Quote:
Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
I thought your "fuel tax" was the driving, but congestion tax is just another part of it?
I suspect those in the country do log more miles total driving, though am still not sure the total expense of a car in the country exceeds that of a car in the city, and, as you point out, there are lots of other nifty expenses in the city. If your "congestion tax" just means cost of driving, well, ok, great, lovely, probably still wrong, but I understand it.
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Driving in the suburbs becomes less attractive both because the rising cost of fuel makes a trip of the same time and length more expensive, but also because the increasing congestion of suburban roads makes trips take longer and forces drivers to sit in traffic, which they don't like. You don't see this in older suburbs where the population has been stable, but you do see it a ton in newer ones -- people move in and the roads aren't crowded, but then people keep moving in and that changes. It erodes a selling point.
I'm sure cities are more expensive. That's the point. People are willing to pay more to live there. I'm saying that will grow more true over the next many years -- in the aggregate, people will pay even more to live in a city relative to the burbs. If you're an exception to that rule, you win, I suppose, because you'll be able to buy what you want for less, relatively. But given the choice between investing in urban residential real estate and suburban residential real estate right now, as categories, I'd put my money in cities.
eta: Me, I live in a big suburb, and would love to live somewhere denser.
