Launch of a New Strategy Briefing— Evaluating Business Attractiveness of a City through the Affordability Lens

We are pleased to announce the launch of our new strategy briefing Evaluating Business Attractiveness of a City through the Affordability Lens which analyses the concept of affordability in the world’s leading global metropolitans. Affordability features as an imperative criterion for consumers and businesses: it principally impacts the degree of disposable income available for discretionary spending, which ultimately influences decision making related to living, working and investing. This strategy briefing provides an in depth study of affordability, and concludes with a case study seeking to evaluate affordability across 10 major US cities.

A few key findings

• City affordability is an interplay between housing and transport costs, and income

Factors that impact absolute costs include demand and supply interaction, population density and city layout, and local policies. Household income is determined by labour productivity, the employment rate and household size.

• Housing is the single biggest consumer spending category in the majority of 60 cities

In 2016, housing captured on average 22% of total annual disposable income in major developed cities globally. Despite higher incomes, leading cities in most developed countries feature higher housing shares of expenditure than smaller urban areas, due to expensive real estate in larger cities.

For more information on affordability click here to access the strategy briefing.