the market rate housing.
So in that sense, when the article is comparing “affordable” apartment numbers between different cities, they mean, “subsidized in some way or another” ? But how much subsidy is “affordable” in different cities may not match at all, is that it?
Yeah. You could have “affordable” housing in Seattle that is more expensive than “market rate” housing in Houston. A big part of it is trying to navigate the differences in cost of living and relative incomes in different regions. A barista in Seattle makes $21.30/hr plus tips, whereas a barista in Houston makes $2.13/hr plus tips (not a typo). Even if your rent in Seattle is 10x your rent in Houston, it’s still “affordable” because you make so much more money.