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
More dense urban areas certainly should be more affordable than suburban or rural areas, but they’re often not. Or at least not as much as they could be.
One reason is I think many suburban and rural areas are being subsidized by urban areas, by using urban tax revenue to pay for suburban and rural infrastructure.
But I think the biggest reason is that urban areas are often in much higher demand, because that’s where most of the jobs and housing are located, but the supply of housing is simply insufficient to meet the demand, thus driving up housing prices. And other prices, too. There’s a supply demand imbalance for a lot of things in many higher density urban areas. And part of that is by design. The “suppliers” of homes, that is landlords, don’t want to oversupply the market with housing, relative to demand, because that will push down rents, and they want rents to be as high as possible, because rents are their source of revenue.
Until urban areas find ways to significantly increase the supply of housing relative to the demand, housing prices in those urban areas will remain higher than they could, or should be. Non-car transportation infrastructure also needs to be significantly improved in many urban areas, but that takes money. Money that many urban residents either don’t want to pay, or can’t pay because so much of their income is going to housing, and other costs of living.
Finally, there’s a social/cultural element to this that almost no one talks about because it’s seen as problematic or taboo. People don’t necessarily want to be surrounded on all sides by people they don’t consider to be a part of their cultural or ethnic group. I’m sorry, I know, reading that makes a lot of people’s butt holes clinch, but it’s true. I think people would be much more willing to live in more densely populated urban areas if the people in these areas were more like them (culturally, ethnically). You can choose not to believe that because it makes you uncomfortable, but, uncomfortable though it may be, I think it is nonetheless true.
Edit: I want to add that I think there is also a class element to this, in addition to the cultural/ethnic element. Many people move out to the suburbs because they don’t want to be around people they see as being of a “lower class” than them.
Obligatory Not Just Bikes videos.
The first on gives an introduction to how suburbia is subsidized by urban cores. The second is a case study of two cities look at the data that backs this up.
My monthly cost of living, all-in, is $2000/month. It was a little more when I was raising my kid. And now, it’s more than it would have been had we not had skyrocketing inflation for the past five years.
If that sounds low, it is. But, I’m old (60) and my mortgage, which is almost paid off, is, and has been for nearly 30 years, $800/mo.
I paid $6000 cash for my current car, nine years ago. Since then, it’s been insurance, gas, oil changes, and one shop visit. Nothing like $1000/mo.
If you think I’m an outlier, I’m not. By definition, half of people pay less than the average.
If people didn’t drive gas-fueled trucks and cars through the middle of cities, then the air would be cleaner, and the city would be quieter. But, people DO drive trucks and cars through cities, and the air is dirty, and the city is noisy.
No, I could not afford to live in a city with decent public transportation, and it has nothing to do with transportation. Nor, do I want to live in a big city, the way they are now, and are likely to be for the rest of my life.
You can hate me for being old and for any other reason you want to, but I sincerely hope you get to live as long as I have, and much longer than that.
And, yes, I agree, fuck cars.
by definition, half of people pay less than the average.
I hate to be nitpicky, but that’s not what the average is. In averages a small population of people who spend way more can bring averages above the median (which is the split between halves of the population).
For cars in particular I prefer using medians as they are much more likely to be aligned to what most people experience.
I did a search. The source article has little bit more of a breakdown, but they still didn’t do the median calculation, only the average. https://mediaroom.kbb.com/2025-10-13-Kelley-Blue-Book-Report-New-Vehicle-Average-Transaction-Price-Hits-Record-High-in-September,-Surges-Past-50,000-for-the-First-Time-Ever
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Depends on the building: I’ve lived in places where I could have quiet conversations with the neighbors through the walls.
I couldn’t afford to live in my great, walkable urban neighborhood if I was also paying for a car, that’s for sure.
Short version: yes, 100% and I kind of already have…
I am (somewhat unhappily) living in a suburb, but I have transit stops for multiple lines within a 5 minute walk, and a bunch more options if I’m willing to walk 10-15 minutes. I was paying something like $500/month (lease, gas, insurance) for my car before being hit by a semi and not replacing it. That was 2-ish years ago and I haven’t really looked back.
