Depends on the building: I've lived in places where I could have quiet conversations with the neighbors through the walls.
this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2026
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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.
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Reality in America: sleeping in the car
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 😊
$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.
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