This article uses data from the 1987 American Housing Survey (AHS) to assess in what U.S. locations elderly (age 60 and over) households are more at risk of occupying physically deficient housing. Metropolitan and nonmetropolitan locations are distinguished by their settlement type (city, suburban, and rural) and regional contexts. The AHS data consisted of a sample of 12,859 age 60 and older householders representing a statistical population of 26,318,348 American households. Within metropolitan areas, central cities had the highest rate of physical deficiencies whereas the urban suburbs suffered from the lowest prevalence rates. Elderly households living in nonmetropolitan rural areas, and in the rural parts of metropolitan areas, had the highest housing deficiency rates in the country. These national comparisons were misleading, however, to the extent that they primarily reflected the poor housing conditions found in only one or two regions of the country, particularly the South.
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