Density-dependence in urban housing unit growth: An evaluation of the Pearl-Reed model for predicting housing unit stock at the census tract level

Abstract

Accurate description of the distribution of housing units within sub-County geographies is an important component of small-area population estimation. This paper pilots the use of the Pearl-Reed logistic model to predict housing unit growth in urban Census tracts in Bernalillo County, New Mexico for 2007. The model is based upon 1990 to 2000 growth rates, constrained with respect to a priori estimates of an upper-limit of housing units that could potentially be built within a tract based on its land area. In spite of the simplistic nature of this model, it is found to perform quite well. Further development based on incorporation of additional economic, demographic, and sociologic data would likely improve the model substantially; however, in this study the model out-performed standard trend extrapolation procedures for the study area and displayed error measures comparable to those reported in the literature for extrapolation methods in general.