Now I pay about $100/month for basically unlimited transit use. My commute time tripled, but in theory got slightly more consistent because car traffic could get bad on the route to work. The transit system here is far from perfect, so sometimes I’m still late, but I’m lucky enough to have a fairly flexible start time. I’ve got 3 roommates with 2.5 cars between the 4 of us (one borrows a car from family periodically). I’d love to be a 1 car household, but two of the roommates “can’t give up their independence”, which I kind of shake my head at. One works further out of the city fully in a rural area, so I suppose it is kind of necessary for them to have a car, and then still having one car at home available for the rest of us works out fairly well.
I actually quite like the longer commute. It gives me time to read, or just listen to music, browse the internet, nap, whatever. Plus I’ve discovered a ton of small, local businesses I now love!
Do you live with your roommates because you want to, or are you all working adults who cant find affordable homes on their own?
Bit of both. They’re my best friends, and the way the rent works out it was a cost improvement for all of us. I won’t get into the whole story. We are all mid to late 20s (I’m about to turn 30 😅) and all very far from being able to afford homes of our own. Though even if we did I think it would still be together. None of us want to have kids, so we operate as a family unit with two cats making up for the chaos of not having kids running about.
If you are all friends that at least sounds nice, much better than random roommates just for the rent.
I can of course sympathize with being far away from being a homeowner myself lol (mid 30s here)
Question I have for city dwellers. What do grocery trips look like? I’ve only ever lived in the suburbs and I’ve always been interested. Do you bring it all on the subway? Go more then once a week? Walk it home in a cart? Eat out more instead?
I’ve never lived in a huge city, but where I live (Estonia), city planning is much better than much of North America so usually you wouldn’t live too far from a grocery store, walking is usually an option, otherwise there’s public transit. There’s literally nothing weird about bringing your grocery bags on a bus or train or whatever.
If you don’t have a car, you just shop for one or two days at a time usually. This way you can actually get fresher ingredients sometimes and you don’t have to plan an entire week ahead at once. In fact, I’m lazy and just shop for one or two days at a time despite having a car and sometimes using it to go to the grocery store. I just don’t know what I’ll want to eat 2 days from now!
I have several supermarkets within walking distance. I can carry groceries from there in a cart or bag, usually approximately once or twice a week.
Occasionally I also transport groceries on public transport, mainly because I went to a supermarket elsewhere in the city on the way home, but this isn’t the norm.
All of the above, depending on exact conditions
- when I was entirely without a car, I just walked. I was single so carrying groceries usually worked ok. As a first Thanksgiving when I got married I Walked to the grocery like 5 times for all the stiff we needed and didn’t think of ahead of time
- I saw plenty of people with carts and tried that a few times
- I briefly tried delivery
- I saw people using taxis - I didn’t realize at the time but many of them compromised by walking to and taxiing back
- I have usually had a car though, even if groceries was my only weekly trip (plus occasional needs)
Actually now that I live in an urban suburb, I could do a lot without a car but carrying groceries is not worth the fight to find an alternate way
My nearest supermarket is is a 3 minute walk away. I walk to the supermarket. We probably shop 3-4 times a week.
Buy food to cover 2 dinners and breakfast. Lunch is leftovers from previous dinner. I have a small fridge, so I can’t fit a week’s worth of food in there anyway.
Oh, and we transport everything in a backpack and / or shopping bags (with handles, only seen those paper bags without handles in American films).
I stop by the grocery store on the way home and grab ingredients for dinner. I can fit a weeks worth of groceries on my bike but I tend to just go like 3 times per week on average.
I can’t imagine needing to plan for a whole week of food at a time tbh. Being close to the store means I can just grab whatever I am in the mood for on a given day. Do you just force yourself to eat what you have at home even if you aren’t feeling it that day?
All the time. Often just to get it out of the fridge. A lot goes to waste though as fresh fruit and veggies just don’t last.
Lots more frozen meats. But at the same time I’ll make something new just cause those are the ingredients I have.
A grand a month for a car? Only if you can afford to blow money. I bought my car used 6 years ago for $4,000. Between repairs and maintenance, tires, oil, repairs, etc I’ve spent about another $4,500. Plus $1,000 a year fuel (Prius). And $800 a year on insurance. So my all in cost is like $280 a month and dropping the longer I keep it. Plus what I can get from selling it.
