Housing Unit Density

HUDen is a raster of housing-unit density measured in housing units per square kilometer. The HUDen raster was generated using population and housing-unit count and data from the U.S. Census Bureau, building footprint data from Microsoft, and land cover data from LANDFIRE. Generate the HUDen raster from the building points. We first converted the building points to a 30-m raster where the raster value is the sum of the housing-units-per-centroid attribute of all building centroids within each raster grid cell. We then generated a smoothed density raster using a three-step process: 1) calculate a 200-m radius moving-window sum of the 30-m housing-unit count raster; 2) calculate a 200-m radius moving- window sum of habitable land cover (in sq km), where habitable land cover is all land covers except open water and permanent-snow/ice; and 3) divide the smoothed housing-unit count raster by the smoothed habitable land cover raster to generate housing unit density in housing units/sq km. To produce the final integer version of the HUDen raster, we set values less than 0.1 HU/sq km to zero, values between 0.1 and 1.5 to a value of 1 HU/sq km, and rounded all other values to the nearest integer.

Data and Resources

Field Value
category /Operational Data Layers/Fire
collection_name California Landscape Metrics
creation_method Generate the HUDen raster from the building points. We first converted the building points to a 30-m raster where the raster value is the sum of the housing-units-per-centroid attribute of all building centroids within each raster grid cell. We then generated a smoothed density raster using a three-step process: 1) calculate a 200-m radius moving-window sum of the 30-m housing-unit count raster; 2) calculate a 200-m radius moving- window sum of habitable land cover (in sq km), where habitable land cover is all land covers except open water and permanent-snow/ice; and 3) divide the smoothed housing-unit count raster by the smoothed habitable land cover raster to generate housing unit density in housing units/sq km. To produce the final integer version of the HUDen raster, we set values less than 0.1 HU/sq km to zero, values between 0.1 and 1.5 to a value of 1 HU/sq km, and rounded all other values to the nearest integer.
data_units Housing units per square kilometer
data_vintage 01/2020
element Fire
file_name HUden_2020.tif
format geotiff
maximum_value 39437.0
metric_definition_and_relevance HUDen is a raster of housing-unit density measured in housing units per square kilometer. The HUDen raster was generated using population and housing-unit count and data from the U.S. Census Bureau, building footprint data from Microsoft, and land cover data from LANDFIRE.
minimum_value 0.0
source Pyrologix, LLC
spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": [[[-0.0011184841261727718, 0.0002912721722775841], [-0.0010195322031569297, 0.0002912721722775841], [-0.0010195322031569297, 0.00037829830593814683], [-0.0011184841261727718, 0.00037829830593814683], [-0.0011184841261727718, 0.0002912721722775841]]]}
sub_collection_name Operational Data Layers
Tags
  • housing density
  • raster data
  • urban planning
isopen False
license_id CC-BY-4.0
license_title CC-BY-4.0
metadata_created 2026-10-30T16:23:17.137042
metadata_modified 2026-10-30T16:23:17.137046
notes HUDen is a raster of housing-unit density measured in housing units per square kilometer. The HUDen raster was generated using population and housing-unit count and data from the U.S. Census Bureau, building footprint data from Microsoft, and land cover data from LANDFIRE. Generate the HUDen raster from the building points. We first converted the building points to a 30-m raster where the raster value is the sum of the housing-units-per-centroid attribute of all building centroids within each raster grid cell. We then generated a smoothed density raster using a three-step process: 1) calculate a 200-m radius moving-window sum of the 30-m housing-unit count raster; 2) calculate a 200-m radius moving- window sum of habitable land cover (in sq km), where habitable land cover is all land covers except open water and permanent-snow/ice; and 3) divide the smoothed housing-unit count raster by the smoothed habitable land cover raster to generate housing unit density in housing units/sq km. To produce the final integer version of the HUDen raster, we set values less than 0.1 HU/sq km to zero, values between 0.1 and 1.5 to a value of 1 HU/sq km, and rounded all other values to the nearest integer.
num_resources 4
num_tags 3
title Housing Unit Density