First Logan and 9/11, now this.
STAY OUT of BOSTON, folks!
"Travel swells cost of housing; Transportation found to offset savings on price" by Eric Moskowitz, Globe Staff | April 12, 2010
People who move to an outlying Boston suburb to find affordable housing or to get more house for their money often sacrifice the savings to higher transportation costs, according to a study to be released today by a national planning and land-use organization.
The report, by the Urban Land Institute, is the first to quantify by community not only commuting costs, but the price of daily transportation around often-sprawling suburbs.
When driving costs are added to housing costs, the institute found that, for example, the average household spends more each year in Dracut ($35,643) than in Cambridge ($28,671), and more in Stoughton ($37,513) than in Brookline ($36,846).
“What we have too frequently thought is that you can get an affordable house if you drive until you qualify, but if you then overlay the costs of transportation, they get very high,’’ said Henry Cisneros, secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the Clinton administration and a board member at the institute, a research group based in Washington, D.C.....
The report bolsters those who have championed ride-sharing programs in areas that lack public transportation and encouraged people to consider what they could save by carpooling.
There is the agenda being pushed.
One such advocate is Andrea Leary, a transportation consultant who oversees a network of transportation management associations across the state, working with businesses and local governments to identify potential carpoolers and reward them with gift certificates and other incentives.
“[People] should think about what the cost is to them financially, the cost to the environment, the cost to their personal well-being and savings, and the cost to their family time, their work-life balance, because those are all key elements of a healthy life,’’ she said....
I think about it all the time, taxpayer$.
Related: Mass. Housing Market Collapses
Let's go shop somewhere else, 'eh, readers?
"Both studies offer a variety of reasons for families opting to move in — or back in — together in large numbers, among them a tough job market and rash of home foreclosures, along with the cultural influence in immigrant communities, and a desire to share the care of family members."
Yeah, immigrants are always better than you in my newspaper, American.
