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Breaking: People In LA Are Still Upset About How Expensive Housing Is
A for rent sign is posted on an apartment building on February 1, 2017 in Los Angeles (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
In recent news that surprises exactly no one, researchers have found that a lot of people in L.A. are less than thrilled about the cost of housing.
The discovery was the result of a survey conducted by UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs and The California Endowment, which polled 1,046 people via phone and online interviews. Researchers asked participants to rate their satisfaction with things like cost of housing, transportation, education and the environment.
Cost of housing ranked the lowest in quality of life satisfaction in Los Angeles, coming in at an indexed score of 42 out of a possible 100. The next lowest category was education, which respondents ranked 49.
Even less surprisingly, those respondents who reported the highest rate of dissatisfaction with the cost of housing are the same people who are not rich. Designated as "struggling," the group included those in the following categories:
- under age 50,
- household income of less than $60,000 a year,
- renters
- no college degree.
This dissatisfaction is a response to what Curbed LA reported last year as a median price of $1,370 to rent a one-bedroom in the city of L.A., and a median price of $1,694 to rent a one-bedroom across the entire county.
Dissatisfaction with the cost of housing - or the outright inability to afford it - is making some people in L.A. rethink where they live. Of the people who took the UCLA survey, 57% said that either they or someone they knew had considered moving because their neighborhood was getting too expensive. That number was up by 10% from 2017.
According to the study, respondents ranked their overall quality of life at 56, the same as last year. But their satisfaction with the cost of housing has dropped, from 50 in 2016, to this year's 42.
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