Jamaica Plain Housing, by the City's Own Count

The City of Boston Planning Department’s Research Division publishes its own neighborhood estimates each year, and its Boston in Context report for January 1, 2025 puts Jamaica Plain at 19,555 housing units and 42,949 residents. This post pulls out the housing side of that report.

Owners and renters

Of Jamaica Plain’s 19,555 units, 18,421 were occupied, which is 94.2% of the stock. 7,939 are owner-occupied, 43.1% of occupied homes. 10,481 are rented, the larger group. For comparison, owner-occupied units are 35.4% of occupied homes across the whole city, so Jamaica Plain sits above the citywide owner share while still being a renter-majority neighborhood.

Unit sizes

The report splits units into three sizes. Jamaica Plain has 4,823 studios and one-bedrooms, 24.7% of all units; 7,378 two-bedrooms, 37.7%; and 7,354 units with three or more bedrooms, 37.6%. The two larger sizes are almost the same count, and together they make up about three quarters of the stock. That’s a different profile from the downtown neighborhoods, where studios and one-bedrooms dominate.

How many people stayed put

The geographic mobility table counts residents age one and over by where they lived a year earlier. In Jamaica Plain, 33,910 of 42,427 residents, or 79.9%, were in the same house. Citywide the figure is 79.0%, so Jamaica Plain runs a touch above the city on that measure.

What the City’s page says about the place

The City’s own neighborhood page describes Jamaica Plain as a classic streetcar suburb, surrounded by the Emerald Necklace, the Arnold Arboretum, Franklin Park and Jamaica Pond, and notes that locals call it JP. Among its key locations it lists Forest Hills Cemetery, a historic 275-acre cemetery, greenspace, arboretum and sculpture garden designed in 1848.

How the estimate is made

The report is explicit that these are estimates. The Census doesn’t report data by Boston neighborhood, so the Planning Department approximates each neighborhood from census tracts. It builds population figures from administrative data such as school enrollment, housing construction and vacancy records, and births and deaths, then breaks them down using American Community Survey shares. Subtotals may not sum to totals because of rounding.

Looking at a specific street

Neighborhood totals are a starting point. If you’re weighing a particular block in Jamaica Plain, I can pull what the City’s tract-level data and the MLS show for it. Curious about a Jamaica Plain street? Ask me for its numbers. Diana Kim, REALTOR®, eXp Realty.