Urban Stress Index
An indicator of housing and food cost burden across cities

Sources

This page lists the public data sources used to construct USI v1. Sources are grouped by country and by input type (housing, income, inflation adjustment, food proxy). “As-of” dates reflect the reference period used in the dataset at the time of calculation.

Canada

Housing (rent)

Income

Inflation adjustment

Australia

Housing (rent proxy)

Income

New Zealand

Housing (rent)

Income

United States

Income

Housing (rent)

Europe

European data sources are grouped by country. Official national statistical agencies are prioritised for income data wherever available. Where harmonised city-level rent series are not consistently available across countries, publicly available rental market datasets are used as cross-country proxies. All values are expressed in local currency unless otherwise stated.

In cases where city-level income data are not publicly available, a proxy based on the reported salary range of a junior mechanical engineer (1–3 years of experience) from Glassdoor is applied. For housing, the indicator “1 Bedroom Apartment in City Centre” from Numbeo is used as a rental cost proxy in markets lacking consistent official rent statistics.

United Kingdom

Income

  • Office for National Statistics (ONS) – Median gross weekly earnings for full-time employees by local authority (place of work).
    Weekly gross earnings converted to monthly equivalent. Values expressed in GBP.

Housing (rent)

  • ONS – Average private rent, local authorities in England and Wales and Broad Rental Market Areas in Scotland (May 2024).
    Used as proxy for 1-bedroom rental cost in selected urban areas.

Ireland

Housing (rent)

  • Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) – Average Monthly Rent Report.

Income

  • Central Statistics Office (CSO) – Median weekly earnings by county and sex (2022–2024).
    2024 median weekly earnings converted to monthly equivalent.

Luxembourg

Income

  • Statistics Portal Luxembourg – Luxembourg in Figures 2025.
    Gross salary statistics used. Values expressed in EUR.

Switzerland

Income

  • Swiss Federal Statistical Office – Official wage statistics.
    Median or average monthly earnings used depending on data availability. Values expressed in CHF.

Netherlands

Income

  • Statistics Netherlands (CBS) – Earnings and labour market statistics.

Czech Republic

Income

  • Czech Statistical Office – Employees and wages statistics.

Germany

Income

  • Federal Statistical Office of Germany (Destatis) – Earnings statistics.

Sweden

Income

  • Statistics Sweden (SCB) – Average monthly salary in municipalities.
    Municipal-level earnings extracted from Statistikdatabasen.

Poland

Income

  • Statistics Poland (GUS) – Distribution of wages and salaries in the national economy (June 2025).

France

Income

  • INSEE – Dispersion des salaires mensuels net en équivalent temps plein (2023).
    Median net earnings converted to gross equivalent where necessary. For modelling consistency, an estimated 28% tax adjustment is applied.

Spain

Income

  • Instituto Nacional de Estadística (INE) – Earnings distribution by Autonomous Community.
    Regional median earnings adjusted using recent wage growth indicators (2023–2025).

Food cost proxy (all countries)

  • Numbeo – City Cost of Living (Meal at an Inexpensive Restaurant)
    Food costs are retrieved from Numbeo using “Meal at an Inexpensive Restaurant” as the anchor price. Additional assumptions and sensitivity discussions will be posted in later updates. For Japan, since the data from Numbeo is limited, the price of grilled mackerel set (さばの炭火焼き) was adopted as the equivalent of “Meal at an Inexpensive Restaurant” at Numbeo to reflect the local dining habit.

Notes on reproducibility