One of the core data sources for understanding homebuilding in the U.S. is the Census Bureau’s Building Permit Survey. But a disturbing number of large cities and counties are lax in providing the monthly data that make the survey useful. The resulting lower-quality data impacts federal products, state and local grant applications, planning efforts, and reform evaluation.
New Orleans 
Cambridge 
El Paso 
Buffalo 
Reno
Sid Kapur – whose HousingData.app makes BPS data much easier to access – helped me identify 91 cities and counties above 90,000 people which are irregular respondents.
These include several cities with high-profile housing reforms: Spokane, Gainesville, Cambridge, Buffalo, Anchorage, and Boulder, among others. Browse the national map below to see others:
Our list underreports the amount of underreporting. Lots of cities report irregularly during the year but fill in the blanks at the end; they get full credit in our list. And many cities are partial reporters, forcing the Census Bureau to impute some of the data.
Does it matter?
A Massachusetts official pointed out to me that cities hurt their own funding when they fail to report. Building Permit Survey data are one of many inputs to the annual population estimates between censuses. And each estimated person yields between $1,000 and $2,000 per year in local grants from federal and state sources!
How can you help?
- If you live or work in a jurisdiction listed here, contact your local officials and encourage them to respond to the Census Bureau Building Permit Survey every month with high-quality data.
- If you work in a department that reports data to the BPS, ensure that your reports are not only regular but accurate - that's been a problem, too.
- If you use BPS data for research, be aware of the imputation flag and avoid leaning heavily on imputed data for policy conclusions.
