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.

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 and rural 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.

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.

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

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.

$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.

Planning on it as soon as i am able

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.

I couldn't afford to live in my great, walkable urban neighborhood if I was also paying for a car, that's for sure.

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 😊

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!

Reality in America: sleeping in the car

$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.