Originally written by David Alpert and posted on Greater Greater Washington
August 3, 2011
The classic rule of thumb, “drive ’till you qualify,” holds that the farther you go from a city center, the cheaper the cost of living. But a new report shows how in the DC area, housing near the core and near transit stations can be cheaper when transportation costs are factored in.
The Office of Planning worked with the Center for Neighborhood Technology to customize their “H+T” housing and transportation index for our region, and to incorporate more recent American Community Survey data as well as Census data.
H+T burdens by commute distance. Image from Beltway Burden: The Combined Cost of Housing and Transportation in the Greater Washington, DC, Metropolitan Area, Urban Land Institute Terwilliger Center for Workforce Housing, 2009.
Second, when talking about building and maintaining affordable housing, some argue that people should just move out to somewhere like Laurel or Bowie where housing is cheap. It might be, but transportation costs also rise, wiping most most or all of the gains and ultimately creating an outer boundary on how far people can move to actually save money.
The most affordable H+T places are the east side of DC, especially east of the river, and Prince George’s County inside the Beltway. That’s why it’s most critical to add housing capacity to the underutilized Metro stations and other places where, historically, developers and banks have been unwilling to invest.