‘Burbs aren’t so cheap when you count transportation costs
April 13th, 2008 by Jim JustYou can’t really determine how “affordable” housing is unless you consider transportation costs. Cheap housing at the fringe of a city or in the far-flung suburbs may not prove so cheap after all – especially as gas prices are rising steadily, with no end in sight.
A new interactive mapping website called the Housing + Transportation Affordability Index shows how much housing costs in neighborhoods in 52 U.S. metropolitan areas – and also how much the total costs come to when transportation expenses are included.
The web tool is a project of the Brookings Institution’s Urban Markets Initiative.