I spend under $70/mo on my metro pass, and they’re normally “expensive”* at $104/mo. There are zero added costs, ever, except for if I didn’t also own a car I would need to use a carshare service probably once a month, but it’s hard to gauge since sometimes I use my car just to make sure it actually gets used. Without a car there are no parking fees, no gas, no maintenance, and not even any need to shovel snow or anything else that you likely don’t even realize you do simply to keep owning a vehicle.
$280/mo is a pretty bum deal to not even get other benefits like being driven around or never having to deal with the concept of rush hour.
Plus you can travel as drunk as you want as long as you’re not a problem.
What I dislike about the fuckcars instance. Ignorant people who just think people only live in big cities with public transport and that all of their families and friends and relatives they want to see are all there a mere bus ride or train trip away. Just ignorant to 90% of the land people live on. Most of the country requires a vehicle.
I have 2 cars in a rural “city” cars are absolutely required here. We used to have a trolley, but it got killed in the GM/Firestone conspiracy. Things could have been so much better and as much as I love my MX-5, overall I totally get fuck cars. I wish I had the option to opt out of ownership. But since I don’t have that option, I chose to maximize the fun, and minimize the damage. It’s honestly the best I can do in the Midwest. If the winters continue to get warmer I can get rid of the Wrangler entirely, which … Fuck that’s not good either. It’d be nice to live in a world without cars, and I want that. I’d absolutely give up both for a bus pass or light rail but logistically, I can’t. And it’s bullshit that that was once an option, but our lives were made worse by capitalism and forces outside of our control.
YMMV but if you look around online you’ll see much higher overall costs are more typical and more importantly most people greatly underestimate them
Depends on what you’re able to learn and do yourself and what you buy. I bought a Gen 2 Prius with 160,000 miles on it with a hybrid battery issue. I could buy a nicer one for less money right now than I could back then. It’s currently at 284,000 miles and not showing a hint of slowing down. One of my tpms transmitters went out recently, so that will cost me $100 for 4 new ones next time I replace my tires. I don’t like seeing the yellow light for it on my dash. Lol
That’s definitely not a normal price for a used Prius though. Typically one that is in reasonable condition is closer to $15k.
Lol. Not even remotely close for a Gen 2 Prius. I dunno where you live, but you’d be insane to pay $15k for one of those. There’s a nice one for sale with under 100k miles on it right now for $5,000 that’s about 20 minutes away from my house right now. That one happens to be a good deal, but at the same time, it’s been up for sale for a few weeks now.
Special note: avoid buying a 2010-2014 Prius. Especially an 11 or 12. Head gasket seal issues. If recognized early when they start to leak it’s not a big problem if you know how or are willing to learn to replace yourself. Full day job if you’re not used to doing that sort of thing. Expensive job if you have to pay someone else to do it. If the problem is ignored you’ll end up needing an engine and likely a catalytic converter.
It’s pretty easy to find a 2015 under 150k miles for under $10k.
Can you link that listing?
It’s in missouri on Facebook marketplace. Just do a search there for a 2006 Prius with like 84,000 miles on it and it will pop up. It’s red.
$1000 a month for a car is a pretty low estimate for most people. And even if we accept that estimate, it’s $1000 per month, per car. Most suburban families are going to need more than one.
My electric car costs about us$25 to charge and US$800 to finance and insure monthly. My other car is owned outright and is under $100 for fuel, and $100 for insurance. I’m disregarding depreciation because it’s about cash in hand, and including maintenance puts it about $1000-1100 total.
I think it’s not unreasonable, but you need to assume a fairly short commute. With a pickup truck doing marathon 60 mile commutes, it’s more like $2000 for sure. Per car.
You can’t disregard depreciation. That’s real cost, and regardless how well you take care of your car is not literally going to run forever.
But regardless, you are forgetting to consider maintenance and a lot of other things. And if you are in one accident, especially one where you are at fault, you will find that your cost will rise considerably.
I addressed both depreciation and maintenance.
When I purchase a car, I pay, for example, $50,000. If I enter that as an asset, I need to depreciate it as time and mileage add up - ($10,000) year one, (5000) year two.
