The keynote speaker at the conference was Scott Bernstein from the Center for Neighborhood Technology. His topic was the combined cost of housing and transportation. With the end of cheap gas now at hand, the expenses of driving are truly coming to a head.
The old theory of ‘Drive til you Qualify’ was used for years as a justification for living further from a city. The tradeoff was mortgage vs. time in traffic. This encouraged people to continue to sprawl further and further away, living the American Dream in their single-family home. Now a critical third part of the equation enters in, as car ownership becomes more and more expensive.
CNT developed maps for many of the nations urban areas to demonstrate affordability levels. One shows housing costs alone (<30% of average area income), and a 2nd showing combined housing and transportation costs (<48%). Under the simple assumption that rent controls location, the far suburbs seem like the place for low income people to aim for. Areas of San Francisco also are deemed affordable (again, based on average area income). Quite naturally, this area shrinks when car costs are taken into affect, but the area within cities remains the same. This is just an empirical study proving what the TOD movement has been preaching – alternatives to car ownership are necessary.
This handy graph shows the basic relation between proximity and cost of living. Ideally we will design communities in the top right area – both connected and prosperous. Areas that are connected have more options available, and reduce dependance on expensive car ownership and land issues. The bottom left region charts the intersection of isolation and poverty. In this location we see formerly booming suburbs that don’t have the network required to survive downturns in the economy.
Now that residents have to juggle so many factors, finding an area that integrates housing, jobs and transit is the perfect solution. We just have to create more of them so that they’re affordable.
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Eric on 05.21.2009
Just discovered your blog, and it’s now bookmarked!
I was also at the TALC summit, though it sounds like we attended different sessions, so it’s nice to hear a bit of what went down in other rooms.
SonyaSunny on 05.23.2009
Interesting, I`ll quote it on my site later.
Thank you