Russ Adams, who leads up the Alliance For Metropolitan Stability, shares this with activists and those interested in creating more affordable housing.
The Center for Neighborhood Technology, an SGA coalition member, along with the Brookings Institution, released a fantastic web-based tool to measure housing affordability — by adding the oft-ignored transportation costs tied to a home’s location. Traditionally, housing is said to be “affordable” when its cost consumes no more than 30 percent of a family’s income. But homes come with a location cost that is rarely acknowledged. As the Index shows, families in areas that are closer to jobs and activities and have transit access may pay a little more for housing, but they pay a lot less to get around, especially as gas prices rise. The Index measures housing and transportation costs as a percentage of income on a neighborhood-level basis in 52 metro areas.
Seeing the link between transportation and affordability clearly illustrated raises a critical question: How do we get more housing that doesn’t result in huge chunks of a family’s budget going into excessive transportation costs? On the Urban Land Institute blog (The Ground Floor,) ULI’s Jamie McAfee suggests a logical remedy:
According to research presented in Growing Cooler: The Evidence on Urban Development and Climate Change, a new book from ULI, a concerted push for compact development would produce a decline of 12 to 18 percent in total metropolitan vehicle miles traveled by 2050. The best ways to reduce vehicle travel is compact development: building places in which people can get from one place to another without driving — mixed-use developments in pedestrian-friendly settings.
Check out the Housing + Transportation Affordability Index from the Center for Neighborhood Technology. Read articles in the Washington Post and The Stranger in Seattle, view a test case in Atlanta on the SGA blog, and view a (shocking) test case in Nashville by Kaid Benfield on the NRDC Switchboard.
Comments