Does the Inclusion of Residential No-Stat Addresses Along Rural Postal Carrier Routes Improve Vacancy Rate Estimates?

Abstract

Blighted housing is a problem in communities throughout the United States. Many definitions of blight and data sources attempt to quantify and measure blight. One common measure of housing blight is housing vacancy, and one common data source for housing vacancy is the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Aggregated U.S. Postal Service (USPS) Administrative Data on Address Vacancies (USPS address data). This dataset provides granular and timely data into active and vacant housing. However, the USPS address data is not without its flaws. The label “not-a-statistic” (“no-stat”) to describe housing that is vacant, under construction, or otherwise not receiving mail is an ambiguous designation and has puzzled researchers. It is not possible to discern between no-stat for blight versus no-stat for development in the data. This error may lead researchers to false conclusions about housing vacancy or neighborhood characteristics of high housing vacancy areas if the housing vacancy rate is not accurately calculated. The label no-stat has even attracted Congressional attention to decipher no-stat for blight versus no-stat for development.