This is the question posed on CityNerd video titled “Walkable Cities But They Keep Getting More Affordable”
If you ditched your car, could you afford to leave the suburbs for a great urban neighborhood?
Ray Delahanty answers the question in the 26 biggest US cities.
The analysis assumes the all-in cost of owning and operating a car is $1,000 per month, including purchase, insurance, fuel, and maintenance.
In the city, transportation costs might total about $250 per month for transit passes, biking, ride-hailing, and other small expenses.
This results in an effective $750 per month increase in the housing budget for city center residents who do not own a car.
The results of the video are quite interesting, as you can get more m² in walkable areas in most cities
Fair enough. Yeah, the 1000$ figure is bullshit. I pay a grand total of maybe 300€ a month on my car. Ok, it’s a plug-in hybrid that I charge at home with photovoltaics and we mostly don’t use it daily, because we do live relatively close to work and take the E-Bike more often than not. But we’re still paying it off, so that’s where most of that sum comes from.
I live 3km outside of a 90k population city (10km from work) and bought a relatively big house from 1996 for 235k€, so I guess it’s nice to not have to live in or near a gigantic metropolis. I also love to take the E-Bike to work, it’s pure freedom.
Edit: we need the car mostly for grocery shopping and driving our daughter to her friends.
Yeah. E bikes and one wheels and stuff are total fun. I’m hoping to live in one of the Goldilocks zones where you can be near a city and travel everywhere by bike without needing to get on a highway. As it stands, * have to pack my bike in a car and drive out somewhere to ride, and that just sucks.