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
Could I afford it? Yes. Would I do it? No.
I live on a suburban cul-de-sac where my kids can go outside and ride bikes with the neighbors. Also my wife is handicapped, so a car is kind of essential for her. When we lived in an apartment the long walk from the garage to our door was difficult for her.
Other than those things, I’d much prefer to live in a walkable city. Maybe when I retire, if we can find the right place.
There’s places in the world where your suburban cul-de-sac can actually be located in a walkable city and the grocery store is very close despite living in a suburb where most people have cars.
Even suburbs can be a lot better than they are in the US.
You could argue this is where I am now, in the us, in an inner suburb of a major city
I would really miss all the suburban niceties like a deck, grill, basement, garage and driveway, my own spot of land, a house.
I don’t drive very much anymore but it’s an EV. However a lot of that is between online shopping and part time work from home I’ve really cut back on routine drives, so my percentage of longer trips to car usage is higher
EDIT: on the other hand a lot of it is attitude. Especially with discussions over why some people never clear snow from their sidewalks, it’s very clear that even here many people don’t see walking as an option for anything. There’s no reason to clear the sidewalks in winter because the idea that people may want to walk is just so alien
Technically I’m in a city. It’s just suburban and car-centric. If they wanted to make it more walkable and add public transport, I’d love that, as long as my kids still have their space to ride bikes, and my wife still has her car.
Even then it’s fairly walkable. I walk my daughter to school when the weather and time allow for it. I could walk to a grocery store; I just couldn’t transport my groceries home.
But that wasn’t the question.