Make sure you check out the actual map version.

I’m keeping my eyes on the housing market this year. So when I saw a heat map of apartment prices in Boston (created by a Google employee and shared on Github) I thought that such a thing could be useful for me personally. So I made it. DC isn’t Boston, though.

DC’s enormous splotch of red (covering almost all of Northwest, and loosely tracking the Red Line) seems darker than Boston’s central red blob does. For this map I kept the colors chosen for the original Boston map, which makes it useful for comparisons but less useful for distinctions at the higher end. Since similar maps have now been made for San Francisco and Chicago as well, I’m leaving it.

I have added selectable layers for Metro stations and Bikeshare docks (both sourced from the DC Data Catalog). As in the Boston map, prices come from Padmapper. In DC, Arlington county, and Bethesda there are clusters of high prices near Metro stations, and by comparison the lack of transit-oriented development in Prince Georges county is made plain.

As for me, I’ll probably be sticking around Petworth, but maybe Brookland wouldn’t be such a bad place after all.

Nerd note: I have some ideas for future developments to this map (extending the borders beyond the rough bounds of the Beltway, better color selection for DC’s prices, another layer for sale data and not just rentals, and so on) but the first version was interesting enough I decided to post it as is.

Fedward Potz Fedward Potz moved into the District in 1999 with a four year plan and never left. He enjoys good food, craft cocktails, photography, music, and long walks on the beach.