Breaking down the news with data, charts, and maps.
Happy Thursday! In today’s newsletter, we look back at some of the most interesting data points from 2024: the best cities to buy your first home in, the rise of "marriage deserts," and the decline of American friendships.

Edited by Sutton Houser and James Desio

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1. Best & Worst Cities for First Homes
Topline: Persistently high prices <[link removed]> make homeownership challenging, especially for first-time homebuyers (FTBs). Analyzing FTB sales for the nation’s 60 largest metro areas, AEI’s Edward Pinto and Tobias Peter ranked <[link removed]> the cities from most to least affordable. They found the most affordable cities were in the Midwest and South.
How Bad? Pinto and Peter report that these metro areas’ median FTB affordability ratio rose from 3.0 in 2013 to 3.6 in 2023—meaning first-time
homebuyers spent 3.6 times their household income on a home.

Trouble in Texas: While cities in Texas and Florida are relatively affordable, factors such as high rates of relocation to
those states have raised the price of homes, making them less affordable. Dallas saw the most significant change, with prices for first-time homebuyers increasing by 136% since 2013.
2. The Rise of “Marriage Deserts”
Topline: What happens when entire communities consist of single-parent households? In recent years, Chris Bullivant and AEI’s Brad Wilcox have observed <[link removed]> an
increase in neighborhoods with persistently low marriage rates, which they call “marriage deserts.”


- For example, in Laurelhurst, a neighborhood in Seattle, Washington, nearly 90% of families are headed by two parents, while South Park, a neighborhood a few miles south, has predominantly single-parent families.
- This trend is not confined to Seattle: Pew Research Center <[link removed]> finds the share of children living with an unmarried parent rose from 13% in 1968 to 32% by 2017.



Relationship Role Models: Bullivant and Wilcox explain that children growing up in stable, two-parent households better understand what it takes to sustain a marriage. In contrast, those without such examples, including whole communities, find marriage much more challenging to achieve and maintain. Thankfully, Bullivant and Wilcox identify several ways to provide other role models for people living in marriage deserts.
3. The Decline in American Friendship
Topline: AEI’s Daniel Cox and Sam Pressler find <[link removed]> Americans’ social networks have not bounced back from the global pandemic. The percentage of Americans reporting no close friendships increased from 12% in 2021 to 17% in 2024. Additionally, Cox and Pressler identify a growing educational gap in the size of friendship circles.



- Data show that 24% of Americans with a high school diploma or less education report having no close friends, compared to 10% of college graduates.



The Problem: 17% of Americans without a college
degree have at least six close friends, compared with 33% of college graduates. This educational gap is even wider among black Americans: 35% of black Americans without a college degree report having no close friends, compared with just 11% with a college degree.

Big Picture: Cox
and Pressler point out that financial strain and declining membership in three institutions—marriage, religious organizations, and labor unions—have likely contributed to the decline in social ties among Americans without college educations.
Last but Not Least . . .
Partisan Professors <[link removed]>
“Cutthroat” American Capitalism <[link removed]>
Special thanks to Drew Kirkpatrick!
Thanks for reading. We will be back with more data next Thursday!

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