If I consider the payments simply as a cost, without considering the value of the vehicle as an asset, I don’t need to consider depreciation. It’s right there on the books as (50,000) in 2026. So that $800 for car payments plus insurance is the total cost of the vehicle. This calculation would only be a problem while I have money owing on the vehicle and try to sell it - which I personally won’t do. I’d rather own a car for 15-20 years if I can.
If you’re paying $1,000 a month for your car, you have money to burn, or you have a terrible driving record and your insurance is absurd. We have two cars, each with a monthly payment of less than $300, and our combined insurance is $450 and includes two life insurance policies.
There’s no way we could afford to move into the city. First, there are more jobs out here. Second, the public schools are so much better than in the city. Third, we have space for dogs, a garage with bikes, a fenced-in yard and a creek.
I lived in the city for 10 years, and I do miss it. I miss commuting on my bike. I miss being able to take the subway home after a night of drinking. I miss walking to the corner bodega for the best fucking potato salad anywhere.
But when we moved to the burbs, the rent was $1,600 a month for our two bedroom apartment. The exact same apartment is now $3,000 a month in rent, which is more than my mortgage payment for a 4 bed, 2.5 bath on 2 acres (bought in 2018, before rates went to absolute shit).
The point is, I can’t afford to move anywhere because the cost of living everywhere is too high. For us, it doesn’t make financial sense not to have a car.
Because that’s how they want it.
There are unfortunately so many American metro areas like the one you’re describing: poor public services in city vs suburbs, more jobs in suburbs, cheaper housing. Its definitely not a natural law of the universe but a result of short-sighted, racist, classist planning and development, and it forces lots of people to live in the burbs even if they’d rather not.
I do want to push back on the monthly car cost a bit. You didn’t factor in gas, maintenance, repairs, etc in your own estimate of your car cost. Those really add up and would probably push you closer to the $1000/month/car mark.
Also, your insurance rate seems extremely low. I’m happy for you, but I think you might be an outlier.
Nope I would have to triple or quadruple my costs for housing to move to an urban environment. Also then I would be surrounded by other people in close proximity a lot of the time. Currently I pay less than 1k/mo for mortgage, and there’s only about 3 or less people per acre of land surrounding me. Costs for 1 car amount to roughly $800/mo including payment, insurance, and fuel.
I would be surrounded by other people in close proximity a lot of the time
If this is a con for you instead of a pro, you may be lost.
I’m sorry, but have you met people?
I live in the suburbs, in a neighborhood and even then my neighbors are too close. Kids across the street out playing basketball at 11:30 at night. Neighbor behind my house burns their yard trash on any day that’s halfway decent to be outside, meaning my wife can’t be out there due to her asthma. A family on the next street over have parties several times a year where music is blasting so loud I can hear it in my bedroom until 2am. Even with these annoyances it is still a much more peaceful place to live than when I was living in apartments in the city.
Yeah you can’t choose your neighbors. I need an acre to live comfortably, apartments are for kids (imo). My own garage, garden, apple tree, chickens. I’m sure a lot of people from cities would be hugely envious of that. I just dont get the sardine life of cities. Unless you like going to bars every night, no thanks. Not to mention all the homeless drug addicts (which is super sad, but also scary to be near with a family).
I had a hard time understanding why this was even included until I got to the end and realized it’s on the con list
Everyone has their preferences. I can understand the desire for a more isolated lifestyle and I think there should be a place for that in our society.
Exactly. It’s just that that lifestyle shouldn’t be subsidized is all.
If you ditched your car, could you afford to leave the suburbs for a great urban neighborhood?
Actually, yes, because that’s exactly what I did about 5 years ago. No regrets 😊
Nope. Rent is 4 times my mortgage.
Plus I prefer having complete ownership of my home. Not relying on neighbours to co-own the building with me or being reliant on a landlord to perform repairs and approve simple things like a window air conditioner. Sounds like hell to me.
Planning on it as soon as i am able
Reality in America: sleeping in the car
If you ditched your car, could you afford to leave the suburbs for a great urban neighborhood?
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.
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.
You could argue this is where I am now, in the us, in an inner suburb of a major city
- I can walk to shops, restaurants, trains, and do most weekends
- I could walk to a grocery but I usually drive so I can carry, especially when my kids are home from college
- I’m part time work from home
- I’m on the edge where single family zoning starts.
- but no one I know lives in the city anymore
- but my job is no longer downtown nor walkable
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
