Center For Neighborhood Technologies Releases Cost Of Living Index That Includes Housing And Transportation

What happens if you mash-up census derived housing and transportation cost data as a percentage of household income, and put it up on an interactive webmap? This does.

CNT President, Scott Bernstein explains, “The index tells an alternative story of affordability than we’ve become accustomed to hearing. The real estate pages may list 2- and 3-bedroom homes for under $175,000 in suburban communities. That sounds affordable, right? But once you factor in transportation costs, the bargain goes away. Transportation costs can be as much or more than housing costs.

For example, the color-coded map shown above depicts, in yellow, the zones in and about Minneapolis MN, where housing ranges from 0 to 30% of household income. Blue means greater than 30% of household income goes for housing. Add in transportations costs, and the map flips (below the fold) considerably.

On second map (below), yellow now means 0 to 48% of income spent on housing and transportation together, and blue means over 48% of income is spent on housing and transportation combined.

You can get similar contrasted views of numerous metro areas in the US; and you can zoom in and pan around to your hearts desire.

A terrific tool for someone thinking about relocating for job or love, and wondering where the best place to live would be. Also interesting for politicians wondering where constituents are most pressed for money and needing mass transit or local affordable housing. And so on.

Would be fascinating to capture zoning requirements on this map.

Via::CNT, Housing + Transportation Affordability Index interactive mapping tool has just launched" Image credits::IBID.