We grabbed these images of Chicago as an example. As you can see, the percentage of income that people are dedicating to transportation has grown -- especially in more rural areas. The site also has an interactive map of the Housing and Transportation Affordability Index (below)-- so you can see where people are dedicating less than 45% (shown in yellow) of their income to housing and transportation. Living in the city never looked so good.
Housing + Transportation Affordability Index [CNT]
@mgy:
shhhhh.
]]>Once upon a time, in Chicago, there was a thing known as reverse commuting that resulted in fast and efficient commutes. That's when you lived in the city and worked in the suburbs. Now everything has gone to hell and it's difficult to drive in any direction without traffic jams. On the other hand decent commutes are still possible between suburbs beyond a radius roughly 25 miles centered in downtown.
Why things are so red out in the hinterlands on the 2008 map is hard to figure. That's still mostly farmland so either farmers make much less money or they are including transportation costs of fueling their tractors and harvesting combines. I dunno.
]]>1996 called, it wants its online maps back.
]]>Sweet, and you saved me from having to look it up! 0-15% FTW!
]]>My area isn't/wasn't on the map last time I looked, but we've been doing a similar calculation -- we pay more in property taxes than people do up north in the wealthy suburbs, but we actually have gotten the point where it would cost us quite a bit more in gas for our commute than we'd save in property taxes.
(We also like our house, which is a cute little 1950 brick cottage on a city lot with a yard; if we moved out to the burbs, it's all McMansions butt-up against each other built of siding and very little else. We'd have twice as much in-home space, but the house would cost three times as much, the yards are a wash, and the neighborhoods are booorrrrrrring.)
The real question here is, "When does gas get so expensive I can live in the city and it's cheaper to send my kids to private school than it is to live in the burbs and send them public?" A few of our friends judge that line has already been crossed.
]]>Well, as someone who lives in the city, I can tell you that yes, we save gas money by using the CTA to commute to work, but we pay in other ways, like not being able to afford a house with a backyard, property taxes, higher sales taxes, etc.
And my CTA train trip from the NW side of the city to downtown Chicago is an hour and 10 minutes each way, the same as most suburbanites on Metra. So we break even on time.
]]>@Trust me, I'm a doctor:
I'm happy to report many others in our fair city don't follow your good example and for that I am grateful - it makes it a lot easier for me to get a seat on the train and the $100 a month I spend on the train as opposed to a more ridiculous form of transportation gives me more disposable income to spend on expensive Chicago pasttimes, i.e. drinking.
P.S. Saving $500? What suburb do you live in, Iowa?
]]>Seriously though, I would really like to see what some areas of the country look like in terms of transportation spending. It's probably going to be a key factor as I look at post-graduation jobs this coming year.
]]>I'm sure it's pretty bloody.
]]>And now you broke the site completely...
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