Say I wanted to move from Uptown to Plano, where I could buy about three times the house for the money. I know I’d also pay higher transportation costs, but it’s hard to calculate how much.
The temptation would be to consider the predictable cost of commuting and ignore the rest, but now I can also take a look at how much my new neighbors spend on transportation, which might actually be a better gauge of what I should expect.
The Housing + Transportation Affordability Index, a new Web-site from a Chicago think thank, provides the data I’d need, The Washington Post reports.
The Web site is a data fest even by wonk standards. It’s a map-based tool offering information on housing and transportation costs for 52 metropolitan areas… You can zoom in on individual neighborhoods and pull up U.S. Census information on the percentage of neighborhood residents who use mass transit, their average monthly spending on transportation, the number of wage-earners and cars per household, and other data. The Web site also displays nearby subway and commuter rail lines and stations.
The interactive maps are the type of thing urban planners will pick apart with gusto, but they’re also an interesting tool for people pondering a move. It wouldn’t be surprising if the information is eventually woven into real estate search tools, such as the local multiple-listing service or Zillow.com.
Other housing-affordability measures ignore the need to travel, CNT President Scott Bernstein said. Travel consists of more than your daily commute. “Only 20 percent of the trips we take in America are to work,” Bernstein said. All those other little trips, runs to the grocery store, Little League games and the dry cleaner’s, actually make up the bulk of our travel.
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