1000 a month for owning and operating a car seems like a lot. Maybe i am out of touch because we own our car outright, but its not nearly that expensive for us. Even with a parking spot rental.

I live in an awesome urban neighborhood, and still wouldnt want to be without the car. I dont use it when it doesnt make sense, but ive lived both with and without, and with is worlds better. Grocery shopping (especially at places like Costco) is much easier. Errands that would be an all day affair without the car become a few hours affair. Friends and family across the city are much easier to see. Things like that.

Dont get me wrong, i love a walkable neighborhood with a walkable downtown. Its why i dont live in a suburb abomination. When it makes more sense to use PT I use it. But life is better with the car overall. Its not a zero sun game. We can have both. And bike lanes. And pedestiran plazas. Etc.

Well we do live in a city neighborhood and don't have to drive much.

Car insurance on two cars not used daily $400/month here, gas immaterial. But the cost of the cars (paid off) was so much money, if spread over a 15 year life (mine will go longer maybe, but that's unusual) would add another $125 each, so $650 plus gas and maintenance (less maintenance cost because cars were bought pretty new).

My daily commuter is a good electric bike, $2,000 plus electricity (I could charge it at work tho) and maintenance. I don't know how long they last, so can't estimate a per month but insurance for a year costs less than one car costs for a month.

Transit pass here about $50 a month. But buses are terribly infrequent.

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.

Nope. Rent is 4 times my mortgage.

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.

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 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. Edit: Plus, these infrastructure projects are often poorly managed by politicians, causing cost over runs and long delays.

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. Edit, again: also, where there are higher rates of poverty in urban areas, there are often higher crime rates. Many urban areas are often very unequal, with wealthier areas that are better maintained with better schools, very near much poorer areas that are more poorly maintained with worse schools.

Final edit: so, for better urban areas we need: to stop using urban tax revenue to subsidize suburban infrastructure. We need to significantly increase the supply of housing relative to demand, even perhaps oversupplying housing to drive housing costs down as much as possible. We need better non-car infrastructure and better leadership to better manage the building and maintenance of that infrastructure. We need to reduce poverty and inequality in urban areas as much as possible. If we do those things across all urban areas, I think the ethnic and cultural issues will work themselves out.

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.

Ive watched this and many times its actually a collar burb that has the end of the transit system or far from the center to get the affordability. Im not complaining its basically what I have done but oh man it annoys me that the dense city center is not the most affordable area. Feel like we should be able to keep on building high rises till its the most affordable type of housing and do it mix with shops on at street level while we are at it with a few floors of office.

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?

$1k/month for a car isn't normal. That has to be substantially rounded up from the average. I just got a new EV. $450 payment, $110 insurance. Electricity costs me about $35 more. Even accounting for maintenance I couldn't fudge the number to $675mo. To reach $1k you'd need a rather expensive vehicle.

But I do agree with the principle here. It would be nice to live in a walkable area where I don't need a car.

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.

Depends on the building: I've lived in places where I could have quiet conversations with the neighbors through the walls.