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Abstract: This study extends the inter city rent differentials investigation by Gilderbloom and Appelbaum (1988) in relatively independent housing markets to see how it can be replicated using U.S. census data from the year 2000 against the 1970 and 1980 models with the addition of several new variables to measure its impact on inter-city rents. We find that region, race and climate no longer explain rent differentials in 2000 as it did in the 1980 research, while affirming that a large percentage of old houses and small mom and pop landlords causes rents to fall. We find that both the cost of homeownership and the level of household income remain critical factors in explaining the level of median rent across cities. We also find a strong correlation between cities with extensive anti-war activity in the late 1960’s and same sex households having higher rents, although more research needs to be done before we argue a casual relationship. We contend that sociology needs to be put back into the equation in order to understand how rents vary from city to city. Our explanation of rent variations adds a social dimension that most other research misses. We also show how the amount of explanatory power is increased significantly by adding in a sociological dimension