Social Explorer is a Census data application that allows users to compare data across space and time. The free version has limited use.

Data on population, housing, and income can be found through the U.S. Census Bureau. Very detailed information about the number of housing units, number of bedrooms, the cost of rent, and much more is available free of charge.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has a plethora of data on housing. For example, the number of housing choice vouchers by Census tract and the fair market rent of metropolitan areas.

The City of Columbus maintains an extensive open data portal for GIS and other types of data. Related to housing, you can find zoning variances and building permits.

The Mid-Ohio Open Data portal, offered by the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission (MORPC) is a one-stop location for all of our publicly available datasets. Here you will find maps, downloadable GIS and tabular data, and more.

The City of Columbus also hosts a historic maps gallery, where you can see hold maps showing many fascinating aspects of our history—like a map of city council wards!

For historical aerial imagery, use Google Earth for desktop. This let’s you see the impact of sprawl and low-density housing construction: loss of farmland and wasteful, car-oriented development that leads to unhealthy lifestyles and disconnected communities.