This report presents statistics on counts and characteristics of changes in the housing inventory. Basic characteristics are presented for such components as new construction and other additions, conversions, mergers, demolitions and other losses, and dwelling units which were the same in 1950 and 1959. The statistics are based on results of the December 1959 Components of Inventory Change survey.

This report is one of the series of 18 reports which constitutes Part lA of Volume IV. A separate report is issued for the United States, by regions, for the New York-Northeastern New Jersey Standard Consolidated Area, the Chicago-Northwestern Indiana Standard Consolidated Area, for the Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Detroit, Los Angeles-Long Beach, Philadelphia, and Seattle Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas; and for the Baltimore, Buffalo, Cleveland, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, San Francisco-Oakland, and Washington (D.C.-Md.-Va.) Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas. The last eight areas named had a population of over one million in the 1950 Census of Population; the first nine areas, three of which were under one million, are the areas for which separate statistics were provided in the 1956 National Housing Inventory.

Part 1B of Volume IV provides additional cross tabulations of characteristics of new construction units and same units and data on the characteristics of the present and previous residences of recent movers, for the United States, by regions, and for the 17 metropolitan areas named above. The series of 18 reports constitutes 1960 Census of Housing, Volume IV, Components of Inventory Change, Part lB, Inventory Characteristics.